Janez Demšar, October 24, 2025

Sending Out the Materials for the Excursions

There are several jokes among teachers at their own expense. Teaching is supposedly the only profession where you steal from home in order to bring things to work. And then there is the one about how every respectable medieval ruler had his own composer and confessor, while a teacher needs their own carpenter and computer technician.

In short: the idea that a teacher is simply someone who walks into a classroom and carries out a teaching process according to pre-prepared lesson plans on prescribed forms and in accordance with a prescribed curriculum exists only in the minds of the (Slovenian) Ministry of Education. In reality, a teacher is everything from a nurse and a babysitter to a printer, carpenter, and electrician. And, in our case, a postal worker.

The Four Excursions into AI project involves 50 schools and more than a thousand students. One of the biggest expenses for schools is paper, and one of the most time-consuming tasks is — in our case — cutting it. So we decided to leave the printing, cutting, and sorting to a real printing company. We also bought (and counted!) the colorful pebbles used in the Candy computer activity.

This was certainly very kind of us, and mildly inconvenient for the owner of the office, which had meanwhile turned into a warehouse. (The new faculty building is, after all, a “gem” of Slovenian architecture, which — when we moved in — looked like a warehouse temporarily converted into a prison. So, in a way, the office was serving its original purpose. :)

So poor Ana spent the whole day in a “cell”, counting sheets of paper, pebbles, and little cups. The author of this post (and owner of the aforementioned office) could only help her during breaks between lectures and meetings.

Anyway: after a long day, the materials are packed, and the postal courier has been instructed to come tomorrow with a larger vehicle. May the packages serve their purpose well!