Konferencje rejonowe jako forma doskonalenia zawodowego nauczycieli na przykładzie szkół podstawowych Tarnowa i powiatu tarnowskiego w latach 1945–1975

The article discusses the issue of district conferences, which were forms of teachers’ education, presenting them on the example of primary schools in Tarnow and Tarnow District in the years 1945–1975. District conferences date from the interwar period. Then they were the most popular forms of improving work of teachers in primary schools in Tarnow and Tarnow County. The district conferences played special role for teachers in rural environments where the availability of other types of educational forms were limited. After the Second World War the Ministry of Education has reintroduced district conferences and, like before 1939, the Polish Teachers’ Association was re sponsible for the organization of them. The location of conference areas generally coincide with the area of the PTA activity. Counties were divided in such a way as to enable all teachers to become involved in conferences. Primary school teachers from Tarnow and Tarnow County were highly involved in this form of training, as evidenced by attendance at conferences from 80% to 100% of registered teachers. Number of participants in each region was usually not more than 30 teachers. For the period 1949–1956 district conferences were replaced by ideological training of teachers. Since 1957, the district conferences were organized by the faculties of education departments in cooperation with the Polish Teachers’Association as well as control centers and the pedagogical and methodological units 5 times a year and consisted of two parts: methodological. where the demonstrated lesson was analyzed and a lecture, discussion or presentation. There was also a social part of the conference. Participation in conferences of teachers was voluntary. Since the 1959–1960 school year, presentations have become the main point of the district conference programs. District conference topics focused on methodological. didactic, pedagogical and psychological issues, there were also political and ideological topics. As a conference, teachers were also taken at least once a year on a sightseeing tour. The program of such district conference also consisted of a kind of social part in the form of common meals, singing, live bands performances and dance. The role and importance of the district conference was decreased by the fact that gradually they became just another ideological impact on teachers and thus lost their essential methodological and didactic function. In 1972, the Ministry of Education, in its decision prohibiting the district conferences during working hours led to the cessation of PTA carry that form of self-education and teacher education.