Recently, we have seen a proliferation of various subject Olympiads, school and interschool competitions with local, regional or nationwide reach. It might seem that everything has already been done and that nothing new or even original can be invented in any field. Yet the literary competition announced by Aldona Wilas, a teacher at Zespół Szkół Handlowych i Usługowych Aldonę Wilas, proved to be a surprising educational project.
A literary competition differs slightly from all the others because it is not knowledge that matters, but talent. Talent cannot be created. You either have it or you do not. It can be developed or neglected; one may even fail to discover it within oneself, and that is a real loss. As someone once said, a person is born without an instruction manual and often searches for a long time before finding the right path in life. Therefore, literary competitions give young people a chance to discover something within themselves that, given today’s overloaded school curricula and teachers’ extreme overwork, could remain hidden for a long time or forever.
In my opinion, that is what happened this time as well. I am far from promoting the frequently repeated formula used in such situations that all the texts were good, but we could award only a few. No. The texts varied: some were weak, some very average, some had potential but were not fully polished, and of course there were good ones. The best of them received awards. First place in the category of upper-secondary schools went to a text by Adrian Prościak, a student of Zespół Szkół Handlowych i Usługowych in Bolesławiec. It is a fantasy story entitled “Cadmiium weqqer – The World of Anxiety,” written in such a mature, truly excellent manner that it would be a shame to think it might remain somewhere in a drawer and never see the light of day or a reader’s eyes. A little encouragement and, surely, support may perhaps help this young man achieve a great deal in this field of literature and in any other, if he so wishes.
The first prize in the middle-school category went to Dagmara Chrzanowska from I Prywatne Gimnazjum in Bolesławiec for the text “Behind the Glass,” which was strikingly genuine. Without resorting to addressing major social problems or using cheap rhetoric, the student wrote a story that reveals her inner sensitivity and talent.
The next two awarded texts are also worth noting. The text “Searching for Oneself” by Karolina Turek from Zespół Szkół in Osiecznica, and the story by Karolina Borowska from I Prywatne Gimnazjum in Bolesławiec (submitted to the competition without a title), are equally interesting and offer hope that, with a little perseverance and work, their authors will achieve a great deal.
(information: Iwona Banach/ii)