Poznan, Poland Oct 21st

Thursday, October 21, 2010We left our hostel at 7:00 am local (1:00 am at home) on a bus bound for outer edge of Vilskapolska Province. As you may remember, Poland is divided into 16 provinces. Poznan, as well as many other towns and cities, are in the Vilskapolska Province (sp?). In this province is 4000 schools and 500,000 students-very large and very spread out. So, we road on a bus to the first of 3 stops. The first school was Zespol Szkol Ponadgimnazjalnych in a town called Krotoszyn. I have their school letterhead that I'm copying from or I would have just said, "School" :) The ride to this school took over 2 hours by bus. The school is extremely old, you'll see that theme in my blog today, and the school was very unique. This high school has a program for high school students interested in becoming teachers. They spend 3 years taking general studies, but also having opportunities to work with university professors, observe teaching in other classrooms, do work with students, etc. At this school, 90% of students go on to a University after high school. They study a pedagogy curriculum and this program is called a vocational profile. They study multi-culturalism, pedagogy, etc. In this country, handicaps (EC students) are treated as a multi-cultural group. Students study how to connect with handicap students, make them feel acclimated, study how to incorporate these students in the school culture much like we do with multi-cultural students. They see handicaps as a culture. On the walls are projects they've done about the US. One of them shows "Sports in the United States." On this display it has pictures of the World Wrestling Federation and says that in the US, pro wrestling is the most popular and most dangerous sport. They had pictures of various pro wrestlers (fake wrestling for those of you who aren't familiar with WWF). We had to break it to them that WWF was not in fact the most popular sport. What else must they think about us???
The weird thing about today is that when we arrived, the local press were there for our meeting with the students. We met in a room with about 35 or so students in the audience. We introduced ourselves and they had a Q and A for us. (You can see some if this in my videos on YouTube. It's not great video because it's weird videoing an audience when you're on a panel at the front.) So, anyway, they had invited the press and the press was taking lots of pictures, etc. Apparently they don't get a lot of visitors. So as I was saying, the students in this audience are all high school students who hope to one day become teachers. They asked questions about USA, about our culture, etc. We found out that here education majors in college don't do student teaching. They do unsupervised volunteering in classrooms throughout their college experience and are asked to get 150 total hours. It is ungraded.
After an hour of sharing and Q and A, we were treated to our first meal, but not our last of the day. We met the staff and explained the project. The school is excited about partnering with American schools. They idolize America. They listen to American music, dress like American students, watch American films, etc. They love the NBA and NFL in the US, and they watch US movies online. If you met them, you could not tell by their interests, music or dress they were not Americans. Their English has an accent, but otherwise they have all of the same interests that our students do. We left this school and went to Hugokorrataj. It is the oldest High school in Poland and the site of the first national capital of Poland before one of their many wars. The school building is like a museum (again, lots of videos coming). The school has the most amazing architecture. Your mouth would drop. They have interior doors that are covered in a burgundy, beaded leather. It looks like castle doors. The building is 160 years old. These students talked continually about the history of their school. They take great pride in the heritage of the community and building. A very neat feature at this school is that any high school graduate that has ever graduated from this school and eventually earned a doctoral degree to teach at the University has their photo and bio on a "wall of fame." There were 40-50 total, some over 100 years old. Our guide and partner for this trip to Poland from UAM, Stanislaw (not sure of last name, we just call him "Stan"), actually graduated from this school and has a large memorial there. Even though we were 3 hours from Poznan, these students all knew him. They take great pride in their graduates who are successful. It was so inspiring. In Poland, all High Schools are either comprehensive high schools or profile schools that specialize and students apply to. The first school we visited that I explained earlier was a profile school for teaching. This was also a profile school, but I never did hear what the area of specialization was. Sorry. They again had a Q and A with us, but with no media thank goodness. They asked about ever being able to do a student exchange. Here is a real kicker. They have a "headmaster" who told us that he would pay for any student from Hugokorrataj that wanted to do a summer exchange (couple of weeks) in NC. He would pay their travel and spending money for US. In return, he would gladly partner NC students for a summer exchange here. One wasn't necessarily dependent on the other. Possibilities???? Again we explained the program and again they were gungho about become a partner. I get the impression that they would give any price to partner with US schools, learn from US culture, etc. It's humbling for our country and a little embarrassing. I hope we are a model worth wanting to learn from. They served us a meal, again, and we left for school number 3 for today. This was a long bus ride from the first two schools. The third school was still in the same province, but very far away. This town will blow your mind. The town and school are called Kalisz (pronounced like college). When it was founded it was called Calisia. Ok, Roman text from 150 BC mentions that Romans marched from Rome to the Baltic Sea to get Amber (not the person :) ) and they stopped along the way in the town of Calisia. So, this town has a history of over 2000+ years. The school again was like a museum. Large arched doorways, huge hallways, large ornate stairs and moldings, etc. This school too is a profile school specializing in math and science. We met with 8 students and 5 staff. All of these students spoke English and were some of the top students in the region. This school has very tough entrance standards and only the top students get in. They all take great pride in being in this school and you can see the big difference in how students value education here. They glow when they talk about their school. They can tell you prominent former graduates. They brag on having the best teachers in all of Poland. What makes this school even more unique is that their teachers do a process similar to PLCs!!! They are very interested in talking to American teachers about common issues, strategies, etc. They fed us heavy snacks and coffee. Another amazing thing about this school is that it was closed for students today because in this particular town, today is Teacher Day of Celebration and the schools are closed. We didn't arrive at the school until 4:00 local time. When Dr. Howard, a professor from ASU, asked why they were here today to meet with us on their day off, one male student said, "we love this building. We love to be here even when we don't have school." Now, granted, if you can tell from my videos, you'll understand why. It is like a historical landmark. These students actually tried out the online software we are using, Teleplace, and worked with some students in NC to try out the process. As expected, students take to technology like I do to chocolate éclairs. This school is very excited about the project. So, after an 90 minutes or so at this school the staff took us with them to join the rest of their staff (80+ people) for dinner at a restaurant. I thought it would be casual. NOPE. First of all, this restaurant was a banquet hall. It is obviously where major functions, weddings, huge parties, are held-chandeliers, banquet tables, 40 foot ceiling like in a civic center, disco ball from the ceiling, etc. (see on video). We ate with their staff in a 100 seat banquet room. There was DJ and everyone was dressed formally as if for a wedding. Well... in this area, the Teacher Day of Celebration is more than a day off of school. It is a holiday. We joined them for the celebration, 4 course meal, and THEY (not us) dined on vodka and sang celebratory chants, danced, and had a huge celebration. I resisted the temptation to dance. It was the weirdest thing I've seen in a long time. (Again, some video, but not sure if it is clear. It looks weird to video strangers celebrating so I try to be discrete which makes the footage look like a lapel cam). After our 4th meal of the day we rode back on a 2+ hour bus ride back to the hostel. Tomorrow we visit a high school, Maria Madalena in Poznan and have lunch with the Vilskapolska Province school board. These are appointed positions I've been told. We also have our first day of the conference we are presenting at. The conference program is at www.k2b.yoyo.pl/program.html The Poznan television station is recording some of the conference. The University is trying to use this conference as a first step to "PR" for their teacher prep program. This is getting much bigger than I originally thought it was set out to be. I’m excited that we can make connections for our state with other countries. If you have time, view some of the videos from today's schools if they are clear, to get the images I uneffectively tried to describe.