Bolesławiec Primary School No. 8 named after the Fighters for Freedom and Democracy has already "turned" 30... A beautiful and glorious anniversary. It is impossible to briefly assess the educational and social achievements of this unique educational institution, which have become part not only of the city’s biography, but also of the history of Polish pedagogy. It was here – like to Mecca – that ministers of Education and National Defence of Poland and the GDR, ambassadors of the USSR and Germany, consuls, and Hungarian, Czechoslovak, Yugoslav and many, many other European guests came. This school was always in Europe, too: it was here that a model of warm-hearted, innovative, pioneering work, close to children, was born. Here there was a unique climate and atmosphere borrowed straight from the works of Janusz Korczak, who holds a prominent place in the pantheon of outstanding Poles. Journalists, writers, artists with renowned names and scientists were always swarming here. It was to this school that the greatest contemporary statesmen wrote – UN Secretary-General Dr Kurt Waldheim (at the request of the "Eighth" he was awarded the "Order of the Smile"), US President Ronald Reagan, and USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev (also a Knight of the "Order of the Smile" at the request of Bolesławiec’s children). Here were established the only Gallery of Contemporary Painting and Graphic Art in our city, named after Dr Tibor Csorba; the Gallery of the Sculpture of the Peoples of Africa and Asia; the Mining, Maritime and Antarctic Museum (the only one in the country); and the Indian, Indonesian and Kashubian Rooms, along with dozens of others. It was the first school in the country to be awarded the Honorary Officer’s Sword of the Navy on board ORP "Błyskawica" and the Honorary Mining Sword, and it received 40 medals and badges of unique value. A school with a tradition, with its own publications summarising its comprehensive achievements, and with its own school medals, "Primi inter Pares" and "Friend – Patron". A school filled to the brim with hundreds of historic Eagles and standards in the Chamber of National Remembrance. A tradition so rich that it is enough for several generations of alumni and many volumes of pedagogical works. This tradition must not be lost, forgotten or buried, because without it the school will once again become bland, anonymous and colourless – like most educational institutions today.
I dedicate this credo to the teachers of the "Eighth", together with a series of pedagogical essays, the first of which we are printing today in "Głos".
In due course, we will also present the "biographies" of all Bolesławiec schools, describing their interesting achievements with the meticulousness of chroniclers. Human memory is fallible, and records are not infrequently falsified – in accordance with the needs of a particular "faction" or the demands of decision-makers. In Bolesławiec, there is no need to be ashamed of the multifaceted, authentic achievements of local education. Here, schools entered Europe first and, despite today’s educational malaise, they still remain in it.
And what was missing from the millennium school’s anniversary celebration? Above all, children – after all, it was their celebration, and they had always been the most important within the walls of the "Eighth". Class delegations could not replace the entire school community. The traditional hand-embroidered commemorative scarves were missing, as were a sea of flowers and smiles, an atmosphere of warmth, the rich colours of the classroom interiors – museums – and hundreds of exotic exhibits from virtually every corner of the world that inspired admiration and delight. The children’s guides, who served as museum curators and class hosts, were missing. If the school cuts itself off from its own roots, achievements and traditions, it will irretrievably lose its fame and identity. It will become one of many ordinary Polish schools. To the detriment of pedagogical progress and its own satisfactions.
Does the flight of students and teachers from Bolesławiec’s "Eighth" to the capital in a government aircraft, for a meeting and shared lunch with ministers, a tour of the Belweder and a meeting with the President of the Republic of Poland, plein-air painting sessions on the blue Danube with the Hungarian-Polish painter Professor Tibor Csorba, sea voyages of young sailors on the Baltic aboard the "Zawisza Czarny" and ORP "Iskra", and friendships with seafarers and the Polish diaspora scattered around the world mean nothing? Does the trip of a group of 30 students and teachers through the hospitable German lands from Berlin to Rostock, at the invitation of the education minister of a friendly country, mean nothing? It would be a shame to lose the tradition of a school’s work that is open, creative and close to children. One can cut oneself off from history; what remains then is distaste, mediocrity and loneliness as the price paid before one’s own conscience.
To the "Eighth", which is dear to me, and to the entire school community, I wish many more great successes.