Microhistories of Polish School Reading: Child-Adult Memory-Work with the School Literary Canon

Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, University of Wroclaw
Mateusz Marecki, Jilin University

Productive remembering centers on memory as enabling conceptualizing and bringing about the future. As a research assemblage consisting of adult and child scholars, we argue that it is a useful springboard for a new pedagogical approach to the current literary school canon in Poland. Introduced in 2017, the canon is seen as alienating students as it does not account for young readers’ literary tastes and experiences. We propose that selected texts from the canon may catalyze memories of childhood from older readers that can be shared with younger readers to develop their own connections with these texts. Such an exchange may open new individual and collective remembering spaces linking intragenerational perspectives with intergenerational meanings and resulting in stronger cultural cohesion. We substantiate our proposal by discussing “Stas and Nel in the 21st Century”: Do Long-established School Readings Connect Generations?”, a participatory research project conducted at a primary school in Wroclaw, Poland, in spring 2018. The project centered on intergenerational conversations about common school readings, seen not only a way of collecting and sharing information about the past, but also as a means of enabling a relational child-adult co-creation memories and knowledge, and, ultimately, of shaping our present and future, including our interactions and decisions related to school reading. The proposed approach can be adopted in school and in other settings to engage children and adults as co-creators of particular memory-work methods. In broader terms, it can promote a critical and action-oriented understanding of the material and intangible heritage of childhood in Poland and elsewhere.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 161. “Minor” Literature