Life / What to do if the neighbors is too loud? [40]


You don't need to. You can have an English cottage garden where you plant the flowers very densely. The denser the planting, the fewer weeds. You can eliminate weeding almost completely - and don't have a formal lawn. Go for a wild flower mix or something and have a mini meadow.


In kamienicas too actually. The sound insulation in pre-war buildings is often very poor. And a lot of modern ones too! Judging from what friends tell me there is a lot of noise in newly built apartment blocks. I think you've been rather lucky.

Genealogy / Help Translating 1880s Marriage Bann (Chicago - Polish) [24]

Officially yes, but would the locals of Polish origin maybe have called it Racibórz?? The marriage banns were drawn up in Chicago so they didn't have to use the German spelling.

Genealogy / Help Translating 1880s Marriage Bann (Chicago - Polish) [24]


Interesting suggestion but there's no 'k' that I can see.


Feniks you're quite the detective. I think you're right! This is fun, isn't it? I hope the OP comes back to enjoy the fruits of our combined labours :)

Genealogy / Help Translating 1880s Marriage Bann (Chicago - Polish) [24]


Don't think so. What's that long tale after the second letter? It looks more like R - g or R - f. Don't see how you're getting Rac from it. I'm not sure that's a 'z' on the end either. Looks more like 'n'.


One of the big problems with this handwriting is that the scribe seems to alternate between two forms of the letter 'z'. The old fashioned 'z' has a squiggly tail on it and you can see it quite clearly in some words but on others it appears to be an ordinary 'z'.


Yes, I agree. A Polish spelling for Schulz possibly?

Genealogy / Help Translating 1880s Marriage Bann (Chicago - Polish) [24]

Hard to understand the handwriting.

Basically it says that the groom is living with his parents and the bride is living with her aunt.

It seems that the groom's parents were Michal and possibly Francziska. Surname is Golinski. The groom was born in Pelplin.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelplin

The bride's parents I can't make out. Looks like father's name might be Francys. Mother could be Karolina. I'm afraid I can't decipher the place of birth.

Witnesses are Michal Golinkski and Andrzej Szulc (?) or Szule.

Hope that's some help to you.

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


You mean before the discovery of penicillin? Lol!


I do but in the summer I prefer to use a sheet and blankets. I use a flat sheet with the duvet too sometimes.

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


I have Egyptian cotton too but I also have top sheets and they look hideous if they're not ironed, full of creases, same for pillow cases. They feel nicer too when ironed. I grew up in a household where the sheets were always ironed. There was something almost ritualistic about it :) I remember watching my grandmother and mother folding the sheets and the lovely smell of the freshly laundered cotton mixed with the steam of the iron.

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


Indeed. A gentleman would never wear such a garment. Anyway, it's not just shirts that need ironing. Does he dress entirely in synthetic fabrics? Not to mention bed linen - surely not the dreaded polyester sheets ..........

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


Woops! You made a typo there ....... what you really meant to say was, 'I can't do any of these things so I have to ...' ;))

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


I should jolly well hope not! You're not interviewing women for a housekeeping job. As you get to know somebody and spend time with them you'll see whether they have any cooking skills. What's this about washing?? You don't mean laundry surely? Or do you mean cleaning? What are your own cleaning skills like? Every person, man or woman, should know how to do basic cooking, how to budget for a week's shopping and plan daily menus and how to maintain a house to an acceptable level of cleanliness.

Personally, I can't abide men faffing around in the kitchen although I do permit my husband to make breakfast on Sundays. I also prefer not to be 'helped' with housework as men are usually more of a hindrance. I'm quicker doing it myself. I blame their mothers. If men were properly brought up and taught how to look after themselves they wouldn't be so useless but mothers waiting on their children hand and foot are the root of all evil. Also, women are multi-taskers by nature. We have to be. Nature designed us to be able to watch over young and do other things at the same time. Any woman worth her salt can cook dinner, supervise the kids' homework and do the ironing, while making a mental shopping list for tomorrow's groceries. A man can do one of those things, not very efficiently, and that's just the way they are.

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]

Where did you meet these women?? Western Europe?

Life / Which areas of Poland have the most conservative young women (under 22)? [49]


That's not actually true.

Life / Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories [692]

We have Father Ted and you have Father Tad!

Just to keep things on topic, here is a pic of our little orchard in the true Polish countryside :)

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Life / Owning a house in true countryside of Poland - stories [692]


It's not an unreasonable assumption. It's a bit like Ireland in the 1980s - a 'Catholic' country. Almost everybody is baptised and brought up as a Catholic in Poland and they've never had the equivalent of our beloved Father Ted so they still show a bit of outward respect for the collar :))

UK, Ireland / Moving to Poland from UK [39]


As long as he didn't expect you to play the bagpipes :)

UK, Ireland / Moving to Poland from UK [39]


We definitely don't. The agreement between the UK and Ireland is that we are treated as citizens in each other's countries, even down to voting rights.


Witam w Polsce ........ that's pretty typical. Btw you do know that many Polish people don't understand the difference between the Republic of Ireland and the North and therefore will not understand that you're an EU citizen (well you'd still be one anyway even if you're from the North). I had dealings with a notary last year and it took nearly an hour to persuade her that I wasn't British. She couldn't get her head round my Irish passport. Kept insisting that my passport wasn't valid because of Brexit and that Ireland was part of the UK. She finally agreed very reluctantly to proceed with the business in hand, after spending 40 minutes trying to research it on the internet.

I agree with Jon, find another company that knows what the f*ck they're doing.

Life / Relation in Poland to Orthodox Christians? [117]


Spot on. Jesus said so Himself, 'Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I am among them'.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]

Pawian, thank you for all the pics and the info on 'real life' in Polish schools. A very valuable and interesting contribution to the forum.


I don't hate it but it's not good. It's an attempt by the choreographer at being 'arty' and doing something unconventional with a Polonaise purely for the sake of being different. The worst part of it is that it's totally joyless. These are young people, full of energy, promise and possibilities, embarking on adult life. The dance should capture the spirit of that. Instead they look as if they're taking part in a military training exercise. A bit like a cross between a march and an old fashioned drill display.

Here are some secondary school students from Ireland. They actually all go to different schools but they go to the Irish language college together every summer so they're singing in irish) I think you'll enjoy it :)

youtube.com/watch?v=KejyvBGwmvc

Off-Topic / How to find an address of someone with only 'Full Name', 'Date of Birth' & 'City and District'. [6]

By city and district do you mean the one where they were born? Because they might have moved a long time ago.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


Yes, it's basically freedom of choice supported by a structure of order and method.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


Lol! Thanks for the bouquet.


No. They follow a natural order.


You're talking about two different things here. There's a difference between how materials are ordered within a Montessori classroom and how an individual child orders their own things within the classroom, but all confirm to a principle of logic.

Btw I never 'teach' children to stack books in order. They do it spontaneously if their sense of order has been properly educated. So the child of ten will organize their materials on their desk in such a way that the books don't topple over and fall to the floor but may also incorporate having the things most used in the most easily accessible position.

And having a well developed sense of order and method is very liberating.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]

The great strength of the Montessori system of education in which I was trained, is that it is not based on theories of how children should learn or behave, but on how they actually DO learn and behave :) It's based on observation not on theories. That's why it works.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


How many children have you taught Lenka? Ordering things in size or length is part of early maths. Giving a concrete representation of volume, length etc is essential. It's basically a form of sequencing amongst other things. It's something very young children often do naturally when you give them building blocks for example. They try to arrange them in order of size. Encouraging the natural sense of order when it emerges is highly effective for future learning.

Regarding the OCD thing if the kid is trained to develop their natural sense of order when they're very young, then by the time they get to ten years old, they don't even think about it anymore. They're not fussing over their pens and books OCD style.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


You need to send them to a proper Montessori school of course :) It is really frustrating though. When I was teaching Maf, kids of about three and a half would come into my classroom screaming and crying on day one (not all but a few) or looking totally shell shocked and within two days they were settled, within two weeks they were hanging up their own coats, tidying the shelves, setting up the painting area when they wanted to do art, mopping up spills, sweeping the floor, watering the plants - managing themselves and the environment, basically.

Years later, one of the teachers from the senior end of the school who had the ten year olds said to me 'I can always tell the ones who went through your class because they're the ones who stack their books in order of size, arrange their pens according to length and keep their desks tidy.' He also noticed that they all picked up their pens the same way because of course I started them on writing so I taught them how to pick up the pencil with the point facing towards them and then the upward flick where it flips over into the correct position. Pick and flick :))

It's about instilling self awareness, independence and a sense of order as soon as consciousness kicks in. That feeling of 'I can take care of myself' is what builds true confidence and self-esteem in children, not all that 'hey, good job, you're amazing just because you exist' rubbish.

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


Hofstede is not the best indicator if you look at how and when the basis of his research was put together but it's still reasonably accurate in the broadest sense.

The thing about education is that to be truly successful it requires two elements. One, it has to encourage development of individual's different talents, skills etc. Not easy to achieve that. Secondly, it has to produce people who can actually think for themselves. If a government doesn't want that, then you have a problem. The present Polish government doesn't really want independent thinkers.


True educational reform is a process and it takes about a generation to get near achieving it. You have to start at the pre-school level. When you see unsatisfactory students in their teens, the roots lie in early childhood. In Poland you have too many children spending the crucial years between three and six, wandering around the place aimlessly, being infantilized by babcias and fussed over by mothers, having every blessed thing done for them. Some go to pre-schools of course but the quality of early childhood education there is just not what it should be. Countries like Finland where kids also start primary school at seven, have outstanding early childhood education programs.

Another issue of course in Poland is the urban/rural divide. Very difficult to address the quality in education issue when you have a big gap like that. How does one bridge it? None of this is discussed at government level in Poland with any real depth so things won't improve much in the foreseeable future.

Just to add, it's not just the students that are the issue in educational reform. It also requires big changes in methods and philosophy for the teachers. That's why it takes a generation to have any impact. You will meet with some resistance from teachers who have already been teaching for many years (not all, but a significant number) and you need teachers coming into the system who are trained with the new approach.

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]


My uncle dear child, my uncle.

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]

He was an engineer. There's a bit of romance in the story too. He fell in love with a young widow who had one child, a little girl about five years old. He smuggled them both out and back to Ireland.

History / "Westerner's" most ridiculous beliefs about the time of communism in Poland [73]


By Western, do you mean American?? Many western Europeans would be aware of the differences between the Soviet Union and their satellite states, partly because of our direct contact with them. For example I'm Irish and my uncle worked in East Germany at the height of the Cold War even though Ireland had no diplomatic ties with any Eastern Bloc countries at that time. For anybody who was interested in politics and open to finding out, plenty of information about life in the East was freely available.

Real Estate / Water Well and costs [6]

Here is an article with up to date prices. Use Google Translate to make sense of it :) It also gives links to companies in different parts of Poland. It says that the average price in your region is 150-250 zl per metre.

extradom.pl/porady/artykul-wiercenie-studni-cena-za-wykonanie-i-aktualny-cennik#:~:text=Przyjmuje%20si%C4%99%2C%20%C5%BCe%20cena%20za,Jak%20prawid%C5%82owo%20uk%C5%82ada%C4%87%20rury%20drenarskie%3F

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]



The problem with educational reform is that you can't cherrypick bits and pieces from different countries/systems and apply them randomly to existing systems or apply a modified version. Poland probably looked at Finland which has one of the best education systems in the world. They get no homework and there is no standardised testing. So PIS thinks that they can emulate Finland's success by doing something not quite the same but vaguely inspired by it. So now Polish students still have to do homework but it doesn't affect their grades if they don't. A pointless piece of reform. PIS could have gained a few Brownie points by consulting with teachers and asking them what changes, if any, they would like to see. But that would be a consultative process and that's not PIS style.