Journey to former Polish East South borderland

I have an idea to make a journey to former Polish East South borderland. If you are looking for new place to discover the region has a lot to offer. I recommend to make the journey in 5 parts. The route and topics which you could reflect on you can see here:

Poles and Hungarians and their place in Europe

Because of numerous refugees who nowadays want to come to Europe are Hungary and Poland often a topic in the European media. Both are seen as sceptical to the acceptance of refugees in their countries.

Poles and Hungarians has a lot in common in the past. Their relationship gives a number of sources for scientific researches.

Poles and Hungarians shared rulers and faith. Common was also the Revolution of 1956, which was of course more tragic on the Hungarian side.

Story that moves...

Thanks to Agata Dutkowska I got to know the idea of transformative storytelling. Agata is organising a meeting of women in Gdynia which is in her opinion related to this approach of storytelling.

So what is it? And why it is so important?

I read on the Website transformativestory.org that it is about "using stories to promote empowerment and social justice". The aim is to "generate stories aimed at catalysing action on pressing social issues".

Two examples came to my mind.

Looking for new historical sources?

If so, research sources that are collected by community archives. You can find there e.g. family photos, private documents and diaries. Polish scientists consider sources of community archives to be very important for researches with new approaches, e.g. every day life, cultural life and social life.

Community archives are archival initiatives which are independent from the state activities. They are also a new place where every one can look for different historical sources.

Community archives exist also in different countries in the world. You can read about archives in Kanada, New Zeland, Italy, Germany, Great Britain and Poland here.

Photo: Warsaw University, Author: Nihil novi

Content creating & promoting - 40+ links to download

Looking for tools to present your content? Family, local or ngo's history, branch's past, history of everyday life or every other content. Download the list of tools here:

Media, archives, storytelling

Do media need archives? What has storytelling to do with archive materials?

Stories holded on archive sources. Archive sources could be included into media narratives on a attractive way, e.g. using storytelling.

There are at least two reasons for it. The stories become "second life" and media don't have to construct content which can be useful and interesting for its audience. They can use ready sources.

These questions were the issuu of the conference and workshop "Learn - Do - Share", on June, 24, 2015, in Warsaw. Read some insights of it.

How comes to discrimination? Be aware / Jak dochodzi do dyskryminacji? Uświadom sobie

Migration and discrimination of migrants were topics of a two day workshop at the Museum of History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

We learnt what we need to act against discrimination: knowledge, skills, reflection -> motivation to act. These reminds me of the concept of Swiss Johann Pestalozzi „head, heart and hand” [głowa, serce, ręka]. It means that our mind, feelings and actions should "act" together.

Mechanism of discrimination in short looks like this. / Mechanizm dyskryminacji w skrócie wygląda tak:

Space to grow

Why growth is so important?

Lack of growth leads to stagnation. Obsession of innovation is the other extreme.

On June, 11 (2015) I participated on lectures dedicated to growth and space to growth within an independent Ted event. The event had a title "Space to grow".

I especially enjoyed the lectures of Magdalena Kozłowska-Deć, Hoang Minh Ngo and Dawid Sokołowski.

East-Central Europe

It is not easy to distinguish between East Europe and Central Europe. At the same time the local roots are very important. Despite people are changing, roots of changes and of the mentality can be seen in the past.

So what is East-Central Europe?

Oskar Halecki distinguished four regions in Europe (Western, West Central, East Central and Eastern Europe).

Author: Olahus CC BY-SA 3.0

Drama as a tool of education of antidiscrimination

Drama can be a very useful tool of education against discrimination. The society of Drama Practitioners STOP-KLATKA conducted a seminar from 19th till 21th January 2015 about different drama techniques. These passionate people are working for social change by using the Applied Drama method and teach working with drama. The workshop aimed in preparing teaching materials about using applied drama for education against discrimination. More about the Association you can read here: http://stop-klatka.org.pl/english/.

Internationa Human Rights Day

On December, 10 is the Internationa Human Rights Day since 1950. This year’s slogan is "Human Rights 365" It encompasses the idea that every day is Human Rights Day.

And for this reason the Center for Development of Education, Batory Fundation and Society for Education against Discrimination 've organised on December, 10 (2014) conference "School without discrimination - safe school".

I presented there the tool of teaching about realtions between minority and majority on example of Jews and Romas within the Open Space.

Jan Karski. Human beings and H/history

Looking for examples of brave but not out of reach people?
Jan Karski was one of them. His life was an inspiration for the conference "Jan Karski. Human beings and H/history. Aims of education for antidiscrimination"

It took place in Polish parlament in November'14, 28-29. 120 teachers and pupils took part on it. You also can do following things:

Network of Polish NGO's

Looking for network of NGO's?
Join the National Federation of Polish NGOs (Ogólnopolska Federacja Organizacji Pozarządowych, OFOP). OFOP is organising a meeting (a forum) of Polish non-governmental organisations every 4 years.

Teaching human rights and history

Combining human rights and history education can be very useful. One of the common values for both fields is the change. If you analyse history you look mostly for the change and dealing with human rights aimes mostly at bringing change into life.

The Change is also a title of a book wich is being prepared by an international team of scientists in collaboration with practitioners of history education and human rights education. I will upload it here, when it will be finished (at the end of 2015 or at the beginning of 2016)

German-Belorussian-Lithuanian relationships

Looking for ideas of scientific excursions? I recommend you to go to Lithuania. I took part on the excursion for German, Lithuanian and Belorussian students „Lithuania During a Period of The Two World Wars“ (05.10.2014 – 17.05.2014, Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania), organised in cooperation with the Vilnius University and European Humanities University.

Here you can  get to know our seminar's programme, so you can organise it for you and your group.

Urban Spaces of L'viv

On May 29-31, 2014 the 12th International Conference "Lviv: City – Society – Culture" took place at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and the Center for Urban History.

The conference, dedicated to Lviv’s urban space in both its physical and symbolic dimensions, is called "Urban Spaces of Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg: Imagination, Experiences, Practices."

More informations.

The year 1914 and L'viv and Galicia

Because of the 100th anniversary of the begin of World War I there are more publications about this turning point in the history. I wrote an article about the meaning of the year 1914 for L'viv and Galicia. I also wrote about the meaning of Galicia for the states Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Russian Imperium at that time. I've analysed the press and the memoires.

                              
Photo: 1914-1915, L'viv, Russian and Austrian medical service, first-aid workers. Autor: not known, collection: Ośrodek KARTA/KARTA Center. Source: http://foto.karta.org.pl/fotokarta/OK_019689.jpg.php

Textbook "History and human rights"

KARTA Center published the textbook "History and human rights" and translated it into English. You can find the textbook here: http://bit.ly/15Oljrr. I'm the co-editor of the textbook.

Memory places of Kraków

I helped to conduct the seminar about history of and memory places in Kraków (13-19 May 2013) of Prof. Jürgen Angelow and (this time) Prof. Zdzisław Noga. The participants were students of the Freie Universität Berlin und Pedagogical University in Krakow. The topics of speeches were related as always to historical places (monuments, public places, churches etc.).

The development of the seminar's concept and the seminar organistation were very important to me since my Ph.D is dedicated L'viv's remembrance from 1867 till 1939.

Workshops "History and human rights"

History education can be connected with the field of human rights. Since 2010 I'm attempting to do it on a theoretical and practical way. I worked out a theory and methodology on it, which could be useful also for you. You can download it here.

You can also download workshop scenarios for work with adults and pupils here.