Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

scientific disciplines were presented, together with the whole specialist scientificterminology. Such knowledge was too detailed, often incomprehensible for thepupil, and unrelated to his/her needs and everyday experience. Besides, the styleof teaching reflected in large measure the way in which the state functioned. In thecentralised economic system, education was aimed at preparing pupils/students forpredetermined tasks, hence the passivity of the Polish pupil/student. Overloadedcurricula/syllabuses, dominance of factual knowledge, and related to it negligencein the sphere of skills in the pupil’s/student’s education, as well as the contents notcorresponding to his/her capacities and needs, were the weakest points of the Polishschool of the late 1990s.In the conditions of political opening of Poland to the West, in the early 1990s,the educational approaches of holism, personalism and activism gained importanceon the school ground. They became the methodological bases for the shortlyimplemented reform.Adopting principles of the holistic approach in Polish education meant, firstly,abandoning the rigid division of the contents into subjects according to scientificspecialisation, to the advantage of an integrative approach. Secondly, it meant thenecessity of presenting all the objects, phenomena, and processes in a broad context,so as to demonstrate the world’s complexity and to show correlations between itscomponents. The paraphrase of the holistic idea in the functional language is themotto: To understand the world. The consequence of adopting the idea was joiningtogether related subjects, especially so called “borderline” subjects, one of which isgeography. The most spectacular example was combining, at primary school level,the contents of geography, biology, physics, and chemistry into one subject called“science”. Moreover, at all levels of education interdisciplinary pathways werecreated, that is such form of classes where the contents should be realised with theco-participation of teachers of different specialisations. The geographers’ sphere ofinterest includes primarily the regional, European, and ecological pathways, andsome others, like health and media pathways.Adopting the idea of personalism meant changes in the approach to the pupil/student. The fundamental goal of his/her education was defined as assisting in his/her development, not only intellectual, but also physical and emotional. It was nolonger the achievements in particular scientific disciplines, but the pupil/student whobecame the principal reference point for the choice of the contents, methods, and otherelements of education process. In the school work organisation, his/her capacities,interests, and needs became important determinants. At the same time, the principaltask of the school was defined as preparing the pupil/student for efficient functioningin life, in its personal, professional, and social dimensions. Emphasised was the needof developing such skills as: communicating, team work, problem solving and theorganisation of individual learning/studying.That approach was matched perfectly by the concept of activism, whose main ideais developing the pupil’s/student’s active attitude towards the tasks set for him/her.Activism at school means organising the process of education in such a way thatthe pupil/student acquires knowledge through his/her own work. The work involves66