«ERA OF KOPCHYNSKYI» OR DEVELOPMENT OF THEORY AND PRACTICE OF SCHOOL HYGIENE IN POLAND IN THE INTERWAL PERIOD OF THE TWENYIETH CENTURY

Abstract

The urgency of the topic declared in the article is due to the attention of modern Ukrainian pedagogy to the problems of health of children and youth, which, in turn, involves the study of creativity in particular Polish physicians and educators of the interwar twentieth century. The purpose of the article is to represent the organizational, practical and literary heritage of the physician, hygienist, public and statesman Stanislav Kopchynskyi (Polish: Stanisław Kopczyński; 1873–1933). The study used a set of general and special methods, namely: historical and pedagogical analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison of scientific sources, which became the basis for determining the degree of scientific development of the problem; concrete-historical method, which allowed to analyze and highlight the verified facts from the history of health education of students of secondary schools in Poland in a broad socio-cultural aspect; source analysis, source synthesis and biographical method, which contributed to the study of ideas, views and contributions of St. Kopchynskyi in the development of Polish theory and practice of school hygiene; for the reconstruction of fragments of the subject's activity the method of induction was used (the research began with the collection of facts, which were later systematized, analyzed and generalized). The study announces the «pre-war» professional and organizational experience of St. Kopchynskyi in the field of school hygiene, with which the scientist entered the «state» stage of his life, and characterizes the organizational activities of the hygienist during the interwar period of the twentieth century. Thus, the article contains the names of visitors to school hygiene and school doctors, who in the 20s ‒ 30s of the twentieth century. carried out systematic and purposeful work in the field of school hygiene and physical education, emphasized the scientific and educational activities of St. Kopchynskyi (the meaning of the so-called «Thursdays after the fifteenth» is detailed; the essence of systematic and appropriate hygienic education of secondary school students is outlined; the collection «Hygienic conversations. Methodical projects and instructions» is announced). It is concluded that St.Kopchynskyi represented a new paradigm of school hygiene, which provided a strong emphasis on the promotion of health among children and youth through education and upbringing and the involvement of students in active cooperation in nurturing their health.