Biographical and generational features in teachers’ narratives against the background of changes in the past thirty years

Abstract

The analyses are based on teachers’ memoirs and autobiographical narratives that have been collected as a result of subsequent editions of research conducted between 1989 and 2016. These narratives show the problems, tensions and transformations in education, and in the role of a teacher in Poland over the past 30 years. Changes seen through the eyes of successive generations of teachers, against the background of their life history and professional experiences and achievements, are a record of the changes that took place during the system transformation. They may be the evidence of an inevitable generational change in the teaching profession and teacher community. Research shows that the generation born in the 1950s and 1960s, involved in the democratic changes in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, is leaving the teaching profession. This generation participated in the “Solidarity” social movement. Its members were brought up and educated in the sense of a strong social commitment, the so-called ethos. Currently, young teachers born in the 1990s and later enter the profession. They belong to the generation of free, democratic Poland, which has a more pragmatic attitude to life and professional work in education. This is the generation of the internet, unlimited choice, and open global access to information and goods. The implications of such findings are discussed in the article.