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Back home in Scotland!

Finally we are back home and Philip, Carolyn and I were all really sad to be leaving Poland. It has been a very intense but incredibly interesting visit for us. Poland is very different in some ways from Scotland and other countries in Europe, but there are also many similarities, mainly in the attitudes and ways of young people. It's great to know that the world is not really that small after all!

The Podcast will defintely be broadcast this Monday. It needs some editing as there is new material and cutting to do. I need to go and relax after the long journey but I will leave you with our lasting memory of Warsaw, where we stayed last night.

Many thanks Zabrze for your welcome. A special thanks to your teachers, especially Beata for being an excellent host and showing us all your region has to offer. We'd love to continue hearing from you as you develop your ideas on borders. Perhaps you can post the thoughts that you develop with Martin and Marta from the Katowice film school, and with your Geography teacher Bogusha.

THANKS AGAIN! Do widzjenja!

Podcast coming soon - from Warsaw

The first ever MGS Podcast is likely to come from Poland - a very fitting testament to the theme of borders that we have been discussing! It will be posted from Warsaw later tonight or tomorrow.

Here are some photos of part of the group making their Podcast reports on the themes of borders in Poland and Europe. Their views are very interesting and might be similar to what young Scots believe.

The other group took part in some filming that you will be able to see from 2006. No sneaky peaks now!

From the chalkface to the coalface

Here are some fantastic shots of our visit to one of Zabrze's coal mines. The pictures show the strong lift machinery that carries 150 men in three storey lifts down to a depth of 500 metres below the surface. In the ice cold of the caverns we crept and crawled through three foot high seams to bring these photos to you. A fantastic experience!

Our welcome in Poland

As we talked about borders once more this morning, the issue of national traditions and dress came up. I thought you might be interested to see the way that we were greeted to Poland by two students in the school. We arrived to Caroline (NOT Carolina!! ;-) and Adam, dressed respectively in traditional Polish women's clothing and a miner's uniform (the country and this area of Silesia are both famous for coalmining).

We were then offered some bread and salt as the local traditions give this as the way to welcome visitors. And very welcome we felt!

A brief report on BBC and Mr Mc Intosh visit to Poland!

Dreams DO come true. The very renowned BBC producers together with your wonderful teacher Ewan visited us! The project they have set up has engaged our youth and at last we (teachers, I mean) could see them from a different perspective. Most of them have shown their eagerness and willingness to do something unusual, challenging....The interesting issue of borders, identity and culture has been raised. Now, divided into working groups the pupils are to keep on working more independently.
The visit was also a great opportunity to learn your teacher Ewan better. We are thinking now of some mutual programmes. May be a pupils' visit??? We need to carry on working with  you, as we want to have the opportunity of coming to know you better. Ewan has told us a lot about you and so we want to get to know you better. If you have any ideas for future project, do come up with them.

Morning from Zabrze

Hi all!
Yesterday was a fantastic day in the school, and I would have liked to put some more photos up this morning but the hotel's computer is a little old and, for once, we DON'T have the technology!
We took the Polish teachers out for dinner last night and I have learned some more Polish to confuse my classes when I get home.
The afternoon was spent away from the chalkface fo the school and at the coalface of a Silesian mine. You'll have to see the photos later this morning to believe it!

Until then...

borders

hi mr mcintosh and the polish class its class 2a and we're in french right now and we have asked the class about your borders questions and here  is what we came up with.

yes the borders are important and seperates countries and made them independent.

We have them because countrys need identified to put on maps

we say that nobody makes the borders but they were being wide saying that the people who make maps draw them

Djen Dobre again - some photos

Mr McIntosh, Beata (our English teacher host and star who drove us around most of Silesia yesterday!) and Philip, Senior Producer at BBC Scotland. Here we are standing outside an 11th Century Benedictine Abbey (built before the Norman Conquest of 1066). The sun is out and so are the shades and tee-shirts!

In Krakow city centre is its most famous church. You cannot take photos inside, but you can see how beautiful it is from here. This is where I had my first taste of Poland. The prices in restaurants are SO low compared to home. A soup can cost only 1.50, a main course of steak and chips (very Polish, I know  ;-) can cost just 4 pounds.

The city walls of Krakow.

More photos and the Podcast of the morning's work will be posted Friday midday.

Djen Dobre from Poland!

Hi folks, especially the S2 pupils following the blog.

Well, Philip, Carolyn and I arrived in Krakow yesterday to some beautiful sunshine. It was apparently only 15 degrees, but it felt a LOT warmer than the 15 degrees we have in Scotland. We had a very quick tour of Krakow, some lunch and a drink, and then went shopping for some of the amber stone that comes from the coast in Poland, near Gdansk (look it up on the map of Europe) and is sold everywhere in Krakow.

Today we have been shooting some film and getting to know the class in Zabrze's school. It's a small class - only 14 or so people - but it has been great working with them. They speak wonderful English and tomorrow you will be able to hear soime of them speak in MGS's first Podcast from Zabrze, Poland!!!

We have been discussing the idea of borders and it's been really interesting. Zabrze (pronounced Zabrshee) used to be half German, half Polish until quite recently. The hotel we are staying in is on a road that split the town into two countries.

So are borders important? Why do we have them? Who draws them? Why do we need passports to travel when we are all in the EU?

If you have any ideas on this to help tomorrow's discussion please leave them here.

Otherwise, wait for tomorrow Podcast show and find out what our Polish friends say.

our school

hiya its siobhan and jade again and we are going to tell you a bit about our school. Our school is one of the two high schools in musselburgh the other is called loretto private school but the majority of pupils in musselburgh go to musselburgh grammar (our school).

In our school we are split between 4 houses caird,morray,seaton and grange we are in morray. A house is a group of pupils, about 300 pupils per group. There are 1340 pupils in our school.

Bye siobhan and jade