Polskie szkolnictwo powszechne województwa śląskiego (1922-1939)

Abstract

The present study concerns the condition of the Silesian elementary schools, the pupils’ learning achievement, and the teachers’ work, that is the three fundamental factors defining the functioning of the educational system in the region. We can find here also some information on the ideological struggle going on in the Upper Silesian schools. The present work shows th a t the actions undertaken by the Silesian authorities a t that time served the purpose of adapting the regulations valid in Silesia to general Polish standards and of making the Upper Silesia an integral p a rt of the Polish Republic. The topic which the au th o r chose has n o t been yet properly researched, even though some of its aspects have been discussed in various doctoral dissertations and other academic papers. The present work has a historical n atu re and tries to address in a comprehensive way the following issues: 1) the specific features of the Silesian province, as an autonomous administrative unit of the inter-war Poland, which determined the unique character of the Silesian elementary education; 2) the o rganisation and functioning of the Silesian educational authorities; 3) the condition o f the Silesian elementary education and its material foundations, the conditions in which children were learning, and the problems connected with the construction and upkeep o f schools; 4) the questions concerning the learners: their achievements, promotions, attendance, fulfilment of school duties, and the application of the corporeal punishment; 5) the process of implementing in the Silesian educational system new standards and schemes of teaching consistent with the bill of the Polish Parliament of March 11, 1932, with the principles of the regionalist movement, and also with the assessment of the didactic and educational work of the Silesian schools; 6) the process (and its origin) o f the struggle, waged between the Church and the teachers together with educational authorities, for a specific ideological shape of the Upper Silesian schools; 7) the number o f the teachers, their origins, their efforts to improve their professional qualifications, their participation in the social and cultural life of the region, problems concerning the pragmatics of teaching, the teachers’ salaries, and also the problems connected with the acceptance and effects of the so called “ celibate law” which limited the right to work in their profession for married female teachers. The wide range and variety of the issues presented in the present work made it impossible to discuss some of them in a sufficiently exhaustive way. The source material for this study was provided by the State Archives in Katowice and Cracow, the Archive of New Documents in Warsaw, the Archdiocese Archive inKatowice, the Archive of the Polish Teachers’ Union in Warsaw, the school chronicles from the years 1922—1939, printed official periodicals, reports, statistical materials, manifestos, and programmatic documents issued by the Silesian bishops (the documents from these sources are not always complete, or continuous). The author has also made use of various studies concerning the schools, published in the inter-war period, and after 1945, and of dissertations on the above mentioned problems, printed in Silesian and general Polish periodicals in the in ter-war period, and after the Second World War. The author’s analysis is completed by the syllabi, reconstructed by the author herself, carried out in the Silesian schools, and also by the statistics presented in several tables, and appendixes. By showing the results of her research, the author wanted to outline the characteristic features of the Silesian elementary schools which, in spite of Silesia’s autonomous status, functioned in keeping with the general Polish standards and norms. They had, nevertheless, some distinctive flavour determined by remnants from the past, untouched either by the local Silesian, or the general Polish law. There were, for example, 4 hours a week of religious instruction, 8-form schools, the fact that the school headmasters, in some areas of the province, often also filled the post of an organist at the local parish church, or the binding force, in the years 1926—1938, of the so called “Silesian celibate law”.