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THE HISTORY OF SCHOOL DEMOCRACY

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THE HISTORY OF SCHOOL DEMOCRACY

In the year 1980 there comes into being a mass opposition against the communist power. Representatives of the ten-million strong "Solidarity" trade unions negotiate various topics with the then Ministry of Education: from denying the mendacious interpretation of history to the right to create schools and run author's classes with their own independent curricula.

- It was then that we first began to think of independent schools - says Krystyna Starczewska.

A team of "Solidarity" experts draws up a document entitled "The School as an Educational Environment". Krystyna Starczewska is one of its authors. - I remember the fury of the then minister of education when we handed him that thing - recollects Włodzimierz Paszyński who occupies today that ministerial office. - The text started with the words: "The school should serve the needs of the child". They thought it disgusting.

After the dissolution of the communist party in 1990, the First Cooperative High School moved to a building in Bednarska Street, until then occupied by the Party Propaganda Department. They called their school a Commonwealth, governed by three school estates: students', teachers', and parents' estate. They have their own constitution, parliament, government, court and currency, i.e. bednars, convertible to the national currency.

- At first some teachers thought it was unnecessary and ridiculous - says Starczewska. - But it has worked well for ten years now. Students have a powerful impact on what's going on in their school. They learn how to bear responsibility. This is education through democracy.

There was a subject at the school called "useful works". A student could not be promoted to the next form without getting a credit for it. A mark could be bought with bednars earned by doing cleaning jobs (the school does not employ cleaning ladies), maintaining the school garden, doing all sorts of work for the school. It happened often that rich loafers would buy bednars from those who worked a lot. The teachers did not like it that the school currency was convertible. But they could not help it as the convertibility was introduced by an act passed by the School's Parliament.

- These are the traps of democracy - says Krystyna Starczewska. - The Parliament is the supreme legislative power and its statutes cannot be changed by a regulation proceeding from a superior authority. Some time had to pass before the deputies themselves decided to liquidate the school subject the credit for which could be bought.

In the year 2000, in a general all-school referendum the school was given a new name: The First Jam Saheb Maharajah Digvijay Singhji Cooperative Grammar School and High School. During the Second World War the Maharajah saved several hundred Polish children deported to Siberia by Stalin. By virtue of an agreement with the Soviet government the Maharajah transported the children across the steppes of Kazakhstan and the mountains of Afghanistan to Gujarat in India. When, after the war, the Polish communist government demanded the return of the orphans, the Maharajah adopted them all and paid for their education at universities. "The Maharajah's Children" are India's intellectual elite today, which one was not allowed to mention during the forty years' rule of communism of Poland.

Krystyna Starczewska, born in 1937. A philosopher, the principal of one of Poland's most coveted schools. Since 1976 openly active in the anti-communist opposition, engaged in the defence of imprisoned workers. In 1980, during negotiations with the government, she was responsible, on the part of "Solidarity", for school issues. In 1989 she participated in the "round table" negotiations with the military junta of general Jaruzelski for free election. In the same year she founded her cooperative school "in defiance of the commies", according to the lyrics of the School Song.