Diary of a Teacher in Poland

They're a few anonymous teacher bloigs. Usually other teachers are their main audience. None reveal the school or exact location. The Gurdian prints a weekly column by one of the bloggers.


In some countries, this is rife, the parents encourage the cheating. Here, they switched the whole country's mobile phone system down on the two days of the Baccalaureat exam this year, due to the richer kids cheating and teachers who aren't the best invigilators..

Ever wondered why they are anonymous Einstein ? Because the parents and school would not be happy if they knew about it.

I doubt anyone would care less in Poland. Different culture.

Anyway, it's been an interesting week. The kid that I mentioned as a potential bully is very much an outcast, though he's been immediately referred to the school psychologist and the local psychological observation service (however the hell it's actually called) for a full check. My quiet enquiries with the old school have hit a blank - the teacher doesn't want to discuss him for whatever reason. What I've observed is that he appears to have little to no understanding of boundaries and personal space, which could hint at several things - but I'll wait for the full report to see what they can find.

Other than that, my main focus this term is in setting up links between us and a new partner school abroad. I'm always trying to build cooperation between schools, and I decided this year to try and set up a partnership with a school in Sweden. I've got several schools found through the excellent eTwinning platform, and I've got Skype discussions with them lined up tomorrow.

Other than that, it's just the usual mountain of paperwork to deal with, including my new role this year in mentoring a new teacher for her probationary year. Nice girl, and she's already agreed to work a few extra hours so that we can prepare something big and special as a highlight of her year. It means extra work for me, but I think it's important to give new teachers the chance to shine in the way that I got a chance too.

Sidewalk analysis based just on that suggests a neurological disorder (other spectrum like behavior?) or severe abuse at home.... poor kid.

Is this kid taught by you ? I'm not surprised he needs a psychologist !

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.

[moved from]


Then why did you start your personal Face Book thread of "Diary of a Teacher in Poland' ?


Nice, real nice.
How would you like someone calling you Scottish trash ?

@johnny reb
One thing's for sure - the diary isn't interesting at all. It's not very credible either. I have read some of the entries and since some of my friends are teachers, I know some things don't add up.

@delphiandomine
Even if they said what you think they would, they would also think you're a loser ;)
But don't worry about that. No one is going to recognise you here. I doubt you're a teacher.
As for your claim that no one's interested in teachers' private life - have you heard of what happened to the teachers who supported the black protest on fb?

I personally think that's unfair but that proves it's not a regular job.

That's because delph has admitted to not having any teaching credentials.

Cute cartoon in our local newspaper showing an applicant before the skeptical interviewer questioning the former's lack of job skills for the position being applied for, saying, " Sorry, but you have no qualifications for this position! Where d'you think you are anyway, the White House?"

lol

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.

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

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.

Mark it up to poor time management as you have been posting here for the last 15 hours straight.
Give your wife the power to your computer until you get your school work done first.

These poor kids are missing out on a decent education!

It probably won't be long before he's in trouble again.

He's probably just a teachers aid, no credentials and a tarnished past from previous employers.

I doubt he makes above the minimum teachers salary in Poland, which isn't much money at all! LoL

I wouldn't be bragging about it if I were him!

One day there will be a legal case about all the extra work that teachers are expected to do - if you add up the actual number of hours, it's sometimes huge.

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.

Absolutely.


Minimum wage is calculated on a monthly basis in PL, whereas in countries where it's calculated hourly, new teachers probably have a legal case about this.

As your posts have repeatedly demonstrated, you don't have a clue how much teachers in Poland earn. According to you teachers in Poland earn below the minimum wage. Perhaps it would be better for everybody if you left this discussion to those of us who aren't utterly clueless about education.

If he left the discussion to people who _have_ some education then he (and jr) wouldn't comment at all....

and perhaps it would be better for everybody if you just left

Perhaps it would be better for you if you tried to address the topic of this thread instead of posting yet more of your usual off-topic ad hom trolling.

Don't you have anything to say about education in Poland or the lives of teacher in Poland? Might it be that both of those are on the list of things about Poland that you know as little as Joker does?

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

This is your Face Book page but let's hear about both you and Harry's previous significant experience, education and certifications to teach.

@ Johnny

Imaginary, non existant credentials, thats why he couldn't teach in the UK. Nobody of sound mind would move to a foreign country to make 1/2 the money. Only an idiot would do this or an under qualified person. Take your pick!


I know about how little of an income you clowns make teaching in Poland. Hahaha!

I make more in one day than you make in a month! hahaha!

Agreed. Odd to talk about something if they've got little to actually say.

I for one quite enjoy reading Delph's 'Diary of a Teacher in Poland' - it's a hard job and getting harder; the impact that technology is having on the profession is fascinating right now.

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.

More and more (expensive) pre-packaged courses are made for them. Otherwise you may as well just project from a laptop onto a whiteboard.


With CLIL it's wonderful. Of course the downside is that so many places in the world have poor internet connections. Some have blackboards, classes of 120 and the kids writing 'notes' on pieces of wood that are wiped clean every day. Not always with electricity in the classroom either - they really have to know their methodology to teach that way. This will change, though not yet. I gave some training for School Inspectors on current best practice and was rather shocked at the lessons they have to inspect. Some teachers are doing two jobs at once, giving attention to their fee paying classes - something not unusual in rural PL a few years ago.


Where I am, most of the undergraduates that come to us have never used a PC. Fortunately I only have to teach them once a week, however I've noticed that for them, IT means smartphones now, they've bypassed computers. We give them a laptop each and some IT training, however even into the second year, many are daunted. The ones I do more often, mostly senior military and government people, have varying levels of IT skills however some are still hesitant. None have tablets, it's above most people's budgets here, even if they see the point of them in the first place.

That kind of silenced things didn't it.


Isn't that done AFTER class ?
So you encourage texting in the classroom ?
How would you know if they are texting you or playing around texting other students ?
Also doesn't letting them text cut down on developing social interaction ?
Do ALL the students have cell phones or just a select few at 11 years old ?