Topic: Get to know me, and you will understand. The nation and national minorities

Author: Anna Rabiega

Addressee:

8th‑grade primary school student.

Core curriculum:

VIII. National/ethnic communities and the homeland.

The student:

4) names the national and ethnic minorities, the regional language minority and other groups of migrants (including refugees) residing in Poland nowadays and locates the places where they have settled in larger groups; presents - on the basis of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland - the rights of ethnic minorities.

The general aim of education:

The student builds his national identity.

Learning outcomes:

The student:

• analyzes the legal definition of national and ethnic minorities in Poland, as well as a regional language minority.

• recognizes all the national and ethnic minorities recognized by the Polish law.

• explains what rights national and ethnic minorities in Poland enjoy.

• analyzes the complicated situation of the Silesians.

• explains what the Polish diaspora is and what the reasons of emigration from Poland were throughout its history.

• presents the activities of the Polish diaspora nowadays.

• explains what national stereotypes are, where they originate from, and why they should be confronted and eliminated.

Key competences:

• communicating in a foreign language,

• digital competence,

• learning to learn,

• social and civic competences.

Teaching methods:

• discussion,

• source material analysis,

• teaching conversation using infographics, interactive board and exercises.

• trash and suitcase method.

Forms of work:

• self‑learning,

• whole‑class activity.

Material & equipment needed:

• computers with loudspeakers/headphones and internet access,

• multimedia resources from the e‑textbook,

• a printout of a fragment of the Act on national and ethnic minorities for each student (see: Notes for the teacher),

• small pieces of paper in two different colours (e.g. green and yellow) for each student,

• interactive whiteboard/blackboard, felt‑tip pen/a piece of chalk.

Lesson plan overview (Process):

Introduction:

1. The teacher presents the goal of the lesson: You will find out, what minorities live in the Polish society, what their rights are, as well as how the Polish diaspora functions.

2. The teacher asks the students to estimate, how many Polish citizens identify themselves with other than a Polish national identity and how many Polish citizens (or persons identifying themselves as Poles) lives abroad. To this end the students use their own knowledge, but are also allowed to use internet sources. A willing/selected student writes his colleagues’ suggestions on the board. The teacher verifies the information and supplements it.

Implementation:

1. The teacher asks one of the students to read the definition of a national minority contained in the Act of January 6, 2005 on national and ethnic minorities and the regional language out loud (abstract “Get to know me, and you will understand. The nation and national minorities”). The the teacher asks the class to point out the conditions, which a group of Polish citizens needs to meet to be recognized as a national minority on the board. He stresses the fact, that the members of national minorities are Polish citizens. He asks the students, if they know, what the consequences of the fact are. The students give their suggestions, and the teacher verifies them.

2. The teacher informs the students, that from the legal point of view an ethnic minority is not that different from a national one. The hands out the printouts of a fragment of the Act on national and ethnic minorities containing article 2. He tells the students that their task is to find the difference. The students analyze the text, and then present the results of their work.

3. The teacher asks the students to determine, how many legally recognized national and ethnic minorities there are in the Polish society and name them all. The students write their answers on the board. Then, in order to verify the ideas, the teacher presents the students with the infographic “Minorities in Poland”. Together with the class they explain, why some of the students suggestions did not make it to the list of legally recognized national or ethnic minorities.

4. Probably, the students’ suggestions will include Kashubians and Silesians. The teacher explains the status of the Kashubian language. Then he briefly introduces the students into the complicated question of the Silesian minority. He asks the students to discuss the issue in pairs, and put a couple of arguments for and against granting the Silesians the rights of an ethnic minority on the interactive board “Silesians as a minority?”. The whole class discusses a couple of students’ suggestions for arguments.

5. The teacher asks the students to analyze the rights of national and ethnic minorities listed in the abstract. Then he asks the students to give a couple of examples of these rights being put to practice by the minorities. If the students find it difficult to provide examples, the teacher gives his own.

6. The teacher asks the students to do exercise 1 - to find the countries, in which there is the largest concentration of Polish diaspora on the map. Then he asks the students about the historic and contemporary causes of Polish emigration. A willing/selected student writes the causes on the board.

7. The teacher initiates a discussion on stereotypes, by asking the students the following questions:

• What is a stereotype?

• What stereotypes of the Polish nation do you know?

• Do you think they are true?

• What are the positive and negative consequences of believing in stereotypes?

The teacher asks one of the students to sum up the discussion.

Summary:

1. The teacher carries out a summary part of the lesson using the trash and suitcase method. The teacher hands out small pieces of paper in two different colours (e.g. green and yellow). On the green pieces of paper the students write down the useful knowledge and skills they acquired during the class – these go into “the suitcase” (students stick it to a board under that category). The yellow pieces of paper are used to write down things the students did not find useful or interesting – these go into “the trash” (under the sign that reads “trash” on the board). The teacher explains, that their reflection may concern both the acquired knowledge, and the new skills they have learned. The teacher reads students’ reflections on the experience – first the “trash” contents, then the “suitcase”.

2. Homework proposal:

a. Write a summary of the discussion on stereotypes:

• What is a stereotype?

• What national stereotypes do you know (of various nations)?

• What are the positive and negative consequences of believing in stereotypes?

b. Listen to the abstract recording to review the material and new vocabulary. Then do the vocabulary exercise at the end of the chapter.

Notes for the teacher:

A fragment of the Act on national and ethnic minorities.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Get to know me, and you will understand. The nation and national minorities

According to the Polish law an ethnic minority is a group of Polish citizens fulfilling all the above‑mentioned conditions necessary for a national minority, but it does not identify itself with a nation organized in its own state.

Take a look at the infographics presenting the national and ethnic minorities in Poland.

Kashubians are a special community in Poland. They are Polish citizens, who alongside the Polish language, use their own Kashubian language, which according to the statute is recognized as a regional language. This means that persons using this language have similar rights to members of national and ethnic minorities.

National and ethnic minorities constitute currently a rather small percentage of Polish society. However, the Polish‑Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Second Republic of Poland, reborn after the first world war, were multinational states. Until the outbreak of the second world war around 35% of Polish citizens were not ethnically Polish. The largest minorities were Ukrainians and Jews. The extermination of the Jewish nation during the second world war and the post‑war changes of Polish borders turned Poland into a state dominated by a Polish nation only.

All the people who belong to national or ethnic minorities are also Polish citizens, so they enjoy all the rights any Polish citizen has, e.g. the right to vote in national elections. Additionally, the members of minorities were granted a number of rights that enable them to cultivate their cultural identity. Moreover, the Polish law forbids any form of discrimination against national or ethnic minorities.

The rights of national and ethnic minorities in Poland:

• the right to learn the language and in its own language, to study the cultural history of the minority and to take external exams in the minority language;

• the right to address local authorities in the minority language and (at request) receive answers in that language;

• the right to write names and surnames according to the rules of the minority language;

• the right to receive funding for the development of social organizations, libraries, radio broadcasts, etc.;

• the right to put the names of towns, streets, etc. in the minority language, next to the Polish name.

There is a considerably large group of Polish citizens living in Upper Silesia who consider themselves members of the Silesians minority. The group, however, is not recognized by the Polish law, and therefore not granted any minority rights. The issue has been a source of an ongoing conflict for many years now.

Polish history is a history of radical changes of state borders and numerous migrations of the Polish population. The 18th century partitions of Poland forced many Poles to leave their Homeland. In the following century many had to flee our country because of persecution of the participants of national uprisings or simply migrated to the West for economic reasons. A lot of Poles were deported to the far East by Russian authorities as political prisoners. The second world war resulted in more migration waves, and right after the war Polish borders were changed, which contributed to a lot of Poles being left abroad. In the 1980s leaving Poland was a chance to escape both – the communist regime and the deepening economic crisis and poverty. Even now a lot of Polish families decide to emigrate and build their future in other states of the world – Polish accession to the European Union and the resultant border opening made such decisions much easier than before.

There are many Poles or their descendants living all around the world nowadays who try to maintain cultural relationships with Poland. Those people are collectively called “Polonia” or “Polish diaspora”.

The stereotypical way of looking at others is essentially incomplete, because it consists in highlighting only selected elements of the behaviour of some members of a given nation or ethnic group and judging the whole group (usually negatively) based on that selective assessment. National stereotypes often transfer conflicts from previous generations to contemporary relations. Their sources include difficult historical experiences. Some of the still vivid stereotypes in Poland date back to the period of the Second Republic of Poland and the drama of the second world war. Very often stereotypical beliefs allow for building a false sense of superiority and uniqueness of one’s own group. Stereotypes result in difficulties in contact and cooperation between different ethnic groups and unnecessarily exacerbate social conflicts.

Relations between ethnic groups sometimes prove very difficult, especially when they involve a painful history or deep cultural differences. Proper shaping of relations between ethnically diverse groups is a very important task of state authorities, but all the inhabitants of a country are responsible for a harmonious coexistence of the whole society. European societies are becoming more and more ethnically diverse and they have to learn to solve problems resulting from this diversity. Regardless of how different we are because of our nationality, we are all human beings, and we all have the right to respect for our dignity.