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Jest to drugi esej z serii „Agnotologia pedagogiczna”. Agnotologia to studia nad szerzeniem nietolerancji (R.N. Proctor). Autor analizuje tu dwa problemy, dotyczące ignorancji jako nieuniknionej funkcji politycznego centralizmu i neoliberalnej gospodarki globalnej. Te dwie wielkie, dominujące siły same w sobie są antyedukacyjne, ale też prowadzą do całkowitej, nieomal śmiertelnej destrukcji systemów edukacji zorganizowanej. Narasta populizm i neofaszyzm. Młodzież, zanurzona w konsumpcjonizmie, nie zauważa, że została przez ‘gerontokratów’ ograbiona z własnej przyszłości, nie buntuje się. Co mogą zrobić pedagodzy i nauczyciele? Wezwanie do edukacji działań do oporu.

The ongoing growth of the human population will increase the rate of wildlife−human interactions. High levels of animal tolerance and flexible responses towards human presence seem to be among the key mechanisms behind successful wildlife−human coexistence, but this behaviour remains unexplored for most populations and species of animals. Here, we investigate the escape behaviour (measured as flight initiation distance) of the Crimean population of a charismatic and declining bird species, the lesser grey shrike (Lanius minor). We examined its relationship with starting distance of the approaching human, directness of that approach (direct or tangential), habitat type (rural or suburban), and height of the perch used by shrikes. We found that the starting distance was significantly associated with escape responses of shrikes to approaching humans. In contrast, we found no significant association between escape responses and directness of approach, habitat type, or height of perch. Our results indicate that the lesser grey shrike may exhibit low flexibility in their escape responses towards humans which may have implications for their conservation management. Our results also indicate that the widely used 30 metres threshold for minimum starting distance may be insufficient for rural populations, even of small passerines.

Summary The essay proposes a way to search for common educational goals in a situation marked by deep political and worldview-related divisions in Polish society. It recalls Kazimierz Sośnicki’s concept of the “collision of ethoses” conceived in the 1930s, and the need to overcome shallow ‘ceremonialism’ in order to move towards a deeper experience of values, both spiritually and through altruistic actions.

Calcium is one of the most important elements determining reproductive success in birds, and snail shells are a well-known source of calcium for egg-laying females. In Europe, song thrushes, Turdus philomelos, break snails open at locations called anvils, eat the soft parts and leave the broken shells. Based on observational studies in 2011–2017 in western Poland, we showed that thrush anvils were visited by 54 other bird species (mainly smaller species) that collected the broken shell fragments. The frequency of visits to anvils differed among species and changed over the course of the breeding season, but anvils were especially used by females during the pre-laying period. Our study is the first description of such widespread exploitation of thrush anvils by other bird species, and we think that this phenomenon has been overlooked owing to the difficulties in recording anvils located, for example, on single small stones, stumps of felled trees and man-made objects such as glass bottles. We conclude that thrush anvils can be an important source of calcium for many bird species that adapt behaviourally to use these places. Hence, anvils should be recognized as localized hotspots for bird diversity.

Mobbing is an anti-predator strategy initiated by one or more members of prey species aiming at driving away a predator that is not undertaking an attack. Because of a continuous dispute as to whether mobbing of a top predator may indicate species richness, we tested the correlation between the number of species engaging in mobbing and avian community richness. In the boreal forest of central Norway, we conducted a series of 83 bird census trials in 2014 and 2015. Each census trial consisted of two 5-min phases. In the first phase an ordinary point count was performed as a control; in the immediately following second phase either a stuffed Eagle Owl or Capercaillie female decoy was presented to study mobbing of a top avian predator and non-predatory species. Mobbing was more likely to occur, and the number of species that engaged in mobbing was higher, in habitats richer of bird species. Our study showed that the cumulative effects of being mobbed increase with richness of the local avian community. We did not find any support for the notion that mobbing is triggered by mobbing activity of the two most active and abundant species. No support was provided for an assertion that using an owl decoy would result in higher number of detected species during a census. Our study urges the need for identification and quantification of costs of mobbing for an avian predator.

An outstanding sociologist and philosopher of culture did not consider himself a pedagogue and was not perceived as one. An analysis of his books written during periods of great global crises: The Fall of Western Civilization (1921) and The Social Role of a University Student (1940), indicates that the fundamental transformation of education, especially university education, is a necessary condition for the formation of a new “aristocracy of the spirit”, new creative elites, capable of leading the masses (people) to the revival and development of Western civilization. American universities are particularly well-suited to this function. Both the content and the language of these books confirms that Florian Znaniecki was a radical humanistic pedagogue.

Summary 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 analyzes of Polish society is particularly important. It combines two positions. He believes that the causes of Polish systemic crises are the experiences of post-totalitarianism and specific Polish defects persisted 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, also gives hope.

The sources of the great questions of Polish pedagogy originate in the canon of eminent pedagogues of the interwar period, in the development blocks of our collective consciousness, in the dynamic cultural and developmental transformations on a global scale, and in the strong connections of pedagogy with its fundamental sciences.

The most negative impacts of roads on bats are increased mortality caused by collisions with vehicles, noise pollution reducing both communication and foraging, and barriers to movement. To test the effect of roads and traffic on the occurrence and foraging habits of bats in forested landscapes in western Poland we compared 53 sites located along local asphalt roads of low to medium traffic volume with paired reference sites on unsurfaced forest roads. Acoustical monitoring systems with Anabat detectors were used at night to detect bats at all sites. Overall, we found a strongly significant preference of bats for local asphalt roads; 640 bat passes were recorded at asphalt roads but only 271 at reference sites. Furthermore, significantly more bat taxa, longer activity and a greater frequency of feeding buzzes (calls used during foraging) were also recorded at asphalt roads. However, significant benefits were not shown for all species. This study clearly shows that local asphalt roads in forested landscapes are important foraging areas for several bat species.

To study the seasonal changes in avian communities, we collected data in an extensively used farmland in Western Poland during 2006-2013. Generalized additive mixed models were used in order to study the effects of seasonality and protected areas on the overall bird species richness. A similarity percentage analysis was also conducted in order to identify the species that contribute most strongly to dissimilarity among each bird according to the phenological season. Furthermore, the differences in bird communities were investigated applying the decomposition of the species richness in season, trend, and remainder components. Each season showed significant differences in bird species richness (seasonality effect). The effect of the protected areas was slightly positive on the overall species richness for all seasons. However, an overall negative trend was detected for the entire period of eight years. The bird community composition was different among seasons, showing differences in terms of dominant species. Greater differences were found between breeding and wintering seasons, in particular, the spatial pattern of sites with higher bird richness (hotspots) were different between breeding and wintering seasons. Our findings showed a negative trend in bird species richness verified in the Polish farmlands from 2006. This result mirrors the same negative trend already highlighted for Western Europe. The role of protected areas, even if slightly positive, was not enough to mitigate this decline process. Therefore, to effectively protect farmland birds, it is necessary to also consider inter-seasons variation, and for this, we suggest the use of medium-term temporal studies on bird communities’ trends.

Prey have evolved anti-predator defences that reduce or eliminate the risk of predation. Predators often reproduce at specific sites over many years causing permanent threats to local prey species. Such prey may respond by moving elsewhere thereby reducing local population abundance, or they may stay put and adjust their behavior to the presence of predators. We tested these predictions by analyzing population abundance and anti-predator behavior within 100 m of and 500 m away from nests of sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus and goshawks A. gentilis for 80 species of birds. Population abundance of prey was reduced by 11% near goshawk nests and by 15% near sparrowhawk nests when compared with nearby control sites in similar habitats. Flight initiation distance (FID) of prey, estimated as the distance at which birds took flight when approached by a human, increased by 50% in the presence of hawk nests, providing evidence of adjustment of anti-predator behavior to prevailing risks of predation. Susceptibility to predation was estimated as log transformed abundance of the observed number of prey items obtained from prey remains collected around nests minus log transformed expected number of prey according to point counts of breeding birds. FID increased from 10 to 46 m with increasing susceptibility of prey species to predation by the goshawk and from 12 to 15 m with increasing susceptibility of prey species to predation by the sparrowhawk. These findings suggest that prey adjust their distribution and anti-predator behavior to the risk of predation.

Summary To counteract the decline of farmland biodiversity in Europe, it is crucial to recognize habitats that are hot spots. Old rural settlements (e.g. villages) may be such important habitats, although these presumably biodiversity-rich habitats have received little attention. Socio-economic changes in central-eastern Europe since 1989 mean that old homesteads and farmsteads are being replaced by new ones. We investigated bird species composition, richness and abundance at three spatial scales (single rural property, village and landscape) in the farmland of Poland to test: (i) their association with age (built before vs. after 1989) and type of property (farmstead vs. homestead), (ii) their relationship with the increasing share of new homesteads at the village scale and (iii) the difference in diversity between the village environment and four other environments (open fields, forest–field ecotones, forests and towns) at the landscape scale. At the single property scale, 15 out of 33 species preferred old farmsteads, while only one species preferred new homesteads. Old properties hosted a higher number of species and individuals than new ones, and farmsteads hosted a higher number of species than homesteads. At the village scale, bird species richness and abundance were markedly negatively associated with the proportion of new homesteads. At the landscape scale, species composition differed between villages and the other environments, and villages had the highest average bird abundance. Synthesis and applications. Rural villages and old farmsteads are important habitats for many farmland birds; thus, the increasing number of new homesteads not associated with farmland production will likely lead to a substantial further decline of farmland bird numbers and biodiversity. To counteract this process, we recommend (i) implementing educational programmes to develop rural residents’ awareness about the importance of farmsteads and homesteads for biodiversity, (ii) including villages and farmsteads and consideration of bird-friendly habitats within these as part of EU conservation policies and (iii) compensating for changes in the structure of rural villages by increasing the amount of similar alternative habitats in the surrounding landscape.

Every species has certain habitat requirements, which may be altered by interactions with other co-occurring species. These interactions are mostly ignored in predictive models trying to identify key habitat variables correlated with species population abundance/occurrence. We investigated how the structure of the urban landscape, food resources, potential competitors, predators, and interaction between these factors influence the abundance of house sparrow Passer domesticus and the tree sparrow P. montanus in sixty 25 ha plots distributed randomly across residential areas of the city of Poznań (Poland). The abundance of the house sparrow was positively correlated with the abundance of pigeons but negatively correlated with human-related food resources. There were significant interaction terms between abundances of other urban species and habitat variables in statistical models. For example, the abundance of house sparrow was negatively correlated with the abundance of corvids and tree sparrows but only when food resources were low. The abundance of tree sparrows positively correlated with density of streets and the distance from the city center. The abundance of this species positively correlated with the abundance of corvids when food resources were low but negatively correlated at low covers of green area. Our study indicates that associations between food resources, habitat covers, and the relative abundance of two sparrow species are altered by the abundance of other urban species. Competition, niche separation and social facilitation may be responsible for these interactive effects. Thus, biotic interactions should be included not only as an additive effect but also as an interaction term between abundance and habitat variables in statistical models predicting species abundance and occurrence.

International audience; Stuffed birds are widely used in research for identifying effects of predators and nest parasites on bird behaviour, studying levels of aggression and the size of territories. However, the fact that these models do not move or vocalize may question the results of such studies and open them to criticism. One solution would be to determine how the results of research using stuffed dummies correlate with the response of wild animals to enemies under the same environmental conditions. In a first attempt, we examined the correlation between the intensity of mobbing of a dummy cuckoo Cuculus canorus and interactions with live cuckoos in the field during the breeding season in western Poland. A total of 39 bird species mobbed cuckoo dummies; all 39 were found to attack live cuckoos, while 24 species (61.5%) did so during experiments using a dummy. The number of individual birds involved in mobbing a dummy was positively correlated with the number of individuals attacking real cuckoos in the same areas, even when the most commonly mobbing species, the barn swallow Hirundo rustica, was excluded from the analyses. However, we did not find significant differences in frequency of mobbing behaviour depending on cuckoo behaviour described as flight or sitting, or calling rather than remaining quiet. Therefore, we conclude that the use of a dummy for studying mobbing of hosts and non-hosts of the cuckoo provide results that are similar to those made in response to the behaviour of live hosts.

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 Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. Animals respond to approaching predators by taking flight at a distance that optimizes the costs and benefits of such flight. Previous studies have shown that urban populations of birds have shorter flight initiation distances than rural populations of the same species, that this difference is partly explained by differences in the community of predators, and that a longer history of urbanization implies a greater reduction in flight initiation distance in urban populations. The use of birdfeeders may be an additional factor reducing flight initiation distance not only in cities but also elsewhere by among other effects increasing body condition, increasing availability and reliability of food, and hence reducing the relative cost of flight. Here, we tested the prediction that urban habitats and presence of feeders independently accounted for reductions in flight initiation distance using extensive samples from different cities in Poland. We found independent significant effects of urban habitat and presence of feeders on flight initiation distance. These findings suggest that different factors have contributed to the >tameness> of urban birds.

Metapopulation functioning in the context of landscape and habitat structure is generally well understood. However, in human-transformed landscapes, human disturbance may affect not only a species of interest but also biotic interactions in which that species is engaged, which has been rarely studied at multiple spatial scales. We tested (1) the associations between local (habitat and micro-habitat) and landscape factors and the occurrence and abundance of the land snail Cepaea nemoralis and two of its predators (thrushes and mice); and (2) the hypothesis that human disturbances modify associations between C. nemoralis and its predators. We surveyed snail colonies in rural landscapes of Poland. Generalized linear mixed models were used to test the stated hypotheses. At the landscape scale, the occurrence of C. nemoralis colonies was positively related to the cover of suitable habitats, fallow/waste land, and road length in the surrounding landscape. Bird predator abundance was positively correlated with the occurrence of snail colonies, mostly at sites with a high human impact, and was negatively correlated with snail abundance at sites with low human disturbance. Snail occurrence and abundance at the micro-habitat scale were positively correlated with variables describing the proximity of shelter and humidity. Avian predation pressure was negatively correlated with forest and settlement cover, whereas rodent predation pressure was positively associated with snail abundance and was negatively correlated with bird abundance. Human disturbance at the habitat and landscape scales benefited C. nemoralis through the creation of suitable habitats and scaling down of avian predation pressure. Conditions related to shelter and humidity were linked to the distribution and abundance of snails at the micro-habitat scale.

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.

Jackowiak, H., Skieresz-Szewczyk, K., Kwiecinski, Z., Godynicki, S., Jackowiak, K. and Leszczyszyn, A. 2014. Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy studies on the reduction of the tongue microstructures in the white stork (Ciconia ciconia ,A ves).— Acta Zoologica (Stockholm) 00:000–000. The structure of the tongue in the white stork (Ciconia ciconia) is observed macroscopically and under light and scanning electron microscopy. Our observations of the tongue reveal ar are terminal reduction of the size of the tongue and microstructures of the lingual mucosa among the investigations of birds published so far. The short, triangular tongue with a pointed tip is approximately 2.5 cm long in the adult and is situated in the caudal part of the oral cavity close to the laryngeal prominence. On the dorsal surface of the tongue, no typical mucosa microstructures like lingual papillae, median groove or lingual prominence are observed. The main structure of the tongue is composed of rostral part of hyoid apparatus, that is, entoglossal cartilage connects with basihyoid. Very thin mucosa is composed of fibrous connective tissue covered with orthokeratinized epithelium. No lingual glands and muscles are observed in the lamina propria of mucosa. Even though the triangular shape of the tongue in the white stork is typical for birds, the inner structure of the reduced organ is composed only of flat cartilagineous entoglossum of hyoid apparatus. During feeding behaviour of the white stork, the food transportation in oral cavity called cranio-inertial transport is undoubtedly affected by structural reduction of the tongue.

The text is a revised version of a paper delivered at a conference in Jabłonna in November 1981 during the Solidarity revolution, put down by the introduction of martial law in Poland in December that year. The author asks about the fundamental causes of this social and political shake-up and about the implications for the future of the education system. He scrutinizes the demands of different social and scientific circles which debated on the future of education. He proposes and foresees the possibility of limiting the role of the state, or the socialization of education, i.e. its independent creation by parents, teachers, local and regional communities and instilling in the learners of the skill to develop an inner autonomy and wide humanistic horizons. He enumerates many difficult dilemmas to be solved within these processes, stressing the need for long-term, consistent action.

Urbanization is the most dynamic phenomenon worldwide and many species colonize urban environment. Some of these species became so abundant in towns and cities that they are regarded pests, are human health hazard, causes damage to buildings and affect other urban species. Therefore, it is important to understand how such success- ful colonizers utilize urban environment and which factors affects their population densities. One of such species is the most common urban pest bird in the world, the Feral Pigeon Columba livia var. domestica. The aim of this study was to investigate how local food resources and the composition of the urban landscape affects densities of Feral Pigeon in the city of Poznan (Western Poland). Three counts were made in summer 2010 in 60 0.5 km x 0.5 km plots (25 ha) distrib- uted randomly across residential areas in the city. The density of pigeons showed significant spatial autocorrelation, both positive and negative one. The density of pigeons was highest in plots with more tall buildings (over four floors), a large number of human-related food resources, schools, and a high proportion of green space. The density of pigeons was lower in plots with a higher density of streets and located further from the city centre. The solution to the pigeon problem appears to be to plan residential areas with low-rise buildings. To control the number of pigeons in urban areas, we suggest preventing access to local food resources by using litter-bins that are inaccessible to animals. The public should also be educated to behave appropriately towards pigeons and refrain from feeding them intentionally.

During 2003–07, the moult of four captive Northern Hawk Owls Surnia ulula was studied in Poznan Zoological Garden (Poland). The aviary was under daily observation and all breeding events were recorded. It was recognized that captive conditions differ from that in the wild (food availability, expended energy — especially by males, and stress) but the study of captive owls allowed a detailed study of moult in relation to the breeding cycle of Northern Hawk Owls. Identification of dated moulted feathers enabled us to reconstruct the moult process of primaries, secondaries and rectrices. During this study the four birds had different breeding status: single, paired without breeding, paired with unsuccessful or successful breeding. In nine cases, the moult corresponded to patterns described in literature. In every case all primaries and rectrices were renewed each season. Males started moulting 3–11 days earlier than females and shed all secondaries every year while females replaced from 50–100% of secondaries...