Figure 1.--Here students at a primary school in Pontokomi are participating in a gymnastic demonstration. Pontokomi is a town in north-ctral Greece close to Macedonia. The boy wear short pants wihout shirts. The girls wear their chool socks. All the chilren are barefoot.

There is also some preparation for gymastic demonstrations for the public. This is one gym activity that primary children do prepare for formlly. Many elementary schools since the 1950s have had gymnastic demonstrations at the last day of the school year. Students performed a variety of exercises and group games in front of an audience, that included their parents, in the school yard, auditorium or the main square in some villages. We note that many children in the early photograpphs look very thin, almost skinny. We suspect that because Greece was still a poor country, devestated by World War II and the Civil War and just beginning the post-War economic expansion, that many children still had inadequate diets. Students were dressed in blue short sport shorts, white t-shirt with light PE sneakers and white ankle socks. In small villages with less wealthy students it was students often performed barefoot with a white sleveless undergarment instead of the t-shirt. A good example is the 1964 image attached to figure 1. It shows a gymnastics demostration in a small, poor village. Note that the boys perform barefoot. Note that all the boys have the close cropped hair cuts and that they all look rather skinny. The text that went with the picture described the village as a very poor one and the fact that the boys performed the demonstrations an important event for the village's history. Sleeveless tank-top like undershirts became less common in the 1970s. The gymnastic demonstrations reached their peak during the 1970s where some schools introduced special blue shorts and white t-shirts with the logo of the school printed on. Since the 1980s these demonstrations take place only in some private schools.

Navigate the HBC School Section
[Return to Main Greek school gym page]
[Return to Main Greek school activities page]
[Return to Main national school page]
[Return to Main Greek page]
[About Us]
[Activities] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Debate] [Economics] [Garment] [Gender] [Hair] [History] [Home trends] [Literary characters]
[School types] [Significance] [Transport and travel [Uniform regulations] [Year level] [Other topics]
[Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Return to the Historic Boys' School Home]

Created: 10:20 AM 6/26/2015
Last updated: 5:08 AM 5/31/2020