Plutarch among teachers, Herbert among students

Agnieszka Janiak, PhD
Institute of Journalism and Social Communication
Lower Silesian University in Wrocław

Motto:
Man is not a vessel,
to be filled,
but a bonfire that needs to be lit
Plutarch

From year to year, I observe with double sadness – the methodology of educating educators and mothers of schoolchildren – how this beautiful postulate of Plutarch in the Polish educational space becomes completely abandoned, not applied.
The dual perspective – professional and personal – means that for fifteen years I have been comparing educational models functioning in different countries.
In March 2013 I visited Canadian schools, Polish schools in Canada, American schools and finally – Polish schools in Chicago.
On March 9, I had the opportunity to spend Saturday at the K. Pulaski Polish School in Chicago (Gen. K. Pulaski Polish School, 6740 West Montrose Avenue, Harwood Hts., IL 60706).
I conducted a lecture combined with an analysis of Zbigniew Herbert’s poem for students of classes VIII and high school, I participated in Polish language and religion lessons, I was explained the principles and how the school functions, textbooks and teaching aids were shown. And above all, I met students, teachers and parents.
I did not ask if the local educators could quote Plutarch’s maxim – what they can certainly do is to implement it.

Working conditions
1.In comparison with Polish or even Canadian school buildings – American ones invariably surprise me (unfavorably) with their uncomfortable temporariness, ugly utilitarianism – behind the representative hall there are winding corridors and walls of barely painted (or not) hollow blocks, archaic and primitive (although always clean) toilets, etc.
Pulaski’s school has a school building rented for weekends – Polish teachers consciously care about making students feel cozy and at home, that they identify with the school. I was brought in before the start of class – the teachers were just coming down – rolling their suitcases behind them. From the suitcases were extracted self-purchased as well as ingeniously made decorations, photos, boards, maps, flags, emblems of pictures – the work began definitely before the lessons. The rooms have been interestingly arranged. After the lessons, this effort will be repeated.
2. The teachers’ room – a comfortable sanctuary in Poland – does not exist, the headmistress perched in a school bench in the gymnasium to complete the documentation. Although I did not hide my surprise – no one complains.
This organization of space is a reflection of the priorities adopted in the school.
3.Lunch – prepared by parents – fresh, appetizing
4.Textbooks – those that I saw at Pulaski’s school and two others in Chicago, seem to me too difficult – both in the selection (and excess) of literary texts and in the language layer, they also do not refer to the American cognitive perspective, they operate a different form of giving knowledge, which makes it difficult for students to do so. For teachers, they will thus put up just one of the many teaching aids they use and not a coherent program that can be trusted and consistently implemented.
5. Teaching aids – inventive, authorial, individually adapted to the classes – the possibilities and interests of students – because they are hand-prepared by teachers with their own efforts, costs, time and creativity. Most are patentable and introduce recommended school programs.

Quality of work

Preparing for the visit to Pulaski’s school, aware of the very diverse knowledge of the Polish language by students, but unaware of what and how is discussed with the Polish youth, I proposed for a joint analysis of several poems by Zbigniew Herbert, so that teachers would choose the most bearing one for their pupils.
They were asked to give a lecture based on the most difficult of the proposed ones. Mr. Cogito’s message for Polish students of Polish studies and journalism is a poem ungrateful to read and analyze because it is dense with references to the cultural universe, requiring knowledge of the realities of Polish recent history – and what seems incomprehensible to my students at the moment – propagating, even authoritarianly imposing ethical obligations, resulting from a system of values completely unpopular today – actions for the benefit of those harmed at the expense of the sacrifice of their own lives.
I was to discuss such a poem with students of the Polish diaspora school – for whom the American model of life based on consumerism, pragmatism and hedonism is obvious, for whom Polish is their second and often very foreign language. Its knowledge is extremely diverse – from those who express themselves freely to those who are reluctant to use a resource of about 200 words, although they understand much more, of course. The former are few and far between… In addition, there is a diversity of the so-called cultural capital, which is taken out of the home, different emigration “seniority”, etc.
This challenge turned into an unforgettable (for me) lesson;
Four classes of students of the oldest classes, a huge group of engaged, instantly interacting, listening to each other with respect; laboriously, with difficulty and patience gnawing through Polish contemporary poetry. Four classes of students who spoke little Polish, who had no problems understanding the meaning and pronunciation of Herbert’s poem – this is a discovery that surprised me.
The text at the linguistic level was poorly understood, it was obvious to them in the message.
With the analysis and understanding of the poem, with which contemporary Polish students are doing worse and worse, Polish students had no problems. This is a paradox for a philologist, whose explanation I found by participating as an observer in Polish and religion lessons and talking to my parents.
In this weekend school – and I hope in others too – parents and teachers pass on values, name values, discuss values – and support each other in this educational activity. It is not necessary to understand literally the phrase golden fleece of nothingness when it is understood that man realizes himself in a cooperative community
towards the common good, and this good is defined.

Thank you-
students for their inquisitiveness, commitment, warm smiles and spontaneous gratitude;
teachers for great openness, kindness, consent to prying and answers to uncomfortable questions and endearing hospitality;
parents for appetizing bread sandwiches with a taste unparalleled in the USA, as well as determination and perseverance in equipping their children with Polishness;
Headmistress Agata Michalkiewicz for the energy and passion of a social activist and professional – contagious and palpable throughout the school;
and, above all, Mrs. Joli Plesiewicz, the coordinator of my visit and her spokeswoman, who organized my stay in details that are difficult to predict and who deserves all the above-mentioned words of appreciation.

In the K. Pulaski Polish school, teachers with the support of parents – for a symbolic remuneration, at the expense of their free time and family life, carefully preparing lessons and independent teaching aids, without institutional help, on weekends they light a bonfire and make sure that it does not go out…
So it seems that I have found those who feel that they are the addressees of the analyzed poem by Herbert – regret that so far from the Polish, relief that they are.

Agnieszka Janiak, PhD
Institute of Journalism and Social Communication
Lower Silesian University in Wrocław

Zbigniew Herbert
Message of Mr. Cogito

Go where they went to the dark end
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last reward

go upright among those on your knees
among those with their backs turned and torn to dust

you survived not to live
you have little time you need to give a testimony

be brave when reason fails, be brave
in the end, that’s all that matters.

and your wrath powerless be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the humiliated and beaten

let not your sister leave you Contempt
for spitz executioners cowards – they will win
they will go to your funeral and throw a lump in relief
and the bark beetle will write your orderly resume

and forgive not indeed not in your power
forgive on behalf of those betrayed at dawn

but beware of unnecessary pride
watch your clownish face in the mirror
repeat: I was called – were there not better ones

beware of the dryness of the heart love the spring of the morning
bird with the unknown name winter oak
light on the wall splendor of the sky
they don’t need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will comfort you

watch – when the light on the mountains gives a sign – get up and go
as long as the blood turns your dark star in your chest

repeat the old spells of humanity fairy tales and legends
because that’s how you will get a good that you will not get
repeat big words repeat them stubbornly
like those who walked through the desert and died in the sand

and they will reward you for what they have at hand
flogging laughter at a murder in the garbage can

go because only in this way you will be accepted into the group of cold skulls
to the group of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
defenders of the kingdom without end and the city of ashes

Be faithful Go

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