Culture arouses curiosity about the world. Culture provokes. Culture can show something that provokes our disagreement. Culture does something not to be lukewarm – says the newly appointed educational curator of Małopolska, Gabriela Olszowska, a Polish language teacher and former school director.
Julia Kalęba: Is there a place for culture in the current curriculum at school?
Gabriela Olszowska: I often say that a teacher willingly takes a class somewhere even to catch their breath and rest. They have various possibilities, for example, there are educational activities on how to prepare for the baccalaureate using theatrical elements. In Krakow and more broadly in Małopolska, where we have various ways of participating in culture right under our noses, not taking advantage of this offer would be a serious mistake.
:: Is it the role of the curator to indicate what students should see in the theater, cinema, opera, and what not?
G.O .: This is the role of the teacher. I don’t want to say that I’m shirking from this. No. But I can’t stand and announce: go to this, don’t go to that. Out of curiosity, you have to go to “Dune” but you also have to see “White Courage”. It’s worth seeing different things. The curators can indicate the possibilities, but young people, children have teachers, culturally, educated, competent people to guide them on this path. When I myself went to school in the 1970s, once a month with the class, we went to the theater or the cinema. We had a good grasp of the so-called moral discomfort cinema. We went with our teacher, she chose, proposed. It stayed with me. To this day, I believe that immersion in culture, especially so-called high culture, is incredibly necessary.
:: What significance does it have in education?
G.O .: I will answer with an example: a long time ago, our whole school went to see a performance at the Słowacki Theater or Stary Theater. Then we talked about art, but the students said that not only the work itself was important, but that they were sitting in such a place. Sometimes we took the boys to shows, and afterwards they said: we didn’t realize how it looked like. It made a huge impression. In November, when I was still a Polish language teacher, I went with the class of my colleague, who is a tutor at a vocational school, to see the movie “Peasants”. The class had questions about the technique in which it was made, about the plot, they were curious about it. There is never enough of it. Culture arouses curiosity about the world. Culture provokes. Culture can show something that provokes our disagreement. Culture does something not to be lukewarm. That’s why I’m going to the premiere of “The Wedding” directed by Małgorzata Kleczewska at the Słowacki Theater. That’s why I went to “Forefathers’ Eve”.
:: In January, you apologized from the stage of the Słowacki Theater for the words of your predecessor, who advised against students going to this show, considering it political.
G.O .: If politicians read more diligently, thoroughly, and not superficially, they would know that some things cannot be so easily generalized and our emotions cannot be blackmailed with the accusation that “Forefathers’ Eve” was entangled in a political struggle. Let’s delve deeper into the text of our national sanctity, after all, Kordian is a vampire. Terrifying, hateful, unchristian. Although he will experience some relief, though he will undergo purification. Yes, I was surprised when during the feast of the ancestors instead of a crowd from the village, our Polish hell appeared, and people representing our Polish messing around – some girl in high heels, an insurgent from an unknown place, a poor person, a thug, a drunkard… – are we not like that?
:: How to introduce young people to art that is not easy to understand?
G.O .: As a teacher, I sometimes prepared students before going out, sometimes we talked after. But such an introduction to art can be multifaceted. I remember when we took junior high students on a trip to England. Of course, there are places that you have to visit and I suggested a visit to The Globe theater, because “Romeo and Juliet” was in junior high. We attended a rehearsal, the students saw Shakespeare’s theater from the inside, they saw that mythical distance between the theater and the Tower castle across the Thames, they saw period costumes, they found out that men played female roles. We also made trips to European museums to see “The Fall of Icarus”, “Guernica” or “Mona Lisa”. Young people loved to follow in the footsteps of the saints with our priest catechist – we visited the Vatican museums, in Normandy and Brittany we stood on the D-Day beaches, we learned the symbolism of the Gothic cathedral, standing in front of it. I still hear voices like this: it was so good that we were there, that we saw it ourselves. Or they say: today I’m going there with my wife and children. We know this motif from “The Cruise” – “I like the melodies that I’ve heard before”. There is this motif of constant return. And that’s beautiful in life.
Gabriela Olszowska graduated in Polish philology from the Jagiellonian University, as well as in education management from the Cracow University of Technology and European Studies from the Ignatian Academy. She holds a PhD in humanities. She is an expert in the Ministry of National Education for school textbooks. She is the author of methodological publications, including the latest “Oh! Price in school. Undone lessons.” She taught Polish language and was also the long-time director of Secondary School No. 2 in Krakow.
Interview by Julia Kalęba (PAP)