Local superintendent may change face of educational ... - Krakow Post

DECEMBER 13-DECEMBER 19, 2007
Celebrating the year of
Stanislaw Wyspianski
the krakow post
The year 2007 is the hundredth anniversary
of the death of Stanislaw Wyspiański,
one of the most intriguing and broad-minded
Polish artists.
The phenomenon of Wyspainski consisted
of his versatile activity, fascinating even today
because of the variety of concepts employed
during his short 38 years of life.
He studied at Krakow’s School of Arts
(1884-1885 and 1887-1895) and at Jagiellonian
University (1887-1890 and 1896-1897).
As a student he helped Matejko (together
with J. Mehoffer) to create polychromes of
Mariacki Church (1889-1890). His creative
activity, realized mainly through pastel technique
(portraits, landscapes, flowers) was
dominated by symbolism and the secession
style. The main means of expression was
a twining line along a contour of depicted
items, which were marked through colored
stains. His polychrome projects and stained
glasses characterized the motif of blazing
flame and calligraphically treated plants.
In literature he is known as one of the best
drama writers, especially tragedies.
Referring to ancient tragedy, he showed
the role of fate as a main motive of action,
often localized in national historical reality.
In the late period of his artistic activity (from
1900), apart from historical and political
polemics against contemporary life (among
others “The Wedding,” “Liberation”), there
appeared a trend to philosophically interpret
Polish history (“The Legion,” “Boleslaw
Smialy,” “November Night”) and to show
mythological stories (“The Odys Return”).
Wyspianski was not submissive; he could
be classified as incorrigible and a rude artist.
For almost all his short life (he suffered
from syphilis) he fought against parochial
styles of thinking and middle-class conformism.
Stanislaw Wyspianski died on Nov. 28,
1907 and his funeral in Deserved Crypt at the
Church on the Rock became a huge national
demonstration.
The 100th anniversary of his death is the
occasion of several artistic events at the National
Museum in Krakow: exhibitions, theater
plays, multimedia shows. There also are
lectures and books about Wyspianski and his
artistic activity.
The main building of Krakow’s National
Museum has an exhibition entitled “Stanislaw
Wyspianski’s Great Theater.”
The multimedia show runs through March
2 and features static and motion pictures,
sounds and light, etc. Video screenings include
parts of theater, television and film
adaptations of Wyspianski’s dramas. Exhibition
visitors can stand inside scenery reconstructing
the scene from the premiere of “The
Wedding,” built according to the author’s
stage direction. Janusz Walek, creator and
custodian of the exhibition, says that the unusual
character of the show casts a spell on
visitors, expanding their imagination and allowing
them to see Wyspianski as a whole.
Through March 9, the National Museum
will display at a Szolayski tenement house
in ul. Szczepanska 11 an exhibition entitled
“You Pile the Stake Yourself…” The idea is
to remind visitors of the ceremonial funeral
of the artist and at the same time Krakow’s
last huge funeral ceremony organized by the
city council.
Laznia Nowa, a theater in the Nowa Huta
District, joined the celebration of the anniversary.
A music-theater festival, “Wyspianski
Liberates,” showed Wyspianski’s other faces
and ran from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2.
Also at the festival was a poster display
covering more than 30 billboards with such
slogans as “Krakow is not enough developed!”
and “I was beaten and that is why I
won.” The festival also included a play directed
by Paul Passini, “Resting,” and concerts in
which artists challenged Wyspianski’s texts.
“We do not want to embalm a mummy; we
will not close Wyspianski in a crypt” said the
artistic director of Laznia Nowa. “He was a
Pole who tore off the comfortable masks of
A R T S & I D E A S The Krakow Post 13
his compatriots. He was frustrated, furious
and defiant.”
Another exhibition worth mentioning
is “Stanislaw Wyspianski in the Art of the
Disabled.” It is at Kotlownia, the Gallery of
Krakow University of Technology in the ul.
Warszawska 24.
The exhibition will continue through Dec.
14 from Monday to Friday at 09:00 to 16:00.
There you can find 105 works made in different
techniques: painting, drawings, graphics,
ceramics, weaving.
The cultural events connected with the
anniversary of Wyspianski’s death are very
popular among foreigners living in Krakow.
“I am delighted by the talent presented by
Wyspianski,” said Inge, a Swedish student
living in Krakow for two years. “I did not
know him before. Now after participating in
two projects and visiting some galleries I will
probably write my MA on the topic of his
nonconformist way of living and creating.”
Local teacher looks to change
face of educational system
From SCHOOL on Page 1
The need to improve rural schools is so pressing
that Klosowski’s reservations are inane, Lackowski
said.
“The deterioration of education in rural areas,
where year after year more and more students
do not pass their exams and thus do not continue
school, is a huge problem,” Lackowski said.
“With school vouchers, there may be three
times more money for rural areas,” he said.
“Vouchers improve the equality of education. Better
teachers should go to rural areas and be better
paid.”
Krakow already has a voucher system but it is
not the kind that Lackowski and Hall envision. It
does not give parents the increase in power and responsibility
that the Lackowski-Hall system would
because it does not allow students to choose their
school. They must go to the one to which they are
assigned.
“It must be changed,” said Jaroslaw Gowin,
a member of the upper house of parliament from
Krakow.
“Otherwise people will become discouraged
about a really good idea.”
The Krakow voucher system does include one
provision of the system that Lackowski and Hall
advocate, however: It bases teachers’ salaries on
the number of students they teach rather than the
number of classes.
Another key difference between the Krakow
voucher system and the system that Lackowski
and Hall want is that Krakow principals have
no authority to manage their schools’ finances.
In other words, they can’t shift money from one
category of expense to a category where there is
a greater need.
National educational officials decide how
much a school gets – and the categories where it
is spent.
By being able to send their child to the school
of the family’s choice, parents would in effect become
managers of public-education funds.
“In such a situation parents show their power
in the educational market,” Lackowski said. “And
the school principal, when talking with parents, is
aware that he is speaking with the co-owners of
the school.”
The Lackowski-Hall system would also improve
teaching by pegging teacher salaries to
classroom effectiveness. Better teachers would get
more money, poorer ones less.
Lackowski said vouchers are a tiny part of the
educational change Poland needs.
Creating public support for reform means convincing
Poles to change the way they think about
education, he said.
“People must see that reform is an opportunity,
not a danger,” he said. The key is getting the public
to understand that “competition improves the level
of education.”
Under a voucher system, the best public schools
wouldn’t have to beg any more for money for elective
courses – those the Education Ministry doesn’t
require. Neither would the best schools have to beg
for money for facility renovations.
Private schools also would be likely to embrace
vouchers. That’s because the voucher system
would allow students to go to either private or public
schools. With money from vouchers, private
schools could reduce the fees they charge parents.
Henryka Bulat of Krakow, the mother of a junior
high school girl, is one parent who likes the
idea of vouchers.
In deciding which school her daughter attends,
she said, the voucher system will let her “take into
account the schools’ achievements.”
They would include the number of students in
a school who had passed their comprehensive exams,
the number of students who had won citywide
or regionwide academic competitions, the number
of electives a school was offering and the condition
of the school facility itself, she said.
“If I can influence the financing of a school,
why not?” she asked.
A Krakow teacher who wanted to remain anonymous
said it is hard for her to predict what would
happen under a voucher system because few details
of the system have been made public.
However, she said, her sense is that “if there is
a good principal who fights for his school then the
level of education (under a voucher system) would
be raised and that would be good for children.”
Without an aggressive principal, however, the
voucher system could cause such “huge problems”
that a school’s quality could diminish rather than
improve, she said.
Lackowski has so far offered no timetable for a
voucher system or other educational reform.
However, he said, “it would be best to introduce
reforms gradually.” In the case of vouchers,
that would mean introducing them “in big cities at
a secondary school level and afterwards gradually
extending them.”
“Vouchers should have been introduced in cities
a long time ago,” he said. “There is no reason to
assign students to schools in specific districts when
it is possible for them to travel by public means.”
Hall said vouchers could show up as early as
2009.
“I am sure that any changes should be introduced
very carefully, gradually and after having
been given thorough consideration,” she said.
Educational reform should be reform and not revolution,
she said.
Many teachers are likely to oppose a voucher
system, of course, because it threatens the way
they do business. Teacher association leaders are
already posturing on the proposed change.
Slawomir Broniarz, the chairman of the Polish
Teachers Union, contends the voucher system
would violate the Constitution in terms of unequal
access to education and also laws on how local
governments spend their money.
Lackowski answers:
“There is no need to change the constitution
because education would still be free,” Lackowski
said. “We need to eliminate the teacher’s card” that
gives teachers too much power over education, he
said. “Poland needs the determination to succeed,
and the question is if Polish politicians will have
that same determination.”
Another teachers union objection is that, in
abolishing the current school assignment system,
the voucher system would create problems that
would be difficult to deal with.
For example, union leaders say, what happens
when many more students want to attend a school
than it can admit?
What would be the criteria for deciding which
students would get into that school and which
would not?
Some student groups dislike the idea of vouchers,
too.
Artur Juszczyk, co-leader of the student organization
Initiative Against Paid Studies, contended
that “the educational voucher is the first step to
privatizing education. We think that education is a
right, not a commodity, so it should not be subject
to the rules of free market.”
Those who are unsure whether the voucher
system will improve schools can get an idea by
looking at what happened in Koszalin, in northern
Poland.
That school system used vouchers to introduce
a journalism class, a ballet class, speech therapists,
psychological counselors and career specialists.
Although vouchers are an interesting idea,
many people in and out of education believe that
whether they will be a success in Poland will hinge
on that old adage “The devil is in the details.”
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