Finals, Cold and the UK

Welcome to finals time in Poland (and most other universities in Europe). Whereas US colleges start in August and end their term in December, many European institutions do not begin until October and end in February. Actually, many of my colleagues and students here think we are nuts for starting so early, as August and September are prime holiday times. Why waste them being in school? Good point.

As noted in previous blogs, I am teaching four classes this term. I have already given three finals and have one more to go. Then comes the fun part of grading.

Grading is also different here. They (as in most of Europe) uses a numerical scale 2 to 5. A “2” is not passing. A “5+” is the best you can get. It is similar to our system of As. Bs. and Cs, they just use 5s, 4s and 3s.

The other strange thing for me is the lack of student confidentiality. In the States, grades are closely guarded. It is a sacred relationship between the professor and student. I even can’t discuss grades with my student’s parents. It is as strict as the priest/confessional relationship (there is even a federal law about it called FERPA). We might hurt a student’s feelings if their grade was distributed to the rest of the class....

Here everything is open. You literally post on your door all the student’s names and their grades, for all the world to see.

I had a very hard time doing this with the first exam. I have had FERPA drilled into my head for so many years. So, I wanted to distribute the grades individually. All my students protested, as they insisted they saw their grade as well as their classmate’s grade (and no feelings seemed to be hurt). So, when in Rome (or Poland.....). I now just email out a spreadsheet to the entire class with everyone’s marks on them. And everyone seems happy. In the States, I would be fired.

Another difference is that student’s carry around with them a special book that has all their classes and grades recorded. It is called an Indeks (Index). They receive it upon entering the University and once they complete a class, they have to go to the professor to fill out that class’s page and their grade. It is almost like a passport of grades. You need to show the Index to move on in your studies and to graduate.

As Lisa noted in her blog, January was slow. It was rather cold outside, so we were forced to hibernate. The cold is not so bad when you have a car. But when you rely on public transportation, getting out can be miserable. In fact, on many a morning I refused to walk, wait for a train and walk some more to work. So I took cabs (life’s too short when you are a wimp).

Our house had been a little cold with some drafts. I just mentioned it to our landlord, thinking they might want to add some more weather proofing in the spring (the house is rather new). Within 15 minutes of our conversation, the entire family was at our house working away in subzero weather. Amazing people. The drafts immediately disappeared. Our landlords are very, very good people.

This weekend we decided to get out. This region has so much to offer. There is still much we have not seen. We decided to take a tram down to the National Art Gallery in Old Town Gdansk. It is a gorgeous building that was a Franciscan Monastery in the 16th Century. It is a medium sized museum full of local art as well as a great collection of Dutch artists. It was nice enough to walk around for an hour or so, but no so big that the kids got bored.

On Sunday, using the same idea of getting out, we decided to go to Mass at the Cathedral, which is several miles from our house. Everyone had told us how gorgeous the Cathedral was. We took the tram 25 minutes and followed my map to the big church and attended Mass. Only after Mass was completely over did we discover we were NOT at the Cathedral; but just at a regular Catholic church. The Cathedral was two more blocks down. Keep in mind almost every church in Poland is old and ornate and Catholic. So telling the difference is sometimes hard. We will have to make it to the actual Cathedral at some other time.

Finally, we are getting ready for our between-semester break. We get about 10 days off before the second semester begins. As we have such a long time, we decided to make another big trip. This one to the UK (via airplane). We will be in Edinburgh, Scotland for 1/2 the time, then fly over to Dublin, Ireland for the second half of the trip. We are flying over on the super-discount airline: Ryanair.

We will have lots of blogs from the UK.