At the beginning of each school year, we—teachers, parents, educators and catechists—consider what needs to and can be changed or improved in our educational and upbringing activities so that we can best prepare young people for life in an increasingly complicated and difficult reality.
The fact that the school fails to meet most of the expectations placed upon it is indisputable. It requires profound change. The matter is extremely complicated and delicate. But there are areas of its activity over which we do—or can—have a significant influence, here and now. The aim is for the school to become a unique center of cultural and intellectual life for the given locality (integration with the community). It is also important that its students be able to recognize the most important problems in their surroundings, discuss them constructively and, as far as possible, influence positive change. This far-sighted goal can be achieved in various ways. At the Primary School in Ocice, we have already developed certain traditions—which we hope will prove lasting. The subject “civic education,” treated very instrumentally in the past, has now become a platform for interesting, creative activities at our school.
Mrs. Stanisława Potocka, village head of Ocice and a councilor in the previous and current terms of office (we warmly congratulate her on being re-elected), supported us very effectively in our educational work concerning this subject. Thanks to her efforts, the students attended a session of the municipal council in Jelenia Góra as well as several sessions of the Municipal Council. Intensive, methodical intellectual work before and after attending the sessions meant that the local issues discussed there provided the students with many profound experiences (the discussion of Marek Kotański’s idea concerning Pstrąże aroused particularly strong emotions). We also hosted representatives of the local authorities during lessons. Mrs. Ewa Surma, village head of Nowa, spoke to us in a particularly engaging way about the problems of her everyday work.
At the initiative of the School Council, with substantial assistance from the Municipal Council and GOKiS, we organized a school competition provisionally called the competition for dreams (“Advising the Councilors”). Every student could “become the village head of their village” and take a position on its important problems. They could also imagine their locality ten years from now as a journalist. They could also write whether they were happy to live in that particular locality. The students’ involvement exceeded our expectations. It is also very important that we managed to bring representatives of various communities together on the competition jury. It was chaired by Mrs. Stanisława Potocka; councilor Mr. Kazimierz Turek also served on it, as did parish priest Edmund Tkocz and GOKiS director Mr. Franciszek Popek. The competition’s extremely important integrative function became evident here. (The main principles of the competition and its course were described in “Głos Bolesławca” and “Kurenda”.)
For several years, our students have participated in a regional historical and ecological competition. It so happened that we were always finalists. Last school year brought an extraordinary success: the Primary School in Ocice took first place in the region. Mrs. Stanisława Kleszczyńska—under whose guidance the students collected materials and wrote their papers—is the principal creator of this remarkable achievement. (The students whose papers received such high marks were Krystyna Kuchar and Agnieszka Ostrowska.) We would like to continue our school traditions, especially since they involve many people from outside the school, which is highly significant. Our dream is for the competition described above, which last year was a school competition, to become a municipal competition this year.
Therefore, we take the liberty of warmly inviting the directors, teachers, students and parents of all schools in our municipality to cooperate. We would like to develop together—or improve an existing one—the most beneficial format for the competition, as well as its organizational arrangements. We are deeply convinced that this is one of many ways to teach students—future decision-makers and politicians—to look responsibly toward the future. After all, that is primarily what we seek to achieve through our educational efforts. Perhaps our initiative will interest the Reverend Parish Priests—we await your proposals. We hope that, as before, the councilors of the Municipal Council and GOKiS will support our efforts. We would be highly satisfied if the mayor, Mr. Kazimierz Gawron, agreed to become the honorary patron of our municipal competition. Taking this opportunity, we warmly congratulate the Mayor on his re-election.
We hope that, as before, the Municipal Council and the Mayor will care deeply for the schools in our municipality—because without this, our work as teachers means little. Anyone interested in the proposed municipal competition is asked to contact us...