School's Out!

I learned a lot about the educational system here in Macedonia over the last seven months and I still have a great deal to learn. But I am not sure I will ever understand it. The students who went to “summer school” last week finished up and so it won’t be until September that we’ll have students to work with. That doesn’t mean the teachers won’t be seeing each other. Their attendance is required for a few hours each day until the 5th of July. I’m still not sure what is expected of the teachers during this time, now that the cumbersome grade reporting system has been completed. I understand they report back to school in August, weeks before the students return.

Most students in the fifth through eighth grades take 14 or 15 subjects each year, so documenting and accurately recording each student’s progress is a monumental task. But the teachers know the routine and get the job done in a timely manner. The students pick up their promotion certificates and final grades about two weeks after the last classes and exams. During this two week period while they are completing all the paperwork, the teachers receive calls from concerned parents asking the teacher to please consider giving their child a higher grade. There is also a formal appeals process that enables parents to actually challenge a teacher’s final grade. So grade inflation is a chronic problem.

Directors at the high school and primary schools dictate that every child will be promoted much to the dissatisfaction of the teachers. I’ve been told that not one student has had to repeat a grade in at least the last eleven years at the Nikola Karev Primary School. Classes are filled with students who are years behind their peers, somewhat neglected and lost and who present a great challenge to the teacher who must teach in a de facto multi-level classroom with no resources. Using a 7th grade English textbook with a student who has the knowledge base of a 3rd grader is the only course of action that the teacher has.

Other little quirky things (from my perspective) that I’ve observed include the fact that, by law, teachers are not allowed to collect money from the students. So when her class went on a field trip, Alexandra had to watch over the shoulder of a student who actually touched the money and counted it. Students must pay for the paper upon which the teachers prints their exams. The money collected, of course, by one of the students. Students who get a One (a Five is the highest grade) as their final grade must attend “summer school” which entails a five day/ten hour opportunity to make up for a school year’s worth of non-learning . A student who receives three Ones must repeat the school year (there are plenty of candidates who have these credentials) but as I mentioned above, no student maybe left back. So one of the student’s teachers is “asked” to inflate the One to a Two. To compound the issue, teachers receive no stipend for teaching “summer school” so any borderline students who could possibly benefit from an extra week of class, are upgraded to a Two, limiting the “remedial “class size.

The upbeat news is that today’s leadership in Macedonia is aware of many of the issues that I mentioned. Efforts are being made to change those aspects of an educational system that has been in place for decades. It will take some time to accomplish but the 20%’ers will see it through.

I did get to employ some of my wrestling skills that I used to use on my brothers when we were growing up on Long Island. I had to break up two different classroom fights during the last weeks of school. In both cases two boys were going at pretty well. They watch a lot of WWF wrestling here and the boys were head-butting, choke holding and attempting to throw chairs, ignoring the potential consequences of their actions. They wouldn’t comply with the Alexandra’s demand to stop. I reluctantly stepped in and employed my infamous Half-Nelson (that used to bring my brothers to tears) on one of the boys so that I could immobilize him momentarily and position myself between the combatants, thereby preventing any serious injuries. My technique worked and there were no tears or cries of pain or running to mommy like my three brothers did.

My standings as a martial arts expert rose considerably in the eyes of the students who witnessed the events. I received kudos and high fives and word of “Michael’s moves” spread amongst the school population. Ironically, Alexandra has a martial arts Black Belt but she let me handle the situation. As is the case in Probistip, the boys who were fighting were seen later in the day, once again good friends, hanging out together. Perhaps they were relieved that their altercation was broken up by the referee and there wasn’t a winner or a loser.