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The article raises the question of the causes of the public education crisis, both the crisis in recent past and that conditioned by several centuries of Poland’s past. The position of Adam Podgórecki on the subject of comprehensive analyses of Polish society is particularly important. It combines two positions. He believes that Polish systemic crises can be put down to the experiences of post-totalitarianism and Polish unique defects persisting for several centuries. The author of the article negatively assesses the possibility of overcoming the crisis of public education by academic elites, which are responsible for the collapse of universities and the crisis of higher education. Common beliefs about public education have turned out to be illusions. The author sees the hopes of improving the state of public education in resistance to the destruction of democracy and to the strong ideological and political pressure. Openness to Europe and the world, which Poles do not give away, inspires hope, too.

Contemporary culture offers and constantly enriches many models of life, values, and consumption incentives. Pedagogy is also pluralistic today, rich in currents and trends. Teachers, including academics, face the unavoidable and constant choice between getting involved in the work with students and detachment and autonomy, or rather encouraging young people to choose their own identity and orientation, because all choices are equal. It is necessary to seek a common minimum of formal and material goals of upbringing. One of such formal purposes is that of independent judgment, i.e. the autonomy and the ability to think critically. Human is inseparable from the material; there is a dispute, however, about the components of this category. Recognition of the equality of all cultural discourses leads to nihilism with all its consequences.

ThThe 25th anniversary of the Department of Educational Studies is an inspiration for the author to return to the pedagogical events of 1993. The article by Mikołaj Kozakiewicz published this year contains warnings that the chances of Polish education after a major educational change after 1989 (democracy, pluralism, europeization) are lost, and anticipates their reversal. centralism, authoritarianism, ideological monism, the closing of Poland to Europe are coming back. These anxieties also appeared at the First National Pedagogical Congress in Rembertów in 1993, although the prevailing concern was whether pedagogy as science kept up with the great changes. At the same time, a new formation and a generation of academic pedagogues emerged at this Congress, undertaking new challenges of this time. Unfortunately, sociologists and intercultural psychologists studies have shown that the chances of great change have been educationally wasted, which is manifested in the low culture of everyday life of Poles and in the persistence of Polish perennial, negative social stereotypes. The author, however, finds and presents reasons for the pedagogy of possibilities, supporting the development of people to autonomy and humanity.e 25th anniversary of the Department of Educational Studies is an inspiration for the author to return to the pedagogical events of 1993. The article by Mikołaj Kozakiewicz published this year contains warnings that the chances of Polish education after a major educational change after 1989 (democracy, pluralism, europeization) are lost, and anticipates their reversal. centralism, authoritarianism, ideological monism, the closing of Poland to Europe are coming back. These anxieties also appeared at the First National Pedagogical Congress in Rembertów in 1993, although the prevailing concern was whether pedagogy as science kept up with the great changes. At the same time, a new formation and a generation of academic pedagogues emerged at this Congress, undertaking new challenges of this time. Unfortunately, sociologists and intercultural psychologists studies have shown that the chances of great change have been educationally wasted, which is manifested in the low culture of everyday life of Poles and in the persistence of Polish perennial, negative social stereotypes. The author, however, finds and presents reasons for the pedagogy of possibilities, supporting the development of people to autonomy and humanity.

The term „agnotology” was introduced by Robert Proctor. Agnotology is the study on the spread of ignorance, its social scope and impact, causes and effects. The author tried to analyze whether it is possible that ignorance is disseminated by schools, the principal institution of the Enlightenment, i.e. not only of equipping invididuals with broad knowledge, but of taking care of each individual’s ability to judge (critical thinking). The author discusses three examples of deliberate structural changes to indicate that school „reforms” may bring about effects opposite to the intended ones, have an offside effect of belated imitation and widespread side effects, which destroy the entire education system.