Topic: The Presidents of the Third Republic of Poland

Author: Anna Rabiega

Addressee:

8th‑grade primary school student.

Core curriculum:

XI. Democracy in the Republic of Poland.

The student:

5) explains the principle of the republican form of government; presents the election method and fundamental competences of the President of the Republic of Poland; finds information about the political life of former presidents elected in the general election, and about the activities of the incumbent President of the Republic of Poland.

The general aim of education:

The student presents the main organs of public authorities.

Learning outcomes:

The student:

• analyzes the conditions to be met by a candidate for the President of the Republic of Poland.

• names all the presidents of the Third Republic of Poland.

• presents facts from their biographies.

• puts the presidents in order of their time in office.

Key competences:

• communicating in a foreign language,

• digital competence,

• learning to learn,

• social and civic competences.

Teaching methods:

• brainstorming,

• teaching conversation using schemes, interactive exercises,

• discussion.

Forms of work:

• group work,

• whole‑class activity.

Material & equipment needed:

• computers with loudspeakers/headphones and internet access, headphones,

• multimedia resources from the e‑textbook,

• 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 analyze the conditions to be met by a candidate for the President of the Republic of Poland, you will also know the presidents of the Third Republic and some historical facts about them.

2. The teacher asks the students to imagine that one of their friends wants to become the President of Poland. The teacher asks: What should X do and what conditions to fulfill in order to be able to run for this office? He informs the students that they will be brainstorming and, if necessary, explains the principles of this method. He also appoints a moderator who will write down ideas on the board and sets the time to complete the task – 5 minutes.

The students give their suggestions. They should come up with: age, full civil and electoral rights, support (a candidate must have support of at least 100,000 citizens), electoral committee, election campaign, etc. The students may also indicate certain personality traits.

After the creative phase is completed, ideas are verified together with the teacher and the whole class. The teacher asks students to compare their proposals with the information included in the „Who can become the President of the Republic of Poland?” scheme from the abstract „The Presidents of the Third Republic of Poland”. Then the students indicate the conditions stated in the constitution, which their friend does not meet.

Implementation:

1. The teacher asks students to give names of people who, in their opinion, were presidents of the Third Republic of Poland, and writes down the students’ suggestions on the board. Then, together with the entire class, the teacher eliminates the names of people who did not perform this function. In a teaching conversation the teacher corrects and explains the mistakes committed by the students.

2. The teacher asks for the years in which each of the presidents held the office. To this end, the students use their biographies contained in the abstract or other Internet sources. Willing students write the dates on the board, next to each name. Then the teacher displays Exercise 3 from the abstract on the interactive whiteboard and the students order the Presidents of the Third Republic chronologically. Together with the teacher, they verify and correct their answers.

3. If an election campaign appeared among the students' ideas from the introductory phase, the teacher refers to it and reminds the students that running for the office of the president is connected with carrying out such a campaign. If not – the teacher himself introduces this element. He informs the students that they will work in groups, and their task will be to prepare one of the points of the election campaign, that is, to present the candidate's profile.

4. The teacher divides the class into five groups and each of the groups is assigned one of the presidents of the Third Republic of Poland. The teacher points out that the presentation should include both the achievements of candidates from before the presidency, as if they were running for this office for the first time, as well as achievements from the time of holding office – as if they were hoping for re‑election. The teacher informs that students can use the biographies from the abstract or other internet sources and should pay attention to the most important and the most interesting facts about the candidate. He also determines the time of the task and presentation – all members of the group will take part in it.

5. After finishing work, each group presents their candidate to the rest of the class. Then the teacher initiates a discussion by asking questions:

• Which candidate seemed to you the most suitable for the office of president?

• Who would you vote for in the elections and why?

The students discuss, and then one of them provides a summary, e.g. in the form of a ranking of candidates.

Summary:

1. The teacher asks the students to do exercises 2 and 4 from the abstract. He informs them that this way they will check their knowledge and skills gained during classes. Together with the teacher, they discuss the correct answers.

2. At the end of the lesson the teacher asks: If there was going to be a test on the material we have covered today, what questions do you think would you have to answer?

Probably the students will name: the conditions that must be met by the candidate for the office of the President of the Republic of Poland, names of presidents of the Third Republic of Poland, chronological order of their office, important facts about individual presidents, previous party affiliation.

If the students do not manage to name all the most important questions, the teacher may complement their suggestions.

3. Homework proposal:

a. Write a short note on the subject „Which of the Presidents of the Third Republic of Poland do you think brought the greatest merit for Poland?”. Justify the answer, citing the achievements of the chosen president.

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:

It is necessary to control the time of presentation of each group so that all the students have the opportunity to express themselves.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

The Presidents of the Third Republic of Poland

In 1990, when his presidential campaign started, Lech Wałęsa, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate was, next to Pope John Paul II, one of the most famous Poles in the world. He was born in a poor family. After completing a vocational school he became an electrician at a shipyard in Gdańsk. Nine years later, in 1976 he was dismissed for criticizing the communist system. In August 1980 he became a leader of the strikes at the shipyard in Gdańsk, took part in the negotiations with the communist government, and helped work out a solution known as the Gdańsk Agreement. Part of the agreement was the creation of the “Solidarity” movement, of which Wałęsa became the first president. After the imposition of the martial law in Poland, Wałęsa was detained in prison, and the “Solidarity” movement was delegalized. In December, 1983 he was honoured the Nobel Peace Prize. It was collected by his wife, Danuta, because the communist government would not grant Wałęsa his passport, and allow him to leave the country. In a free Poland, Lech Wałęsa decided to run for the presidency. His main counter‑candidate was Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Lech Wałęsa gained almost 40% of the votes in the first round, but to everybody’s surprise it wasn’t Mazowiecki, who came as second, but Stan Tymiński – little‑known businessman from Canada. However, in the second round, Wałęsa triumphed – he won 74% of the votes. On 22, December 1990 Lech Wałęsa as the first President in the Third Republic of Poland elected by direct universal suffrage, took the following oath in the presence of the National Assembly: “Assuming, by the will of the Nation, the office of the President of the Republic of Poland, I do solemnly swear to be faithful to the provisions of the Constitution; I pledge that I shall steadfastly safeguard the dignity of the Nation, the independence and security of the State, and also that the goo of the Homeland and the prosperity of its citizens shall forever remain my supreme obligation.” The oath may also be taken with the additional sentence “So help me, God.” (The Constitution of the Republic of Poland, Article 130)

During his studies at Gdańsk University he was already active in a pro‑governmental communist youth organisation, Socialist Polish Students’ Association. At the age of 23, he joined the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP), and he remained a member until its dissolution in 1990. He never graduated at the University, but became editor‑in‑chief of “ITD”, and later on of a daily paper – “Sztandar Młodych”.

As of 1985, he worked for the communist government, serving as a Minister of Youth among others. He was also a president of the Polish Olympic Committee. He took part in the Round Table Talks. After the dissolution of PUWP together with Leszek Miller and Józef Oleksy he established a political party called Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, and was elected its leader. Kwaśniewski won the presidential elections twice. In 1995 he beat Lech Wałęsa, who was running for reelection. In 2000 he won the election already in the first round, gaining almost 54% of the votes.

At the time when he was a Minister of Justice and State Attorney General in Jerzy Buzek’s cabinet, 70% of Poles supported him. He was perceived as a sheriff, who fights the mafia, corruption, injustice. The social trust allowed him for the creation of a new party a couple years later – the Law and Justice party – and later on, a start in presidential elections. Lech Kaczyński with his twin brother, Jarosław, were active in politics for ages, but they first became popular as actors – as children, they played the roles of Jacek and Placek in a movie “The Two Who Stole the Moon”. They both graduated from the University of Warsaw at the Faculty of Law and Administration. In 1980 Lech was awarded a PhD title at the University of Gdańsk. Before that, in 1976 he became active in the Workers’ Defense Committee, the Free Trade Unions, and advised the Inter‑Enterprise Strike Committee. He was also a delegate to the First Independent Self‑governing Labour Union “Solidarity” Congress. During the martial law, he was detained in prison. Later he came back to underground opposition activities. In 1989 he took part in the Round Table Talks. He became a senator, and later on a deputy. From 1992 to 1995 he served as the President of the Supreme Chamber of Control. In November 2002 he won the elections for the President of Warsaw. During his time in office, the Warsaw Uprising Museum was created. In 2005 Lech Kaczyński became the President of the Republic of Poland. Watch a short reportage prepared right after the elections and the moment of Kaczyński taking an oath in the presence of the National Assembly. President Lech Kaczyński died in a plane crash on 10, April 2010. In compliance with the Constitution, his responsibilities were overtaken by the Marshal of the Sejm – Bronisław Komorowski. The next presidential elections were organised sooner – not in the autumn, as usual, but in June (1st round) and July (2nd round).

The decision to run for President was made in the beginning of 2010. Komorowski beat Radosław Sikorski in the primaries in the Civic Platform party. He could not have known at that time, that he would serve as President even before he became elected…

Bronisław Komorowski became involved in the opposition movement as a teenager. At the age of 16 he took part in the March manifestations of 1968, then as a student at the University of Warsaw Faculty of History, he was an active member of the Movement for Defense of Human and Civic Rights and the Workers’ Defense Committee. During the martial law in Poland, he was detained in prison. In the 90s he worked as a lecturer of history in a seminary in Niepokalanów. In 1991 he became a deputy, and remain one, representing different parties, for the next 19 years, until he was elected President.

On top of that he served a couple of times in the government in the Ministry of Defence – three times as a deputy minister, and once as a Minister of Defence himself. Bronisław Komorowski was sworn in as a President on 6, August 2010.

When five years later Bronisław Komorowski decided to run for reelection, his position seemed unthreatened – according to opinion polls his support was around 60% at the beginning of the year. Not many people have heard about Andrzej Duda, his main counter‑candidate. Andrzej Duda is a lawyer. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. In 2005 he was awarded a PhD in Law. On 1, August 2006 he became a deputy minister in Jarosław Kaczyński’s government, later he was a member of the Tribunal of State. From the beginning of 2008 until the death of President Lech Kaczyński he was an undersecretary in the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2011 he was elected to the Sejm as a Law and Justice deputy, and in May 2014 he became a member of the European Parliament. When the presidential campaign of 2015 began his support was as little as 15%, but eventually, he beat Bronisław Komorowski in the second round, winning almost 52% of the votes. Andrzej Duda took an oath before the National Assembly on 6, August 2015.