Life / What is Poland's view on obesity? How healthy, fit are Poles? [166]


Isn't this one of the problems that the US has, that it's much more difficult to get fresh/healthy produce there for a good price?

The lack of kids actually going out is also a major one though. I remember when I was 12, it was absolutely normal to go out about lunchtime and not bother coming back home until it got dark, and I would go all over the town with my friends on our bikes. It's the same story in Poland - people are terrified of paedophiles, but they turn a blind eye to the abuse being carried out within the family.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]


I know one! But again, it's about family and tradition - his great-grandfather was some sort of huntsman for some German country estate owner, his grandfather was a forester, his father is a forester and he went into teaching as a geography teacher, but he was brought up around hunters from a very early age.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]

I never said that drinking wasn't part of the culture ;) But that's the thing with them, they're like a closed shop, and they certainly don't want wannabe Rambos causing trouble for them.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]


I can only speak for the local guys to me, but they are really not keen on anyone who wants a gun for the sake of having a gun. They're quite steeped in traditions and hunting culture, and if you haven't been brought up around them, it's nearly impossible to get in unless you know several members that will vouch for you.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]


They already do in some places. Yet, when you think about it, a 3 day training course is hardly going to prepare a teacher to deal with some guy who turned up with his Walmart assault rifle collection, especially in the heat of the moment.

We simply don't need to be armed in Poland. For what?

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]


They can have their obsession all they want, and it's even funny to see how deluded they are into believing that a gun automatically transforms the holder into a potential lethal trained machine that can stop the bad guys despite all the evidence to the contrary. The problem is when they push their gun propaganda onto the rest of us despite knowing nothing about the real world situation here.

Even in London, the issue seems to be more about cowardly knife attacks, and no gun is going to stop someone sticking a knife in your back.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1400]


A decent dark pasta with spinach (prepared with olive oil, sea salt and pepper) has always been a great go-to dish for me in a hurry. If it's cooked well, it really hits the spot.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]


Like the school shootings where they hid like cowards outside the building? Decent citizens would be paralysed by fear, and more to the point, as America shows, those situations happen more when people are armed.


The WOT forces are regarded as a complete joke in Poland by most. The statistics speak for themselves - only 16% of people signing up for them come from cities, and furthermore, they've been recruiting from the unemployable. It won't survive a change of government, because any decent reserve needs to be based on more than unemployed people signing up for vodka.

Guns are not on the agenda in Poland, it's as simple as that.

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]

None at all. Mass shootings in the US regularly remind us, the voters of Poland, that any attempt to loosen the rules is a bad idea. Poland in this sense is changing - changing against guns.

Life / Prejudice about Poles; Poland has changed [39]

Which is why it has nothing to do with Poland. For the vast majority of Poles, a gunshot would be associated with a car engine backfiring, not a gunshot.

History / History of two Neighbors: Poland - Germany Interrelations [283]


It's very clever. The intention is to get people talking about the content, and I'd say they've succeeded. It's only a pity that the song is pretty weak by Rammstein standards.

It would be nice to see something similar in Poland, actually.

History / Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture [99]


Not really. When most people are old enough to vote, they realise that Korwinism is essentially just a series of soundbites without any substance.

I still remember how Korwinists were boasting about online polls where they had 25-30% before the last election. The real result: less than 5%.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1400]


That's absolutely disgusting!

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


I try my hardest to do such tests. For instance, kids in the 2nd/3rd grade - I teach them dictionary skills, so for instance, they have creative tests where they need to hunt for words in the corridors, and then use the dictionary to find the translation of what it is. Then, as they get older and their reading skills get better, they then have to read some clues in English, then look for the word in Polish to find the correct English word.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1400]


Without the eggs, yes. I've tried it with the egg and it was inedible :(

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]

That's the difference between a good teacher and a bad one.

One of my favourite tests involved giving kids a song to translate. They had to translate it into Polish, but what they didn't know was that a few weeks later, they had to translate it from their own original translation back into English. When they were translating the song into Polish, they had access to the original source text - because we had worked with it in previous lessons, but when translating back into English, they were doing it based on their knowledge of English. They had never been asked to memorise the original text, so it was a very good way to see if they'd actually taken anything in.

Of course, there was no 'wrong' translation. They were actually encouraged to be creative with it, and then in the next lesson, we discussed their translations and different interpretations, as well as the problems caused by such translations.

Another thing I try to do is to introduce them to word play - for instance,


One fun test I gave involved this sort of thing - they had five song lyrics, and they had to go home and figure out where the double meaning was, and then explain it. They had a week to figure it out, but the important thing was that they had to actually study the texts. Of course, there was one complaint from a parent who was upset because it wasn't a 'learn by heart' type test, but they were swiftly dismissed when I pointed out that everything had been covered in previous materials (in this case, 'window pane' and 'pain').

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


You should see the mess and stress in the 7th/8th classes at the minute. We've got around 70% of kids dropping out of religion (because of the workload in other subjects), and a similar amount dropping out of PE. It's just a complete mess, and although we have a 'common homework timetable', there's a particular mess with Polish and Maths classes as they simply haven't got the time to get through the programme properly.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


I didn't do it ;) I was supposed to, but they decided to do it on a Saturday and I had better things to do.


I think the only time when I've seriously confronted a colleague was when I caught the idiot singing an anti-abortion song in front of kids. He tried to laugh it off, until I explained that several of the parents were not to be messed with, and that he should find a way to diffuse the situation before it comes back to haunt him.

History / Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture [99]


There was nothing well-planned about it. The Communist leadership was in a mess at various points (especially after Poznań 1956 and in 1980-1), and there were several clear times when they were reacting in a knee-jerk way to various issues.


Don't forget that it would never have worked without the Polish nomeklatura.

History / Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture [99]

Wasn't this one of the most shocking things about martial law - that the army was actually willing to hurt/kill fellow Poles, when the belief was that the army would actually defend Poland against any invasion by Warsaw Pact forces?


I can understand their way of thinking. The II RP failed so quickly and badly that I would have wanted a clean break too, especially given the huge diplomatic failures that took place during that time. Of course, they went back to having pretty poor relations with the DDR for years, but at least they put a stop to the nonsense with the Czechoslovaks.

It's curious how Communism evolved in Poland, especially once Gomułka arrived back on the scene and introduced "national communism" for the lack of a better description.

Travel / American Visiting Polish Military Base. Issues? [13]


Pity. They should require visas until they treat all European citizens the same.

History / Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture [99]


I'm not an expert on this, but I did a lot of reading about the mentality of the post-1945 Polish communists, and there may be some explanation for it - many of them blamed the excessive patriotism of the II RP in ethnic Polish circles for the war, and so there was a backlash among them against such things, as it was blamed for the destruction of Poland in WW2. You can observe the same thing in post-war East Germany, where people genuinely believed that the Communists would make sure that war wouldn't happen again.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


The ones in my school are okay, because they understand that not every child is going to be a sporting superstar, but I've seen some really horrible teachers in my time. The worst one was some athlete who had little interest in doing the job properly, because he was more interested in training for his sport.


Interesting point - I once had a parent who pointed out that it was utterly unfair to grade kids in the same way for lessons at 2pm as those that had PE at 8am. It was a very valid point - kids after 6 hours in school were tired, and it wasn't fair to expect them to have the same energy.

Remind me to tell the story later about how Polish and Maths classes were pushed to the end of the day because they couldn't find teachers to work in the mornings. That was absurd...

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


Not so hard - you should know more or less what a kid's capabilities are, and if they coast through a lesson without breaking a sweat or focusing on what they're doing, probably they're not putting any effort in. Of course, a good teacher should also devise activities that push kids, but well... most PE teachers are more interested in their coffee and doing nothing :/


I don't think it should be graded at all, to be honest. It seems desperately unfair when physical characteristics are different, especially with kids that might have no choice over the kind of nutrition they get. I don't want to go into great details, but I once had a class where one kid was very, very fat. After some discussion between me, the school psychologist and the PE teacher, we figured out that her diet was appalling, but she had little influence over it - the kid was 10 and was eating what she was given. The parents were feeding her the most appalling garbage, which was heartbreaking.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


Nor should you be expected to. I am absolutely convinced that many parents are simply too frightened to give up the current system because they can influence it, whereas if emphasis is put more on critical thinking, reasoning and so on, they won't be able to train their children for it.

History / Unforgettable quotes about Poland and Poles from Polish and world`s history and culture [99]


If only people actually valued the nation that they claim to value.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


The curse of Polish schools, if you ask me. I work for a pretty progressive school in terms of attitudes towards children, yet I remember vividly one situation last year where a PE teacher was berated by a parent. The reason?

The PE teacher grades according to their perception of the effort put in by the child during classes, combined with some other factors such as fair play, honesty and other values. In short, a child who tries hard and who plays fair will always receive the top grade. In this case, her kid got a 2 overall, because he was nasty, he didn't play fair, he was selfish, and he rarely put full effort in.

She demanded that the children should be tested according to ability, and graded accordingly. Fortunately, our headteacher backed the PE teacher in this dispute, but it was a perfect sign of how the culture of 'test' was more important than other, more important values.

Genealogy / Which Polish first names are considered unpopular / obsolete in Poland? [124]


Well, I think you're onto something here...

News / Polish final report on Smoleńsk aircrash [859]


A huge catalogue of failures on the Polish side, accompanied by some failures on the Russian side that could have prevented it. There's no smoking gun, just gross incompetence and negligence on the part of the Russian military, Lech Kaczyński's chancellery and the Polish Ministry of Defence.

Are you familiar with this? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Polish_Air_Force_C-295_Miros%C5%82awiec_crash - it was very similar.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [940]


This is the exact discussion I've had time and time again. I've only ever had one use for exams, and that was for determining entry into advanced classes. I devised a system where we would run Cambridge examinations for school kids, but the specialist classes would only be open to those that actually wanted to prepare for the exams. The entry exams are effectively a way of weeding out those that didn't want to learn - if they couldn't be bothered to learn something for the entry test, it was unlikely they'd be interested in a year-long course with an exam at the end.

As for the poster above, his jealousy and bitterness suggests that he never achieved much with his life.