The Polish school? What's it like.

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Dec 4, 10, 17:02 #1

Does it educate in terms of scholastic subejcts or also build characters, shape attitudes and good citizenship? Has this been changing over the years? In your view, that percentage of young people's personality building can be ascribed to the school, the home, the church, peer circles, the media, etc.?
In the USA schools seem to be evolving in the direction of the old sitcom Beverly Hills 1348 (or some such number), where the school is a place the make dates, stock up on drugs and smash up expensive sports cars with the educational aspect a definite also-ran. That's in good neighbourhoods. In bad ones it is armed security guards and metal detectors designed to weed out knives and guns.

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Dec 4, 10, 17:09 #2

Polonius3:

Does it educate in terms of scholastic subejcts

yes.

Polonius3:

also build characters

absolutely NO.

Polonius3:

shape attitudes and good citizenship

no, teachers says it's parents task. Parents don't like when teachers teach their kids how to behave.

Polonius3:

In your view, that percentage of young people's personality building can be ascribed to the school,

Huge % but it's the peers influence not teachers

Polonius3:

the church

Little teens believe in God. The next generation is highly atheistic.

Polonius3:

the media

Stereotype says that huge, but the truth is that much smaller than people thinks.

MrBubblesThreads: 13 Posts: 768 Joined: Nov 13, 07 ♂	Dec 4, 10, 19:15 #3
Poland has the highest percentage of students getting to tertiary education in Europe and the lowest per capita spending. What do you reckon?

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Dec 4, 10, 19:52 #4

MrBubbles:

Poland has the highest percentage of students getting to tertiary education in Europe and the lowest per capita spending. What do you reckon?

It creates a situation where vast amounts of peope have "papers" but very little skill or ability for the real world.

Polish education is a mess, and needs total reform to make it relevant for Europe. It doesn't help when full time teachers work as little as 18 45-minute classes a week.

zetigrekThreads: 59 Posts: 2,709 Joined: May 20, 10 ♂	Dec 4, 10, 20:13 #5
delphiandomine: It doesn't help when full time teachers work as little as 18 45-minute classes a week. what do you mean?

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Dec 4, 10, 21:42 #6

Yes, but work does not end at school. Teachers have papers to correct, lessons to plan, parents to meet, teachers' conferences to attend, etc.
On a different score, seems everyone is passing the child-rearing buck. Parents say: school will straighten him out (of a misbehaving kid). Teachers say it's the parents' job to rear the youngster. When there was conscription Polish parents said of an unruly teenager: the army will straighten him out... Everybody seems to be hoping someone else will do the straightening.....

zetigrekThreads: 59 Posts: 2,709 Joined: May 20, 10 ♂	Dec 4, 10, 21:51 #7
Polonius3: Polonius3 you'd be shocked to see how kids in Poland behave now... but it's mostly a fault of the przydział rejonowy do szkół (hehe just like in the USA!). Of course kid can change school freely but everywhere he will go he will find that 1/3 of school is menelstwo (sorry for Polish worlds, I'm lacking of equivalents)

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,833 Joined: Apr 11, 08 ♂	Dec 4, 10, 22:42 #8
Menelstwo = underclass, crudballs, slummies, juvenile delinquents, scum, riffraff and a slew of others.

zetigrekThreads: 59 Posts: 2,709 Joined: May 20, 10 ♂	Dec 4, 10, 22:45 #9
Polonius3: Menelstwo = underclass, crudballs, slummies, juvenile delinquents, scum, riffraff and a slew of others. how about przydział rejonowy?

Polonius3Threads: 1,005 Posts: 4,833 Joined: Apr 11, 08 ♂	Dec 5, 10, 00:03 #10
Maybe districting.

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Dec 5, 10, 00:47 #11

Polonius3:

school is a place the make dates, stock up on drugs and smash up expensive sports cars with the educational aspect a definite also-ran. That's in good neighbourhoods. In bad ones it is armed security guards and metal detectors designed to weed out knives and guns.

Wow, I've never heard about it in my city. I went to gymnasium with bad reputation, but never saw security or guns. Bad boys sometimes after school went to nearby park to smoke ciggaretts and take drugs, but still, they were rather 'discovering new worlds' than taking hard drugs.

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Dec 5, 10, 09:55 #12

delphiandomine:

a situation where vast amounts of peope have "papers" but very little skill or ability for the real world.

Not to mention that they do something like 12 different subjects at high school. They get to university without any real depth of knowledge - the content is all memorised from lessons for exams, most of which of course is promptly forgotten.

Polonius3:

Teachers have papers to correct, lessons to plan, parents to meet, teachers' conferences to attend, etc

The teachers I know do very little planning and I know for sure there isn't the same level of pastoral care / professional development required in the UK. If they are so busy, how come they find time to do private classes?

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Dec 5, 10, 10:07 #13

delphiandomine:

It creates a situation where vast amounts of peope have "papers" but very little skill or ability for the real world.

As opposed to non-elite English schools which produces people seem to lack both (AFAICT).

delphiandomine:

Polish education is a mess, and needs total reform to make it relevant for Europe.

I'd say many of the current problems stem from attempts to 'make it relevant to Europe' and letting the snowflakes express themselves instead of working at learning things.

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Edited by: 1jola Dec 5, 10, 10:08 #14

MrBubbles:

Not to mention that they do something like 12 different subjects at high school.

When I was a kid in Poland I had chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, and biology in primary school. Then I went to the U.S. where I jumped a grade and had SCIENCE.

delphiandomine:

It creates a situation where vast amounts of peope have "papers" but very little skill or ability for the real world.

Apparently your "paper" didn't prepare you for much. Teaching English to foreigners is what most backpackers can do also, and do.

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Edited by: zetigrek Dec 5, 10, 10:36 #15

mafketis:

I'd say many of the current problems stem from attempts to 'make it relevant to Europe' and letting the snowflakes express themselves instead of working at learning things.

Yes, Polish pupils got poor scores in the international competency tests in literacy. That's why on Nowa Matura you can get half points just because you can READ... I feel that something must be really wrong with those international tests which are to compare level of education among countries.

1jola:

botany

Now kids don't know how Buk's leaf look like (including me, hehe...)

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Dec 5, 10, 11:55 #16

I remember reading an analysis of Polish literacy some years ago in wyborcza. Once past the headline hysteria (Poles are illiterate!) there was nothing very shocking. AFAICR the scores on different kinds of texts were mostly around European averages but Poles scored _very_ low when it came to understanding written instructions.

This should surprise no one who's worked in a Polish environment.

Back to schools. Some dirty little secrets of education:

- teaching is mostly easy, learning is hard,

- teachers can't learn for children, the children have to put in the work themselves,

- if the parents don't stress working hard in school, the kids won't,

- if the parents don't respect teachers the kids won't,

- if the kids don't respect the teachers or work very hard they mostly won't learn very much

The problems with Polish education in the past were:

Too much tracking too early - a lot of smart but undisciplined or unfocused kids (and smart and unfocused very often go together in kids) got put into the vocational track while some average but obedient children got put into the more academic track. Once put in a track it was very hard to break out (upwards at least).

Too much emphasis on memorization for memorization's sake. Memorization is good tool for some tasks and a handicap in others.

Finally, there's no such thing as a good school outside the context of the culture it appears in, what works in Britain won't necessarily work in Germany and neither will necessarily work in Poland (or vice versa). Any reforms of education have to take place within a framework of traditional cultural values.

zetigrekThreads: 59 Posts: 2,709 Joined: May 20, 10 ♂	Dec 5, 10, 12:31 #17
mafketis: Poles scored _very_ low when it came to understanding written instructions. That's because we like to think too much and looking for a catch... ;)

convexThreads: 46 Posts: 7,185 Joined: Nov 25, 09 ♂	Dec 5, 10, 12:36 #18
mafketis: Any reforms of education have to take place within a framework of traditional cultural values. A good start would be to undo all reforms since 1989.

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Edited by: zetigrek Dec 5, 10, 12:49 #19

mafketis:

Back to schools. Some dirty little secrets of education:

one more secret:

- school is not for teaching biology/chemistry/physics/geography etc. School is to teach you learning abilities.

How many times I heard from my peers "why do we have to learn this?!", "I don't need this to know, I can look it in encyclopedia when if I need it some day", "I won't learn maths, I'm a humanistic mind and I don't need math for my college aplication" etc.

Oh please people, competence means that you should learn EVERYTHING you are obliged to, not only the chosen subjects you think you will need (actually by chosen subjects we should recognize literally nothing as kids usually don't learn anything but looking for excuses).

Now when I'm 20-something I think to myself that there was so many nice things to learn at school and school was great opportunity to discover the world which I unfortunately did not use...

And even knowing such unuseful information that Brasil is the biggest breeder of cattle, which undoubtly is not a kind of knowledge which let me earn any money, I still can be proud to know why the hell they cut their Rain Forests so eagerly! ;)

Something to summarize the situation (a polish comedy show):

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Dec 5, 10, 12:59 #20

zetigrek:

How many times I heard from my peers "why do we have to learn this?!", "I don't need this to know, I can look it in encyclopedia when if I need it some day", "I won't learn maths, I'm a humanistic mind and I don't need math for my college aplication" etc.

The best solution for this would be to simply have two tiers of classes - one compulsory "practical" class and an optional theoretical class. I loved practical science, but hated the theory - and I think decent practical classes would encourage people to engage with the subjects, even if they hated it. Then - to ensure that everyone has enough hours in school, you just have to insist on a minimum number of theoretical classes.

MrBubblesThreads: 13 Posts: 768 Joined: Nov 13, 07 ♂	Dec 5, 10, 16:56 #21
1jola: When I was a kid in Poland I had chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, and biology in primary school Well done! I'm sure you were exemplary in all of them.

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