On her social media page, Zuzanna Mróz describes herself as a Chronic Pedagogue. She suspects she is addicted to giving advice. Since she does not know—and would be afraid to tell someone—what they should do, she advises people on which books to read, because she knows many excellent books that can provide inspiration.
“After thirty years, I had had enough of doing the same thing over and over. I longed for a change,” says Zuzanna Mróz about her departure from the first secondary school. “For a long time, I had dreamed of running a cultural and educational blog, because both fields are my passions and I now want to devote my activity to them. Besides, today’s school is not a good place either for teachers or for students. The former are under enormous pressure from the authorities and parents, as well as from the need to implement unrealistic and often simply foolish curriculum requirements, while children and young people are so overwhelmed by the amount of material they have to absorb that they have no time to breathe. This situation causes enormous frustration on both sides and, unfortunately, often aggression as well. It is a deadlock, and no one is looking for a way out of the oppression. I have the impression that the existing education system should be demolished and an entirely new structure built from the ground up. I am also deeply concerned by the fact that Polish schools are so outdated; they do not educate people for the present and the future at all, but keep forcing them to wallow in the past, promoting attitudes that were certainly suitable in the nineteenth century, but not today,” the teacher adds.
Can young people be interested in high culture?
“Ways of engaging young people with high culture can be found if we genuinely care about it,” Zuzanna Mróz argues. “And we should, because familiarity with it makes it easier to understand the processes taking place in the contemporary world. High culture develops contextual thinking, teaches people to analyse phenomena and facts, and enables them to experience reality more deeply. So how can this be done? Naturally, the family environment plays the greatest role in cultural education. If parents read books and go to the cinema, theatre and exhibition openings, children absorb this model naturally, without giving it any thought. Schools also have enormous scope for action here, provided that this work is done by wise and properly prepared teachers. There are many possibilities, including the New Horizons of Cinema film education programmes, with their ambitious repertoire; discussion clubs devoted to films and books, also operating in our city; and interesting multimedia exhibitions in museums. I believe that Bolesławiec’s Museum of Ceramics has interesting offerings for both older and younger visitors, as well as excellent guides. In addition, Bolesławiec has a theatre and a cultural centre with excellent art studios. If we want something more, we can go to the theatre in Legnica or Jelenia Góra—both offer fascinating performances as well as meetings with people from the cultural world. I believe that cultural education should be a priority for today’s school, but unfortunately few people understand this, so the current situation is plain for all to see,” Zuzanna Mróz adds.
The book that Zuzanna Mróz reviewed with great success tells the story of a girl abused by a literature teacher. In a review titled “Harm Disguised as Love,” the Polish teacher wrote:
Violence, sexual abuse and paedophilia are highly sensitive and prevalent issues affecting so many people that it is probably unsurprising that they are reflected both in documentary texts and in fiction. Among the many works devoted to this subject, I came across Kate Elizabeth Russel’s novel My Dark Vanessa, which I sincerely recommend to readers, particularly parents, teachers and teenage girls, who are often fascinated by older, wise, interesting and caring men.
More at: FB Chronic Pedagogue