The Wacky Bulgarian School System...

During the communist period between 1945 and 1989, the Bulgarian education system was strongly influenced by Russia and their way of doing things. But in the last 15 years or so it has had some great fundamental changes. I am not aware of what exactly the Russian style of teaching was, but even today I still see some very communistic ways. When I or any other teacher walks into the classroom, the students are obligated to stand. They remain standing until the teacher directs them to sit. If the students are late for class, they stand at the door, profess their apologies and sit only when the teacher instructs them to do so.

Do you remember when you were in high school? You had certain classes and you moved around the school attending your different classes with different classmates. Well, another odd aspect to the education system here in Bulgaria is that the students stay put and the teachers move around the school. The same 25-30 students are placed in a classroom and those are the students that will be together for the next 4-5 years. They stay in one classroom and the teachers come to them. Needless to say, the classroom walls are rather bare as it is not one teacher’s classroom but a classroom shared by many teachers.

And instead of the normal 8:30 to 3:00 school day, most schools here function in two shifts: the morning shift form 7:30 to 1:20 and the afternoon shift from 1:30 to 7:20. At my school, the 9th and 10th classes are in one shift while the 11th and 12th are in another shift. And because I work at a language school, the 8th graders have 20 hours of English a week. They are at school all day from 7:30 to 6:30. (That is longer than the typical 9-5 job!)

What about grades? They don’t have the A, B, C, D, F system but rather the 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 system. It’s a big deal if you get a 2. This means poor, but really is the failing grade. It is rare for most teachers to give this out. Parents would have a field day.

The teachers’ duties are also slightly bizarre. We are required to prepare a year plan. This is a year plan of the material to be covered with each class group and schedules all textbook lessons to be taught as well as reviews and tests. This plan must be approved by the principal. This is a mighty hard task when you don’t teach from a textbook like myself. And me being a volunteer, they asked me not to bother. Then there is the “Dnevnik.” Each class of students has its own dnevnik. This is a big notebook that keeps tracks of the students’ absences, term grades and other comments written by the teacher. It is brought to each class each hour by the teacher who is teaching the class. And finally there is the “Materialna Kniga.” This is a large book placed in the teacher’s lounge. Every class is written in this book. After every class, you must write a short summary of what you taught that day and sign it.

So that is the wacky Bulgarian school system today. I am sure I did a horrible job of explaining it and probably missed some other important aspects I am just not aware of yet. But since I don’t speak Bulgarian above the 1st grade level, what do you expect. It all sounds very weird and confusing, but you catch on really fast.