The author undertakes the topic of the Polish language education undergoing constant reform. She refers to the fact that the reformers disregard established didactic conclusions and take into account neither the students’ needs nor the subjectivity of both young people and teachers. She indicates restrictions imposed on the spheres of school leeway and, at the same time, the expansion of the prescribed duties. Additionally, she points to the school curriculum overload. While underscoring the flaws of the literary mandatory readings’ chronological ordering, she elucidates that the contemporary perspective, which have been introduced in teaching, is largely ostensible. What she proves is that editors of new Polish language school books simply multiple requirements towards teenage students and their humanist formation. She denies the purposefulness of teaching multitude of terms to students, and reminds us that such a rote learning trains memory but does not teach one how to think. She describes the petrification of knowledge of language and omission of communicative learning, which both stem from the core curriculum and the conservatism of handbooks. She is convinced that what is genuinely important may transpire at school outside the core curriculum and the scope of school books.

The author of the article stresses that what constitutes the purpose of humanistic education is showing the world from different perspectives and ambiguity as its inherent ingredient, which should be approached as both didactic and axiological challenge (especially in the light of concept of young people’s civic education). In this context he proposes to have a glance at cultural microcosm (of today’s Israel) described by Paweł Smoleński in his book published in 2019 entitled Wnuki Jozuego [Joshua’s Grandchildren]. The Polish author of reportages shows in the said book how — based on the example of Jewish Israeli settlers in the West Bank — dealing with religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity and experiencing them on the daily basis, paves the way for radical views and, consequently, for unifying the past, present, and the future. Many among Smoleński’s interlocutors/interviewees, however, touch upon the need for open dialogue, accepting otherness, and various outlooks on the most burning issues. Therefore, the story thus told may be treated as a warning against believing in only one righteous truth, as well as against the said belief’s negative influence on the sphere of public exchange of thoughts.

The article invites the readers to approach the city itself as a text of culture. We are to read it alongside other narratives/narrations (literary, artistic, and cinematic) devoted to it. The author traces how Katowice’s space has been transmuted into politically- and culturally-charged places, by distinguishing consecutive layers of the palimpsest (Polish village, building patterns of German and Polish times: the old and the new). The foregoing examples allow the author to indicate the traces of conceptions and ideologies reflected by architecture. He also includes some methodological recommendations/tips pertaining to reading the space.

Art and the notion of beauty related thereto are both disciplines and states which are quite unobvious and thereby requiring us to ask the question: Why is it that human beings have in their minds an inherent need to witness the beauty along with — resultant — need to create and receive art? The author of the text — by devising some neurobiological tools — attempts to elicit relative laws of beauty reception, and simultaneously she utilises the instruments of neuroaesthetics, which is a field of science that investigates the impact of art on processes taking place in the human brain. She explores, among other things, mechanisms put to use, consciously or otherwise, by artists in order to make their works a peculiar stimulus. The author describes a series of “tricks” used by visual arts creators who model the particular ways the visual perception processes function.

The article’s aim is to compare the specificity of two theoretically quite remote professions — that of a film director and a teachers. The analysis of differences and convergence points of the said jobs is to capture and particularise the potential of their mutual inspiration. What constitutes the exemplary material around which the presented research revolves are: the elements of the school didactic-upbringing process, work with film crew, and producing and theatrical play. Significant reference points for the analysis were the greatest role models in the field of pedagogics and film directing.

The article discusses observations pertaining to one of the basic aims/objectives of education, namely: reception and analysis of a text read by students with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) at the 2nd stage of their education, as well as the form of abridgement of the text (based on the example of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days) to suit the needs and capabilities of special-needs students. The conclusions presented herein result from pedagogical observations conducted during many years of a Polish-language teacher’s work focused on students with ASD in one of Warsaw’s elementary schools. They point to the necessity of individual facilitation of the entire process of reception, analysis, and interpretation of the text read in order to meet the needs and capabilities of a particular student-reader. Selection of suitable text and the abridgement thereof to the level of a child with developmental disorder classified as ASD, must take into account the preceding diagnosis and special educational needs mentioned in a psychological and pedagogical counselling centre’s medical opinion.

The aim of the article is to discuss the issue of key competences and to show examples of didactic solutions related to their education in the scope of Polish language education and educational work. The author focuses primarily on social and communication competences. She presents the assumptions of pedagogical innovation, which assumes youth project activities. She also points out the benefits of casting students as explorers, seekers, and creators.

The article’s theme concerns challenges encountered in the 21st century in the course of language communicative education within the scope of Polish as a native language. The author expresses conviction that socialisation process does not substitute for education, and therefore one of the paramount purposes/aims of language education within the scope of native language is to cater to the language-communicative needs of students stemming from cultural transformation taking place in the contemporary world. New tasks that a Polish language teacher needs to face are developing the so-called new communicative competency which facilitates communicative acts in media-dominated world of today, including digital media. The said tasks also involve counteracting the lowering of verbal communication standards, particularly the cases of verbal aggression and primitive vocabulary. 

The author of the article defines school communicative situation as the one requiring from the student an ability to use specialised language known as the language of school education. According to regulations currently in force, improving the fluency in the said language is a task of teachers of all school subject because knowing it is one of the conditions of attaining educational success. The article presents a proposal to work on a summary that includes the determinants of school education language.

The article presents the results of qualitative and quantitative analysis of questions asked during a single Polish language lesson. It consists of two main parts. The first presents and comments on the results of the teacher’s questions analysis, the second ‒ questions asked by students. The concept of Bogusław Skowronek was used, who distinguished four types of questions in his classification: 1) reassuring-instrumental; 2) substantive; 3) about the meta-didactic function; 4) not related to the classroom situation. The first two categories were specified in more detail by Elizabeth Perrott’s proposition, which distinguishes between guiding questions and questions for clarification among reassuring-instrumental questions, while she divides substantive questions according to the type of thought process launched during the answer and indicates lower-order and higher-order questions. The text ends with a summary containing not very optimistic conclusions.

The aim of the present article is to present the typology of listening comprehension skills activated during Polish language lessons. What the author claims is that in Polish school two types of listening co-exist, namely: natural and activated. The former resembles conditions of natural communication, since a student assumes the role of text recipient, whereas the latter is a process of teaching the skills of listening comprehension. Based on questions and instructions elicited from selected school handbooks shows in what way the activated type of listening comprehension is taught as a part of Polish as a mother tongue lessons.

The review article describes the effects of the hastily implemented reform of school education. Its effects were monitored by researchers whose observations appeared in the volume Dilemmas of Polish Studies in the reformed primary school edited by Zofia Budrewicz and Danuta Łazarska, published as part of the Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracovienesis. Authors from many academic centres address the topics of overcrowded high schools (the socalled effect of the double year), students overloaded with learning, return of rote learning, as well as the process of full centralisation in education management (no teachers’ participation in preparing reforms), or politicised programme changes and haste. The volume contains many texts that critically analyse the new core curriculum in the field of Polish language education. Repeated allegations include: anachronism, lack of autonomy in the choice of texts, deprivation of references to modern times, dominance of theoretical terminology, marginalisation of communication practice, etc. In addition, some of the dissertations contained in the publication are based on empirical research and examples of so-called good educational practices.