By Steve Owad

When Jacek Strzemieczny was 15, he despised school. "There were two jobs I couldn't understand," he says. "I couldn't understand how someone could be an executioner or a teacher. How could someone take a job torturing people?" His dislike for school was reflected in his performance. Expelled by some schools and forced to repeat grades at others, he eventually decided to devote his life to changing the system that he hated so much.

After communism, Strzemieczny says, Poles continued to associate civic initiatives with government interest and ineptitude. "People stayed away from them," he says.

How to Teach Social Awareness

The problem was and still is compounded by the Polish education system, which has traditionally used teachers to feed students information without engaging them in discourse. The center's goal, Strzemieczny says, is to promote, through interactive teaching methods, the kind of social awareness that is crucial for a democratic society to function. So far, through the Civic Education at Local Government Schools program, it has introduced courses such as "Human Rights and Freedoms" and "the Principles of Democracy" in 1,000 Polish schools. Since its founding in 1994, the center has also trained 300 teachers a year in how to interact with students more during classes, and has published teaching materials that reach schools nationwide. Some of its programs have a more activist profile, encouraging students to shed their traditional passivity and engage their local communities in dialog on issues such as politics.

The former high-school counselor became convinced, however, that educational reform for the post-communist era could best be achieved without the bureaucratic restraints of a central government.

Learning How Government Works

"Top-down reforms usually aren't successful," he says. "They're too far removed from the reality they want to change." For that reason, he left the Ministry of Education in 1994 and started the center, opting for the flexibility and freedom of a non-governmental organization. With initial funding from the United States Information Agency, the National Endowment for Democracy and several other donors, Strzemieczny and center co-founders Andrzej Szaniawski and Alicja Pacewicz began training teachers and ex-teachers to devise and implement new history and social-science courses through regional civic education centers that had been established when Strzemieczny was with the Ministry.

The center's sponsors paid for curricula development and teacher training seminars, while local governments, which now controlled public schools after half a century of centrally imposed education policy, paid for some training and for the additional lessons in schools.

"We learned mostly by experience," Strzemieczny says. "If one of our teachers developed good material (for example, lessons on how democratic local governments operate), we used it."

Cooperation with the Mershon Center eased curricula development in the early stages, but the center's trainers and curricula developers are now more independent, sharing their innovations with teachers and local government representatives through regular workshops, seminars and meetings.

"The center is only for starting things," Strzemieczny says. "The main thing that makes the whole initiative work is the fact that local governments believe in the need for civic education and are introducing it to their curricula."

When They Want it, They'll Pay

Local governments now pay for all of the center's teacher training, and even for some of its administrative costs. Strzemieczny says this is important not only for the center's financial well-being, but also because a local government is more likely to make a program work if it is paying for it itself.

Professional educators are also essential. Most of the center's curricula developers and trainers have no special training. The ones who excel in carrying out center programs are those who, in Strzemieczny's words, are "competent and able to encourage rather than merely to teach."

Aspiring trainers have to meet no explicit set of criteria or performance standards. Workshops and seminars on how to develop curricula take the place of a formal training program, and regular follow-up meetings and training sessions provide back-up and future support.

"Basically, we just give trainers larger assignments than they had [when they were teachers]," Strzemieczny says. The jump into Social Science and History curricula development is a big one. In the past, all such material was devised by the Ministry of Education. He adds that the center is always there to answer trainers' inquiries and provide guidance beyond the scheduled get-togethers.

Needed: Good Civics Teachers

He admits, however, that skilled educators who can teach the new curricula are hard to come by in Poland. "Our work is so new that it's difficult to find good teachers and consultants." His advice for someone starting a center-style venture outside of Poland: "Find strong allies in education."

Though the center focuses mainly on tightening links with local governments and teachers (curricula in some schools now include two hours of civics lessons per week), some of its programs espouse student activism. The Young People Vote program inspires youths from 13 to 18 to express their views on social issues ranging from abortion to conscription. With guidance from the center, the students organize mock elections in towns and cities across Poland, providing themselves with a forum in which to publicly debate topics that have been traditionally left to adults.

Becoming Self-Sufficient

Though initially funded by the center, the various local groups that comprise Young People Vote now find their own funding and organize their own mock elections and debates during parliamentary and presidential elections every two years.

Finding money locally to stage the elections is difficult now that U.S. grants are no longer available, but the results of self-sufficiency have been impressive. During parliamentary elections in 1997, 60,000 students took part in mock elections and debates throughout Poland.

"The most important thing," Milonas says, "is that the students organize these events themselves."

Which is one of the center's main goals. As the center evolves, it places more responsibility for implementing new curricula ("the Free Market Economy" is one such course) not only with local governments and teachers, but with the public itself and with outside NGOs.

"Six outside institutions now raise money and do teacher training independently," Strzemieczny says. "We give them books, curricula and supervision, but they operate on their own."

That solidifies the trend toward school curricula befitting a young democracy. If the center stopped operating, there would be others to continue its work.

The Right Personality

There have been setbacks along the way, though. Teachers in some schools, Strzemieczny says, are not receptive to curricula that emphasize greater teacher-student interaction.

"About one-third of the teachers we train benefit a lot from interactive methods, while one-third benefit only somewhat, and the rest can't teach the curricula. It's a matter of personality. You can change the curricula, but you can't change a teacher's personality."

Hearing students argue, for example, that high-school courses in religion should not be mandatory, or that environmental protection should be a government priority, still makes some Polish adults bristle. "Some teachers and parents," Milonas says, "think our mock elections are propaganda started by a political party. They think somebody bought us to spread their message."

The Future Looks Good

Strzemieczny and Milonas emphasize, however, that opposition to civics initiatives is far from absolute. "Once they take a close look at one of our elections," Milonas says, "adults are usually fast to comment on how sharp we are."

Strzemieczny is optimistic about how the center's role will develop in the future. Regular meetings organized by regional civic education centers ensure that local governments and educators maintain contact and always receive new training and teaching ideas. Also, the Ministry of Education, though no longer sending policy to the provinces, distributes the center's teaching and resource materials to schools nationwide.

"The center will always have a role to play," Strzemieczny predicts. "There's always the need for new ideas and new ways to interact. If students are made more aware of public issues, they will be able to take part in important discourse in the future."

For a man who once hated all things related to education, the goal is a pleasant surprise that is bringing nationally significant results.