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Post by Bonobo on Jul 21, 2011 18:24:17 GMT 1
Cheating rife in Polish high school exams
19.07.2011 12:02
Poland’s Central Examination Committee (CKE) has registered a rash of cheating in this year’s Matura exams, the key hurdle that pupils must clear before starting higher education.
According to the committee, over 750 pupils were caught cheating in this year’s tests. Over half of the culprits fell foul in mathematics.
The unauthorised use of crib sheets was noted both in private and state schools.
Amongst the most heavily penalised regions was the Swietokrzyskie region, where as many as 193 students had their exams annulled. 114 of these instances were in mathematics.
The Central Examination Committee is investigating reasons why such an increase in cheating has taken place this year in mathematics.
It so happened that 21 percent of pupils failed mathematics this year, a poorer result of some seven percent than last year.
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Post by valpomike on Jul 22, 2011 3:59:49 GMT 1
Here in the U.S.A. many cities have been found out, to be changing test scores, and this was done by teachers and directors, to keep funding. Now this is being looked into in many places. This is not fair to the students, parents, or the tax payers.
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 19, 2013 22:51:39 GMT 1
Breaking traffic rules is a national sport. For two weeks municipal guards in Warsaw`s two districts have fined 80 pedestrians for crossing the street on the red light. tvnwarszawa.tvn24.pl/informacje,news,80-mandatow-za-przechodzenie-na-czerwonym,76971.html Typical excuse: No car was approaching the junction. |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 28, 2019 21:15:10 GMT 1
Jeanne, you have been always amused by the Polish propensity to claim their rights to private property. We talked about it in Fence thread and others. Here is an extreme example showing a gate which a private owner put on a public path which goes through his/her land. Now hikers can`t use this trail. Definitely, there is a gap in Polish law about it. krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/7,44425,24354385,plot-i-brama-przegrodzily-doline-kluczwody-szlak-zostal-zamkniety.html  |
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Post by pjotr on Mar 1, 2019 18:44:21 GMT 1
Poles are entrepreneurs
Poles are taught at school about communism as a social system but do we really know what it meant for those who had a chance to experience it themselves? Empty stores, propaganda, censorship but also a universe of funny things which tried hard to be better than what it was.
After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, the average Pole gained the freedom to run a private business. That’s when it became clear that we are a highly entrepreneurial nation. Back then, very many people founded their own small businesses, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the new capitalist system instituted in Poland. Today, several Polish firms opened after 1989, such as the bus and tram manufacturer Solaris and the video game company CD Projekt ‒ creators of the Witcher series ‒ are among the most respected companies in the world.
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Post by pjotr on Mar 1, 2019 18:51:00 GMT 1
Poles often take their entrepreneural spirit abroad. Sometimes they create import & export trade companies between their country of origin and their new homeland (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the USA and Australia).I have found out that there are smart, entrepreneural, beautuful, corporate, Polish businesswomen in the Netherlands. Polish immigration to the Netherlands has steadily increased since Poland was admitted to the EU, and now, an estimated 135,000 Polish people live in the country. Most of them are guest workers from the European Union contract labour program, as more Poles obtain have light industrial jobs. The number of Polish nationals could double in the next decade, depending on economic conditions in Poland. Most Poles in the Netherlands are in The Hague (30,000), but Polish émigrés have been long settled in Amsterdam and industrial towns or cities like Utrecht and Groningen. Polish immigrants arrived to find employment in the country in the 19th and the 20th centuries. Belgium has 70,000 Poles, but the number of Belgians of Polish descent could be as high as 200,000). Luxembourg had almost 3,000.
Fact is that today there are not only Polish agricultural workers, Industrial workers and construction workers, but also Polish university and vocactional university students at Dutch universities and vocactional universities. Polish highschool pupils at Dutch International schools and in the case that their parents have settled in the Netherlands permanenty, they go to Dutch highschools too.
You also have Polish artists (painters, sculpturers, 3D, Graphical designers), musicians and dancers in the Netherlands. Since the Polish community in The Hague contains 30 thousand people there will be a lot of professions that are done there by Poles. The language will be hard, but Polish children will learn Dutch quickly at primary schools and highschools.
The Polish culture is not very different from the Dutch. There are some differences, but not a big gulf between the two cultures. The Polish immigrants who come to the Netherlands are young, with secondary or higher education. The Polish immigrants in the Netherlands receive much and often negative attention in the Dutch media.
The image of the Polish immigrants in the Netherlands was neutral, and not negative, which contradicted the first hypothesis; the Dutch citizens think that the Polish immigrants in the Netherlands are hard workers, who sometimes have to be sneaky and act smart to survive in a foreign country, however they are loyal and friendly people, but often shy and reserved.
The identity of the Polish immigrants in the Netherlands was negative and certainly more negative than their image, which contradicted the second hypothesis; the Polish immigrants in the Netherlands percept themselves as hard workers, however sneaky, frustrated and hypocrite, able to do anything just to achieve their goal; besides they are noisy and messy, especially after having too many drinks but very proud of being Polish up to being arrogant sometimes.
The Polish perception of the image of the Polish immigrants in the Netherlands was negative and certainly more negative than real image which contradicted the third hypothesis; they expect that the Dutch perceive that they work hard; they think that the Dutch find them sneaky, frustrated, hypocritical, very messy and noisy but hard workers, proud and rather not timid; this result was close to the result of identity investigation.
In order to better understand why Dutch percept Polish immigrants in the Netherlands better than Polish themselves and why the identity of the Polish immigrants is negative it is recommended to carry similar projective tests as proposed in this study classifying the results with respect to: the length of stay in the Netherlands, the social status, education, age and gender.
The method applying pictures in combination with the scale of Likert is highly
recommended for similar studies as proposed here.
Source: essay.utwente.nl/59504/1/scriptie_A_Lubczynska.pdfen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_diasporaculture.pl/en/article/8-typically-polish-traits
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Post by pjotr on Mar 1, 2019 19:31:22 GMT 1
Poles
Poles have made important contributions to the world in every major field of human endeavor. Notable Polish émigrés – many of them forced from their homeland by historic vicissitudes – have included physicists Marie Skłodowska Curie and Joseph Rotblat, mathematician Stanisław Ulam, pianists Fryderyk Chopin and Arthur Rubinstein, actresses Helena Modjeska and Pola Negri, novelist Joseph Conrad, military leaders Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski, U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, politician Rosa Luxemburg, filmmakers Samuel Goldwyn and the Warner Brothers, cartoonist Max Fleischer, and cosmeticians Helena Rubinstein and Max Factor.
Because of rapid industrialization and urbanization, as well as a certain distrust of rural conservatism during the years of communist rule, Poland’s traditional folk culture has been seriously undermined since World War II. Regional dress, regional dialects and forms of speech, peasant arts and crafts, and religious and folk festivals have all been swamped by mass culture from the cities and the media. In an effort to compensate, the Roman Catholic Church has tried to preserve the religious elements of folk culture, notably in the large annual pilgrimages to shrines such as Częstochowa, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (a UNESCO World Heritage site), Lanckorona, and Piekary Śląskie. Similarly, the communist authorities supported folk music and folk dancing. The colourful and stylized repertoire of the State Folk Ensemble, Mazowsze, for example, won international acclaim. Several regional communities, including the Górale (“Highlanders”) of Podhale, the Kurpie in the northeast, and the inhabitants of Łowicz, near Warsaw, have created an authentic blend of the old and the new culture.
Classical music festivals also are quite popular, particularly those commemorating Romantic pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin (Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen), though the music of Beethoven is celebrated in Kraków in spring and that of Mozart in Warsaw in summer. Traditional Polish cuisine includes hearty dishes such as duck soup (czarnina), red beet soup (barszcz), dumplings (pierogi), smoked salmon and eel, sausages and sauerkraut, and pork and poultry dishes, the latter often served with a sweet sauce. The products of both gardens and forests, such as horseradish, currants, cabbages, gooseberries, and mushrooms, figure in many Polish dishes, such as bigos, which makes use of cabbage and freshly harvested mushrooms, and the traditional soup called grzybowa.
Poland weathered the global economic downturn that began in 2008 better than most of its EU partners, and the Polish electorate returned the Civic Platform party to power in the 2011 parliamentary elections, making Tusk the first prime minister since the end of communism to serve a second consecutive term. Civic Platform captured about two-fifths of the seats in the Sejm and was poised to continue coalition rule with its junior partner, the PSL.
Later the National conservatives of PiS took the vote and power and transformed Polish politics into their direction. For people abroad who missed contact with Poland for a long time (decades), the Poland of today is a strange, alien country which has transformed and modernized completely. Even the language of 2019 will be different than the Polish language of Poland in 1967 when my mother left Poland.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by jeanne on Mar 3, 2019 0:48:03 GMT 1
Jeanne, you have been always amused by the Polish propensity to claim their rights to private property. We talked about it in Fence thread and others. Here is an extreme example showing a gate which a private owner put on a public path which goes through his/her land. Now hikers can`t use this trail. Definitely, there is a gap in Polish law about it. krakow.wyborcza.pl/krakow/7,44425,24354385,plot-i-brama-przegrodzily-doline-kluczwody-szlak-zostal-zamkniety.html Here in the U.S. we have "Right of Way" laws. If a person owns land which leads to a public place, they are required to submit to having a right of way across their land. For example, I live near a large river which many people use for fishing. My neighbor's land abuts the river, so there is a trail where they must allow others to cross their land to reach the river. Also, on my daughter's farm in the state of Vermont, her neighbors have a right of way to access their house which is surrounded by my daughter and son-in-law's land. When the neighbor bought the house a few years back, they wanted it written into the contract that my son-in-law would snowplow their driveway because it went across his farm land, and they figured since he had the equipment, he should plow it (They get a LOT of snow in Vermont!). Needless to say, that did not go over well with my son-in-law, so it didn't get written into the contract. But in all fairness, I must say that there are people here who attempt the same type of thing as the Polish person who put up the gate! Usually, though, they are forced to remove it... |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 3, 2019 10:25:48 GMT 1
Here in the U.S. we have "Right of Way" laws. If a person owns land which leads to a public place, they are required to submit to having a right of way across their land. For example, I live near a large river which many people use for fishing. My neighbor's land abuts the river, so there is a trail where they must allow others to cross their land to reach the river. Also, on my daughter's farm in the state of Vermont, her neighbors have a right of way to access their house which is surrounded by my daughter and son-in-law's land. When the neighbor bought the house a few years back, they wanted it written into the contract that my son-in-law would plow their driveway because it went across his farm land, and they figured since he had the equipment, he should plow it. Needless to say, that did not go over well with my son-in-law, so it didn't get written into the contract. But in all fairness, I must say that there are people here who attempt the same type of thing as the Polish person who put up the gate! Usually, though, they are forced to remove it... Sooner or later such laws will be also introduced here so I don`t worry too much. Currently people are only taken to court if they put a barrier and somebody gets hurt. |
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Post by jeanne on Mar 4, 2019 0:05:31 GMT 1
Sooner or later such laws will be also introduced here so I don`t worry too much. Currently people are only taken to court if they put a barrier and somebody gets hurt. I get your point, but sometimes the "wheels" of government turn v-e-r-y slowly, so you may be waiting quite awhile for the laws to be put into practice! 
I think we previously discussed the saying, "Don't hang by your eyelashes waiting..."  |
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Post by Bonobo on Mar 19, 2019 8:29:35 GMT 1
Sooner or later such laws will be also introduced here so I don`t worry too much. Currently people are only taken to court if they put a barrier and somebody gets hurt. I get your point, but sometimes the "wheels" of government turn v-e-r-y slowly, so you may be waiting quite awhile for the laws to be put into practice! Poland has been quickly adopting European law so I think I will live to see it introduced. |
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Post by Bonobo on Jan 30, 2020 12:03:05 GMT 1
Poles can be generous. They bought a new truck for an Iranian driver whose old one broke down in Poland. www.rp.pl/Spoleczenstwo/200109450-Iranski-kierowca-dostal-ciezarowke-Wraca-do-domu.html www.thefirstnews.com/article/iranian-truck-driver-left-stranded-in-poland-finally-gets-new-truck-after-original-sale-fell-through-9647
The story of an Iranian trucker stranded in Poland has taken a new twist after the purchase of a new truck fell through.
In December, Fardin Kazemi who was carrying goods from Iran through Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and finally to Poland came a cropper when his 30 year-old-truck broke down leaving him unable to return home.
Fardin met the Polish Ambassador to Iran Maciej Fałkowski and personally thanked him for the help he had received in Poland.Help International - Polski Kontyngent Pomocy Irańskiemu Kierowcy/Facebook
Polish truck drivers and motor-enthusiasts quickly rallied to help and after organising a public fundraiser gathered an astonishing 99,000 zlotys within less than 24 hours.
But just when he was about to buy a new truck, Fardin again found himself stuck when the seller backed out due to the international embargo on Iran and the possibility of a high fine.
Fardin’s daughter sent a video message to everyone involved in helping her father, saying: “Poland’s dear people, we love all of you very much. You were angles for my father and saved him. We don’t have the words to thank you.”
In a situation that seemed helpless, Fardin flew home to meet his family after a long separation and to figure out his next move.
Whilst there he visited the Polish Embassy in Teheran to thank Poland for the hospitality he experienced and his daughter sent a video message to everyone involved in helping her father, saying: “Poland’s dear people, we love all of you very much. You were angles for my father and saved him. We don’t have the words to thank you.”
Fardin had been using an American International 9670 lorry from the 1980s to deliver goods from Poland when he broke down.Help International - Polski Kontyngent Pomocy Irańskiemu Kierowcy/Facebook
On January 7th, Fardin once again returned to Poland after managing to find a new truck from DBK Group through his new online pals who received a personal message of thanks from the president of Iran’s Driving Association, Khoy Ali Reza Ali Yari.
He wrote: “On behalf of the great people of Iran and the hard-working drivers of this city, we are very proud of all the wise and watchful citizens of Poland, as well as the hospitable drivers of the country and the drivers' union, and we thank for the humanitarian assistance to our dear Iranian driver.”
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 30, 2021 12:51:41 GMT 1
Another important Polish trait I would like to write about is traditional Polish individualism . Poles like doing things on their own, they tend to minimalise the influence of the state on their life, sometimes even reject it, preferring to remain self-reliant and independent. Individualism is a noble trait but it can also create problems. E.g., cooperation is our weak point. There is a saying: when 3 Poles meet, they have 5 points of view. It means each Pole has his/her own opinion and it is hard to persuade people they should ease up on sticking to them so stubbornly. SO, giving up one`s opinion is hard for a Pole ( but sometimes it does take place in order to combine effort and achieve a mutual goal, especially in times of troubles, like anti-communist Solidarity movement in 1980s). That is why all cases of unexpected coperation are dubbed as sth unusual in Poland - e.g, this light tree connecting storeys and people. Imagine - it was enough that one neighbour refused to join the enterprise and the whole idea would have failed. But nobody did! Amazing! kurierlubelski.pl/6pietrowa-sasiedzka-choinka-zdobi-balkony-mieszkancow-przy-ul-jantarowej-w-lublinie-zobacz-zdjecia-i-wideo/ar/c1-15960001 |
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