Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

So, today's work.

A long, tedious, tiring day. The day started with a dull assembly that overran, as the invited guest decided to drone on for nearly half an hour while boring everyone to tears. I don't even start work until 9:40 on Tuesdays, yet because the kids at assemblies are under the care of their class teacher, I had to turn up at 7:45 instead. The assembly finished by 9, at which point, I had 40 minutes to write e-mails while talking to the school secretary about the new kids and their parents.

Lessons were pretty much non-eventful, though I have considerable doubts over one of my classes. The notes from last year include the ominous phrase "ambitious parents", and their teacher from last year told me that there's considerable disconnect between their abilities and the perception of their abilities by parents. It's already quite obvious from correspondence with their parents that several of them demand significant amounts of homework - far more than I'm willing to give (because I don't want to mark it). Unfortunately, with a lack of a clear homework policy from the school, each teacher gives their own - so you get the situation that their Polish teacher is giving them significant amounts of homework, while I regard it as the devil, so they only get one piece a week.

Anyway, I thought I'd be finished (4 classes today) at a reasonable time, but of course, some parent caught me at the end of the day and wanted a formal meeting about her kid. I had to patiently explain to her that our rules mean that she has to make an appointment through the online journal system, but she insisted, saying that it was urgent and all the rest of it. I told her to talk to the class teacher (as she should), but no, she wanted to talk to me and only me. I even tried to tell her that I couldn't meet her without the class teacher being present, but she simply told me that she wanted to talk to me now.

So, OK, I gave in. We spoke for half an hour, and it seemed to boil down to the fact that she simply wasn't happy with a non-Polish speaking teacher. I explained everything to her, including that a good teacher shouldn't be using L1 anyway (Maf, Jon and Harry - comments?) - but she seems to be convinced that only a Polish teacher can explain things in a satisfactory way to kids. So, all in all, a complete waste of time - I'm not going to start speaking in Polish in the classroom no matter what she wants.

Anyway, once this was over, I managed to get through a huge pile of marking. I've found that the best approach is to get all the marking done in school so I don't have to take anything home, but then I get the planning done at home on a Friday/Saturday night so that it's all ready for the coming week. Seems to work well, and means that I've always got a very clear Sunday.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Why are you posting links to propaganda that is directly controlled by PiS? Of course they're going to justify it.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


I think most rational people (including the Polish public) believe scientists over the greed of Szyszko.

What we're seeing here is an example of typical PiS supporters who will ignore any and all evidence if it is contrary to what their political masters tell them.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]

What we see here is that people cannot imagine an institution acting independently. If you look at the institutions under control of PiS (like the IPN), then they do exactly what they're told to do by their political masters, so they immediately assume that anyone else speaking out must be under the control of politicians too.

It's a very, very communist mentality.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


What Ironside is actually saying is that as PAN isn't under the control of PiS, it must therefore be against PiS. It was the same thing with the PZPR - if you weren't with them, then you were automatically against them.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]


They had every right to make such a decision. You're always banging on about the right of PiS to do things, so PO had exactly the same right.


That's just meaningless commie-speak with no basis in reality.

Law / Schengen visa for a Moroccan guy married to a Polish girl [13]


Of course it won't. He's got proof of a stable life in Morocco and has a genuine reason for visiting.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


Bingo.

Polish people are *very* materialistic.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


That's not how it works. If it did, you'd be the first to complain when others use it against Poland.


Ironside, no...they didn't.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]


Simple. The decision was agreed by member states on a recommendation by the European Commission. It's crystal clear that you cannot just change your mind once you've agreed to such a thing.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


Yes, exactly this. I've seen two different implementations - one implementation allows the questions to be shown on the whiteboard, the other directs the questions to the teacher's computer.

What makes it an interesting system is that it also allows for student feedback, so if someone is too shy to admit that they don't understand, they can anonymously ask for more explanations.

Anyway, today was a fascinating day. I've been informed that there's a possibility of us getting a teacher seconded to us from another country as part of an Erasmus+ programme, so we're looking at the possibility of getting a Swedish teacher to spend a term in our school. It seems to be relatively straightforward and there's plenty of funds available, so we'll see... It would certainly be a huge help to us to have a teacher from a much more socially advanced country.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]


This is a huge problem in some countries. Not all, but for instance, the UK has a dreadful problem with middle class white social workers choosing to deliberately ignore things in minority communities.

(Maf, come on, don't post Breitbart links - this is a better one - thelocal.at/20161007/viennas-benefits-system-like-magnet-for-refugees

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


Good idea for today's post.

I'm not sure if technology has improved things or made things worse. What I find is that I've got access to all sorts of technology, but I don't actually use 90% of what it can do. For instance, take my interactive whiteboard. I use it for showing videos, displaying answers to questions that I don't know the answer to and for presentations. It can do so much more, but I simply don't have the time to prepare the kind of lessons that would really take advantage of it.

Technology (electronic class registers) has made life much easier in terms of making corrections and communicating with parents, but it also required me to be much more strict - no more informal chats in the corridor with parents for instance, as it was made clear to me that everything should be recorded in case of future disputes. Do I agree? No, but that's the school policy. It certainly helps to avoid disputes, because parents are very unwilling to argue when everything is recorded.

I would love to use more technology in my classroom, but the reality of time means that I have to pick and choose the use of technology carefully. For instance, I mentioned my history classes that look at civil war - the interactive whiteboard will be used to analyse the attack on Fort Sumter from a variety of angles, so they can appreciate the attack in a way that pictures alone cannot convey. So - you can say that technology really helps with CLIL, but I haven't found a great use of technology yet for bog standard lessons.

The most ingenious use of technology that I've seen in the classroom was through using mobile phones and tablets. Kids can ask teachers questions through their devices, which solves the problem of the shy kid that's afraid to ask for help, and the teacher can then provide help through the system rather than embarrassing the kid in class. Does it work in practice? I don't know, but I love the idea.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


Given that Harry has significant experience in Poland as a teacher trainer, his input is certainly welcome here.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

Yes, absolutely. I try my hardest to stick to 40 hours a week, but I can see from my own records that 50+ weeks are nothing unusual once you count in all the things that are just an astonishing waste of time.

Having said that, I've never understood why Polish teachers think that many things are "unpaid" - to me, we get a salary, and that salary is for the job, not just the contact hours.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]

Who said he was the one personally profiting? Don't you think he has friends, one of which owns the local wood processing facility?

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

And there we go. 1:30am and I've finally finished marking, planning and preparing for next week.

And exactly as predicted, an e-mail came in about an hour ago, from a parent that isn't happy because I don't speak in Polish in the classroom. Same complaint every year, same answer every year, how predictable. No doubt she'll go to the director and complain that I didn't take her complaint seriously.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]


You're more than welcome to visit my classroom. I'm always on the hunt for interesting people to visit.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

Saturday night, and just to show how much teachers work, I'm sitting here correcting a mountain of books while devising ideas for next week's classes. I'm also keeping an eye on our internal school journal system, as it's not uncommon for parents to send messages on Saturday night asking for something or other. I received a message about 2 hours ago, from a parent who wanted to know what materials will be covered this coming week. Another parent wrote in the morning, asking about extra work that their kid can do at home. My answer is always the same - leave the teaching to teachers, and let the kids be kids.

I've just had a phone chat with the girl who is doing her probation year with me, as she has to send me four lesson plans by midnight for next week - my view of the matter is that I don't need to check every element of her work, but doing lesson plans at least lets her reflect on what works and what doesn't work with each class. She was amazed at how much work she has to put in over the weekend just to be ready for Monday morning.

I've managed to find a partner school in Sweden, so I have hopes that we can organise an exchange trip there at the end of the summer term. Easier said than done, but they were positive about the idea.

My other main project this term is participation in an international project that brings people from all over the world into our classrooms. Last year, we had people from all over the world, including a refugee and even someone from China who spoke beautiful Polish.

News / Berlin terrorist attack -- Poland's ethnic homogeneity a true blessing [436]


It's a good book, though the protagonist is an absolute cock.

Travel / Białowieża National Park in Poland [461]


If it wasn't about the profits from the wood, why would they be cutting down healthy and valuable trees?


Yes, as with many other Polish topics.


So you think it's quite impossible for a Polish politician to be supporting something for personal gain?

I mean, Greggy... are you that naive that you think that this isn't about money? If it was genuinely about the forest, then they wouldn't need all the heavy machinery and all the rest of it. They'd cut the diseased trees down and invite the locals to come and take as much diseased wood as they want.

I will never understand why PiS supporters so blindly support the Party stealing all they can.

News / Two Polish Men on trial for brutally murdering German Pop Star in homophobic attack [53]


Perhaps in your village, but most normal people would politely decline.


What's funnier is that the offended dudes are the ones that often look the most homosexual.

I mean, completely shaved bodies and large muscles is definitely something that turns many a gay man on.

Work / Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]

Friday, and as always, interesting things happen on Friday.

I got to work this morning, and discovered that a parent had written a very angry e-mail overnight while complaining about all the teachers in the school. I wish I could quote from it here, but the gist of it was that she expected him to be top of his class like last year, and he was already struggling with the work. Hard to know what to say in this situation, but as one of his teachers, he's simply not good enough. There are better and stronger kids in his class, and it's very obvious that some of them have spent a lot of time studying over the summer holidays.

We're not going to react, beyond the class teacher inviting her for a chat, but it's going to be a long year if she keeps this up. I'll help him if I can, but with languages, it also requires him to put in time studying every day, not just doing homework and finito.

On a good note, my youngest class have really taken to English, and I'm giving serious thought to picking up the pace with them. On the other hand, they're kids, and I have to ask myself if I want to push them harder when they're enjoying themselves now. Decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, as always, I've picked up a nasty stomach bug. Schools are disease factories for the first two/three weeks, and I've finally fallen sick too.

UK, Ireland / British court lets violent Polish racists walk free [61]

I think it's obvious they weren't provoked in any way, they just did it because they were trash.

UK, Ireland / Polish man jailed for using dog to attack Muslims leaving mosque [45]


You certainly are if you think that punching people in the face and using a dog to attack them is normal civilised behaviour.

UK, Ireland / British court lets violent Polish racists walk free [61]

A truly shocking decision. They should have been deported for this, although I'm thankful that they're free to remain in the UK well away from me.

UK, Ireland / Polish man jailed for using dog to attack Muslims leaving mosque [45]

The interesting question here - post-Brexit, will such animals be simply deported upon conviction?

UK, Ireland / Polish man jailed for using dog to attack Muslims leaving mosque [45]

Nothing is stopping other people from posting positive stories. They don't seem to attract much attention though.

News / Two Polish Men on trial for brutally murdering German Pop Star in homophobic attack [53]


See, if you're going to post a long post that no-one is going to read anyway, it would help if you knew a thing about German newspapers.

Die Welt and Frankfurter Allgemeine are very much traditional conservative newspapers, as anyone that can read German knows.

UK, Ireland / Polish man jailed for using dog to attack Muslims leaving mosque [45]


Post it on a new thread Adrian, it's worthy of comment.