Българска Работа

The school-year is beginning to wind down and the students are mentally absent as per usual for the last week of school after all the important tests are done. Personally, I've been fighting a cold all week (fighting the cold as well as the acknowledgment that I actually am sick as I am not normally one to succumb to such weakness) so my head hasn't really been in it. I hope to make up for that next week when I pass out free smiles, hugs, cheers, and sarcastic remarks (I save the sarcastic remarks for my students that know they should not have passed my class but did and have absolutely no understanding of my foreign sarcasm).

Speaking of students passing my class when they really shouldn't have, all of my students passed!!! Yay!!! No. It's not exciting. It's kinda sad to tell you the truth but that's simply the way the Bulgarian school system works. "Works" just doesn't seem like the right word. Let me try again. That's simply the way the Bulgarian school system breaks. Better.

Let me break it down for you:

My school is in a small village of 2,000. There are just enough students here to fill my primary school from 1st through 8th grade but because the parents here can send their students to any school they like regardless of location, many of the children here go to the big and fancy school in Kostenets, the much bigger town about five minutes away. We receive our funding based on enrollment so the lack of students on our part presents a problem, one that the teachers and directors are trying to solve at all costs. This means, if a student fails every test, skips school, disrupts the lesson throughout its entirety, never does homework, and learns next to nothing, the student passes. That's it. They pass. Because, if they don't pass every class, they have to repeat that grade. The parents, generally, don't like this. So, they'll send their student to a different school where they automatically, upon enrollment, go on to the next grade. So, we pass them. And pass them and pass them until they've mastered the system so well that they are capable of not studying, doing basically whatever they want and getting away with it. Wouldn't you do the same if you were 13? I probably wouldn't have but that's based more on my strict and demanding parents than an innate sense of morality, values, or an appreciation for my education.

A book was mailed to me recently by some friends in the States called Whatever It Takes. It's about education in poor urban areas like Harlem and how the culture and socioeconomic factors contribute to student achievement (or the lack of). It's been really interesting and reminds me a lot of Bulgaria. It's so easy to blame parenting or a poor school system for students who graduate (or don't graduate) without knowledge or proper skills to strive in a competitive economy. What's not easy is doing something about it. Changing the way parents view schools and education. Changing the way schools are run and making sure that every child is given the opportunities they need to succeed. Not easy.

What's also really frustrating is that I know my students are fully capable of learning English. They may not all be capable of fluency but they can certainly learn a thing or two and do well on these tests. Maybe even attend a language school and really advance themselves. But, they don't have to, so they don't. Understandable from a pre-teen's perspective but borderline depressing from a teacher's point of view.

I do have smart, hard-working students who make me proud. However, these students tend to be the one's who've always been taught to. In other words, they did well when they were young, back when everyone paid attention cuz they were too little and scared not to, and they turned out to be the best for one reason or another. After being labeled "the smart kids", they were the one's the teachers focused their attention on, forgetting the rest. It's common and really unfortunate. Learning is easy for them because learning is all about them. For the rest of the students, I imagine they think, "why even bother?" They're being left behind and it's considered their fault regardless of the fact that they are only 9-years-old.

I'm realizing two years is not enough. A lifetime is not enough when there's only one of me. I hope that, as a whole, combined with other Bulgarians who see the light and really care, there will be a change in the Bulgarian public school system and soon.

There are some really brilliant folks here and this place is full of potential and promise, it's just a matter of making the necessary changes. It's not gonna be easy though, that's for sure.

-Age