The history of Wielkopolska region as the author’s thematic thread on the classes of “History and society. The heritage of the ages”

Abstract

The article discusses ways of presenting the regional history of Wielkopolska (The Greater Poland), which can be implemented in the author’s thematic thread on the class “History and society. Heritage of the ages” on the secondary school level. The publication aims to draw attention to those elements of the regional history that build up the heritage of the region, both in material (monuments, buildings and museum objects etc.) and intangible (ideas, traditions, cultural patterns and stereotypes) meaning.

The definition of the region and some issues related to the specificity of regional history in the context of the curriculum, teaching and educational values have been discussed in the introduction of the article. The following parts of the publication describe two possible ways of achieving this kind of teaching thread.

The first proposal, based on the chronological order can be perceived as traditional. It presents the most important facts from the history of Wielkopolska in connection with the national and universal history. The second is more alternative, mostly focused on chosen issues showing social and economic processes over the centuries, such as the multicultural heritage of Wielkopolska, the tradition of the landed gentry and also agricultural, trade’s and industrial changes.

In addition, the article contains a comprehensive bibliography of scientific and popular publications, synthetic works on the history of Wielkopolska, monographs and articles, and many other tips connected with archival and library collections, educational projects which are led by museums and regional centers. All this can be useful for conceiving author’s thematic thread in this subject.