The Polish school year is long. Ridiculously long. The final day of the 2003/4 school year, for example, was 25 June. That's insane.

Class 2d (Class of 2005) passes the time

Before you start thinking that Poles are like the Japanese (i.e., they go to school many more hours than American students), I would point out that although Polish students go to school later in the year than American students, they don't go to school longer. The difference is how the breaks are spread out.

Sławek plans his next move as Basia looks on

For example, winter break. It's not the same as Christmas break. Instead of ending the first semester in late December, the Polish school system ends it in mid-January. So we get two weeks off for Christmas, go back to school for two or three weeks (each year it's a little different) to finish the first semester, then have two more weeks of winter break. Talk about momentum-destroying.

Józek and Michał plot while Sławek and Marta look on.

It's especially frustrating because those two weeks are wasted. The first week all you hear from students is this: "We just came back from break! We want easy lessons!" Getting them to do anything is virtually impossible without threats. The second week all you hear from students is this: "We have a break in a week! Come on! We want easy lessons!"

The board (I was prudishly hesitant whether to let "sex" go, but I thought, "Come on — I teach English, and that's an English word. The girl who made the play also explained that she meant it as in gender — impressive given the fact that they're two different words in Polish.)

The end of the year is, unfortunately, just as bad as the beginning. Grades are finalized two weeks before the end of school — try getting students to do anything when they know their grades are already set.

What to do? Play educational games, perform skits, do music-based lessons — try not to waste at least the first of those two last weeks. The inset pictures are images of the final week of the 2003/4 school year as the kids played UpWords, a variation on Scrabble that allows stacking letters to change words (i.e., "bed" to "bad").