Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies.

lol! another lie they are not your role models.

No, this time your lie detector has broken down. Have it fixed. HA!!!

Second day back at school, and I can safely say that the rules are a mess. We're supposed to keep kids separated throughout the day, but as it stands, at 12:30, several classes will finish and the ones who aren't picked up will all go together to the common room where they'll mix together until 17:00. My colleagues are treating ventilation as a joke (my own classroom has the windows open), and parents are already demanding that the windows should be shut.

The kids themselves are struggling with the rules, and I'm giving it two weeks before I end up getting quarantined.

I have a 'window' now, and after taking a stroll around the school, none of the windows are open in the classrooms.

Good, even chaotic real education in person is 100 times better than the dreadful fraud that is 'remote learning'....

Horrible harm has been done to children across the world at crucial stages of their development thru the idiotic lockdown policies.

The virus is not a threat to small children and they are not a threat to others.

Treat it like the flue - exercise due caution and get on with life.

If only we were. This is the frustrating thing: the windows could be kept open without any harm to anyone, but because of the Polish hysteria and fear of the open window, most of my colleagues are terrified of sitting there with air circulating around the room. My answer is simple: my classroom, my rules, and if you don't like it, put on your jackets and hats. I actually checked the temperature this afternoon after finishing, and it was 17c after the window had been open all day.

I'll give it until the end of the week before someone makes a formal complaint.


I don't disagree with you there. A friend recorded one "lesson" to show me, and it was diabolical. The teacher was hassling kids over cameras every minute, the quality of the connection was poor, and the way that the work was organised meant that kids were spending an absurd amount of time just trying to figure out what to do. Not cool.

Another friend had a situation where the teacher (of kl. 2 kids in primary school) was sending large e-mails once a week with precise instructions to be followed. She appeared to not understand that the average 8 year old isn't capable of reading her message...

Oh god..... I remember weather that was absolutely sweltering... well over 30 degrees and if you try to open a window to get some air moving someone shrieks "Przeciąg!" and runs to close it...

One reason apartment building hallways smell of cabbage; people here are terrified of open windows. Schools need good ventilation and fresh air though. People may (and do) deliberately block ventilation at home (sometimes with fatal consequences in Poland) however schools need kids with oxygen getting to their brains rather than drowsy kids in overheated airless classrooms.

so you claim that pre-teens can't transmit the virus? - interesting

pre-teens =/= small children.... no study has found small children to catch and/or transmit the virus....

Obvious. And not only the ones who type ankle instead of uncle. :):):)


Yes, of course, I could have crossed everything out and write the whole text anew. :):) That would be the best option. But it would require a lot of time which I don`t possess when about 100 students from several classes hand in an email or an essay for advanced level and I first have to read them all, correct the worst mistakes, give the papers back to students and later see the rewritten version again so that I can award them with a plus. 5 pluses make a B mark. Students always write such a text when we finish a chapter/unit in the textbook.

Polishing all those papers to perfection would take me weeks.

I have just cleaned my shelf and these old pages with text pluses are going into the bin. Wow, it cost me a lot of work - :):) But later my students excell at written exams.

When we talk about marks, students also get them for written chapter tests, grammar tests and speeches.

hahahaha


That`s excusable, especially in winter.

I don't know jack about schools in Poland today, but I can tell you with total certainty that American teachers are the dumbest, laziest and most spineless harmful-to-children abusive idiots as a group, led by their far-left unions. I suspect most teachers in Poland are the same or quickly degenrating in that direction.

Probably not.

Dumbest? - no - most teachers in Poland are well educated and reasonable.

Laziest? - some can be lazy but no research has been done yet.

Spineless? - hmm, spineless in what situations?

Far left unions? It is like saying wet water. Hmm, do you know any far right unions? Or at least right ones? The nature of a trade union from their very beginninhg has been left, So, holding a grudge coz a union is left is like critisizing water for being too wet or butter for being too fatty.

Not really. American trade unions, in particular outside of education, didn't use to be far left. Far left today means neomarxism. Far left means you teach that mathematics is racist, and excessive effort and ambition in learning are the bad traits of white people, and so racist too. Poland doesn't have (yet) the neomarxist rasism in schools. Or widespread and strictly enforced neomarxist gender theories. Or the mind-numbing nonsense of the Common Core system. Far left also means injecting politics in every subject and imposing radical limits to freedom of speech with intolerance and forcedul suppression of any incompatible views among the students. Spinelessness means teachers will obediently and faithfully do and say anything they don't believe in, even if it hurts the students, just to keep their jobs and avoid being blacklisted. Far left teacher's unions fully support and condone firing teachers for speech and other transgressions against the radical far-left ideology. And finally, laziness means teachers would rather not come to work and teach under any pretext (because weather, snow, or virus) while still being paid and going on vacations.

And it won`t have coz most Poles reject extremism, both leftist or rightist.


Funny but that is being done in Poland by rightist rulers right now.


Yes, that`s what rightists try to do here, too.

As I can see, we have similar problems, only caused by different ideologies.


Yes, I know such teachers in my school - about 5 out of 50.

...And Poland, as you said, will follow. The fact that may be "rightists" does not make the above untrue. If they were not, they would be doing something creative.

Your post should be a bumper sticker.

Yes, I already mentioned that our rightist rulers are trying to do it now in Poland. I wrote more about it here in connection with students showing support for or taking part in abortion ban protests:

https://polishforums.com/study/poland-various-education-school-issues-84668/9/#msg1759122

Franz, what do you think, is it correct that students are harassed by rightist education authorities for expressing their views and taking advantage of freedom of speech???

Today is the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Rising. Polish students in some primary or high schools take part in preparations and later celebrations. Daffodil and yellow colouring are the symbols of rememberance.

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I heard that American kids learn only about the USA and a few major topics like WW2 at history class in their schools.

In Poland history class is very extensive and covers a lot of topics. 15 years ago I came to a private lesson and the student informed me she hadn`t done her English homework coz she had had to study for a History test. I asked her about the topics and one of them was Garibaldi`s rebellion in 19th century Italy. I was shocked they had to learn such details in primary school.

Today it hasn`t changed much. Here is the list of "foreign" topics for 6th grade primary school (12-13 years old)

The curriculum starts with modern times:

Civilizations of America
Great discoveries
Results of discoveries
Reneissance
New religions
Counterreformation and Baroque

Europe and the world in 17th and 18th centuries:
-Economy of Western Europe
-Revolution in England
-Louis XIV absolutism
-Enlightment
-Russia, Prussia and Austria in 18th century
- The rise of the United States

French Revolution
France as a Republic
Napoleon`s Conquest of Europe

I can see the result of such approach even in the forum. Native Poles who received their education in Poland know a lot more more than other members, especially American Polonia.

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Now, foreign topics for grade 7 - age 13-14.

Congress of Vienna 1815
Industrial Revolution
Effects of Industrial Revolution
Spring of Nations in Europe

The Unification of Italy and Germany in 19th century
The Advancement of the USA and Civil War
Colonial Expansion in 19th century
Democratic Changes and New Political Ideas
Societies, Science and Culture at the turn of 19/20 centuries

Growing Unrest in the World
On Fronts of the Great War
Revolution in Russia

World after Versailles Treaty
Cultural and Social effects of WW1
The Soviet Union under Stalin
Fascism in Italy
Hitler and Nazism
Road to War

BTW, did I already tell you that Polish teachers are free to choose textbooks they like best? There are several publishing houses operating in Poland which make books to every subject. So, history for the 7th grade is available in a few versions.

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The beginning of May is traditionally associated with the following things in Poland:

- 3 national holidays
- blooming chestnut trees
- high school final exam called Matura!!

Two cult songs about Matura, known to every Pole:

Post punk rock from 1990s versus big beat from 1960s

Hurray, hurray, today we are sitting Matura, jacket and fancy hairdo, Hurray, hurray, Broniewski and Stachura, Matura!! hahaha

youtu.be/9rjn0vvcIGg

youtu.be/8g7la8uqfRU

Which is the most anti-polish, pro soviet and pro gender fluid? I only ask as that is the one you choose for your students.

Yes, exactly, I choose only gender and LGBT friendly textbooks. That is why when you meet one of my students, they will be friendly and accepting towards you, on condition you come out and won`t hide your gay preferences like you are doing here. Stop being a self hating closet gay at last, we can see how it harms your psyche.

@mafketis
In another thread you said that your students claimed communist time was barely mentioned in high school history class.

I can`t agree. The curriculum covers the period quite extensively in the last grade, both in primary and high school. Have you ever looked through a history textbook for the final grade? I remember helping my kids revise for tests covering communist and post communist times. My son made a presentation on Lech Wałęsa.

8th class history textbook - 15 years old

Post war chapters

The world after WW2
Divided Germany
In the West and Behind the Iron Curtain
Decolinization after WW2
Cold War conflicts
Middle East conflict
China and Japan after WW2

Anticommunist underground
Communists in power
Stalinist period
From stalinism to "small stabilization"
From Gomułka to Gierek
Solidarity
Martial law
The collapse of PRL

The desintegration of the USSR
The Autumn of Nations
China a superpower
Middle East
European integration
Today`s world
Poland in NATO and the EU

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most of mafketis' students didn't go to the 8th grade - they were gimbaza products - because of gimnazjums the history lessons were limited even in liceums

The curriculum for gimnazjum or junior high school finished with WW1. Students were supposed to continue the course in senior high school and communist and post-PRL times were covered in the final grade.

from what I can gather in liceum (or technikum) or whatever the curriculum started anew back from antiquity - it was the same as when I studied in liceum with the difference of having one year less for the cirriculum - history lessons where recent history was taught happened in the time were students were busy preparing for matura

It is so now . But the old system was what I told you - junior high school ended with WW1.


Yes, that was a very imperfect system.

I'm just repeating what I say... they often seem completely unaware of issues related to the communist period like ration cards or zomo... once a group of students told me they didn't get most of the humor of Miś... (some of it is more... universal but a viewer needs to know something of the PRL to get other parts).

Yes.

On the one hand, it is natural - communism had collapsed before they were born

On the other hand, it is unnatural coz they should get proper education about it at school. It is the fault of the system I mentioned. Additiionally, many history teachers are unable to fascinate their students with the subject. Pity.