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

I've seen those books, they're horrible and not about Britain at all (except very obliquely) students can get high grades on matura without knowing much of anything about real life in Britain* (much less the US).


I think that would be an improvement - let those who need to communicate with Belgians or Egyptians or Malaysians do so without burdening them with a bunch of culture stuff they don't need - while allowing those who are interested in culture and history to devote themselves to that.

*I don't know anything about real life in Britain but some Brits have told me that they're more or less science fiction...

A dozen posts above I presented how high school final oral exam looks like. I forgot to add it comprises both levels.
Written exams are divided into seperate levels.

Check these files for the final exam of 2017.

Basic/ordinary
cke.edu.pl/images/_EGZAMIN_MATURALNY_OD_2015/Arkusze_egzaminacyjne/2017/formula_od_2015/jezyk_angielski/MJA-P1_1P-172-A.pdf

The last task requires students to write a blog entry

You attended a meeting with a known actor
-Write how you obtained the invitation and who you went with
-Express your opinion about the place where the meeting was held
-Describe the meeting
-Encourage readers to see a film with that actor and explain why it is worth seeing

Advanced
cke.edu.pl/images/_EGZAMIN_MATURALNY_OD_2015/Arkusze_egzaminacyjne/2017/formula_od_2015/jezyk_angielski/MJA-R1_1P-172-A.pdf

The last task offers two topics:
Essay - pros and cons of children`s participation in programmes like talent shows.

Article offering solution to the problem of reckless behaviour in the mountains


Maf and Lyżko, can you take a look at the files above to see if that is still English used and understood by native English speakers or not?

@ Maf
Those are LANGUAGE classes, not classes about UK and USA. Their main purpose is to teach students to comunicate in a foreign language (be it English, German , Russian...) If it makes some students look further and try to find out more about those countries then great.

And I think we all forget school gives the basic, general knowledge and if a student wants to really know the subject they have yo go well beyond the material

Why did you exclude British and Americans from that practical communication? :):) Besides, you know it is impossible to divide students according to their possible language usage style in the future. You are still so idealistically oriented. :)


No, come on, I don`t believe you are serious now. You are pulling my leg to make me eleborate more on it. :)

I don`t know what books you have seen but I can assure you that the ones I use are virtually soaked with British culture and generally British thinking and attitudes. Each day, in each class, we talk about them when doing exercises. Have you seen the post in which I mentioned my fav Advanced Revision Book written by two brilliant British women (whose all books I adore, btw)?

Check the link and scroll a few sample pages
eshop.egis.com.pl/matura-repetytorium-p-rozszerzony-podr-niewieloletni-kod-digibook-id-1574

There is also Basic one. I thought that Holmes and mounted police are typically British. Was I wrong? :)

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Yes,you were/are wrong.......

So, what about this wonderful tradition which my students just love to hear about that at 5pm every day all the British gather in specially decorated places and they say prayers called God Save the Queen? That is why the Queen always lives and rules so long and happily over the Empire. That`s what I found in the books. Isn`t it true?

Ha,ha I don't think it is true and....with world nowadays obsessed with PC you could upset other religions or atheists....

I have just read your exchange of opinions about too many exams in Poland and Mafketis ideas of one-to-one tutoring. From my observations standard schools in UK are overcrowded and not always so good but ....as it is class society in private schools and good universities ( Cambridge, Oxford...) education is superb.

Also- just my personal experience- all these exams which I took in Poland ( grammar school- technical University) helped me to work and learn quickly when under pressure.

It's the same old story, friends!

Americans, Australians, sometimes Canadians and Brits, are on vacation in any number of attractive tourist places, from Germany, Scandinavia, right up through Bulgaria, the Black Sea to the Baltic, and, lo and behold, somebody wants to impress the denizens with their (unexpected) knowledge of, even fluency, in the local lingo. The poor fella or gal opens their mouth and by the time they've not even finished the greeting/sentence what ever, the native of one of those countries has all but completed it for them...IN ENGLISH naturally, with such apparent ease, the Anglophone is floored into submissively giving in to the other's "superior" English:-)

We've become ever so spoiled, thus have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing Euro-English to take over like a cancer, spreading, metasthisizing across the continent, like some species of fungus.

Polish junior high school students scored 17th result in PISA test for 2015. Not bad. The UK was 27th while the USA 40th.

In 2016 Poles had 12th position, the UK 24th and the USA 34th.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

Those numbers will only get lower the more low iq darkies are brought in...

I don't even to see the results to know the top countries are we're homogenous east Asian and Europeans countries and none of the tops spots were Arab African or latam countries

Just to stick my oar in Pawian. There was far too much Test, teach, test teaching in the schools I worked in during the early 90s. I used to get ticked off by the director for spending more of the monthly hours on PPP lessons (Presentation, controlled practice. free practice) with the associated happy noise. The result was that my A2 groups could use more language in situational practice than other groups which had more teacher led lessons.

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.

Yep, been through that before.

Yes, more emphasis is put on written exams than fluent oral communication. But the system has imposed it this way and I am not going to fight it. National schools rankings are arranged according to the results of written exams and subject competitions. Most teachers` goal is to achieve as high results as possible. Of course, I don`t neglect the situational practice because my students have to take the oral exam, too. But it is less important, e..g, universities completely overlook the results of oral exams. Sometimes I get the impression it is automatically assumed that once a student does well in writing, they will also excel in speaking. It is a wrong assumption but as I said, I am not going to go against the current.


Yes, delph, but your example is not about IF, but HOW to test students.

The emphasis on written rather than oral is especially pronounced in Asian society, above all, in S. Korea, Japan, and (Mainland) China as well.

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.

Theoretically sound great but:
- it's almost impossible for the teacher to know for sure how much efford a kid puts in. And while it should play role it's hardly something you can quantify. And if the kid is not very nice it's easy to project that emotion on our judgement

-behaviour has separate grade and it's hard to justify it in a grade for subject. Somehow noone expects math teacher to give better grades for good behaviour

- why good abilities in sports should be treated worse than language learning ease etc?

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.

I sometimes joke to my fellow PE teachers that compared to us, "real combat" teachers, they just lazy around - throw a ball and tell students: Here, have a little game and then sit on that wooden gym bench and relax. They always get a little annoyed hearing it. But that`s banter because I can see they work really hard and care about their job So, delph, your school must be unlucky as far as PE staff is concerned.


This suggestion seems reasonable, indeed.

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...

Exactly, more or less...


And intelligence and ease in learning isn't? When I was in school (especially elementary as there is the whole mix of kids from different backgrounds) I would be able to do my math homework during the break before lesson while my friend struggled to do it in peace, at home, having all the time in the world. Is that fair?


Seriously? From my experience one, kids have a lot of energy and can easily and happily run around and jump long after school is finished and second for Pete's sake, PE is not a marathon!

I wonder how, in those parent's eyes, kids from sports school should graded...

Teacher`s career is divided into 4 levels of promotion: trainee, nominated, contract, certified. The whole path takes about 15 years.

Teachers take an oath when they become nominated. It takes place in the local council or town hall.

The Teacher`s Charter states among others:

Teachers should educate and raise the youth in accordance with the love of the Motherland, the abidance with the Constitution, the atmosphere of freedom of conscience and respect for every person.

Teachers should develop in students moral and civil values in accordance with the ideas of democracy, peace and friendship between people of different nationalities, races and beliefs.

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Are you sure about that the? Based on the American experience, which, admittedly, may be different, the American version of that oath has their, instead of the.

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.

It's interesting that this so-called "teacher's charter" calls for youth and students to be indoctrinated with the Cultural Marxist creed.

Would these same eager and idealistic teacher's still believe in these "values" themselves if they were to be let go from their jobs before retirement and replaced with people of different nationalities, races and beliefs?

Diversity for thee but not for me! :)

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.

Which theoretically is even more reason to make sure the kids get their exercise..
Don't get me wrong, I understand it's sometimes hard and it would be nice if we could make sure the kids in our school are angels that are not overtired but the story about a kid being grated 2 I find somehow immoral and the story about different grades for later lessons I find stupid . Kids having their PE on first ir last lesson have rhe same homework workload

Their means teachers` or students`?, because you are ambiguous.


I have nothing against. Let the free market decide - if a better teacher replaces a bad one, it is OK. I can take this challenge and have always done so - I have never felt bothered by the arrival of non-Polish teachers at the schools where I worked.

Besides, why Marxist creed? I suppose similar regulations of teachers` duties are in most civilised countries.


Yes, we should thank PiS for that mess. New curricula for high school have just appeared, the requirements are one level higher than before, those neobolsheviks really think that students have become smarter under their rule? :)

I think it is one of the fields which is hard to judge....I remember in my grammar school ( I guess it is still like it now?) they had list of how many pupils from certain year/class passed exams to Universities. I did pass entrance exams at Polytechnic by my match teacher was awful I was just relatively good at math/physics and got some private tutoring. So....

Yes, exactly, we have come back to our previous discussion about performance related pay.
https://polishforums.com/study/poland-various-education-school-issues-84668/#msg1681392

But, as I don`t fear being asessed as the one of poor performance, I can still face a little challenge. Teachers of the world: India, Nigeria, Argentina, the USA, Russia - unite and come here to stand up to me in a fair international competition for a better teacher. :):)