Prometheus is a program of the «Artes Liberales» Institute Foundation largely financed by the L. Kronenberg Banking Foundation. Some of the funds used by the Prometheus Program to date came from The Educational Leadership Program of The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation (USA).

The program's goal is to promote and disseminate modern educational concepts in the humanities. These concepts concern both educational ideals, program goals and content, and training and improvement of teachers and methods of working with pupils.

During the program-related and organizational reform of the Polish education system it is essential to prepare both university students and working teachers for the system changes in education and give them the ability to react to those changes.

The plans included creating the possibility of direct contacts between students of interdepartmental studies with schools and the best teachers. Both students and teachers have been offered the support of specialists in given subjects and university teachers who would help in the practical introduction of the idea of subject integration envisaged in the reform.

The program's authors hope that in the course of the program, working teachers will develop new, interesting curricula for the reformed school, and that the program will encourage students who have not thought about working in a school to link their careers to schools in the future.
 

Prometheus - Pilot Program carried out in 1998/1999

• The training programs for teachers who are authors of school curricula were approved for use in the program.
• Four sessions for teachers were held: "A presentation of experiences in the development of curricula," "Visible and hidden traps that could face the curriculum author," "Constructing a curriculum. The curriculum as a set of didactic experiences," "The school curriculum and the exam system. The teacher - curriculum author and implementer."
• A seminar was held for teachers teaching the integrated subject path "Polish culture and the Mediterranean tradition" in junior high school.
• A competition for teachers was held for the best curriculum for the integrated subject path "Polish culture and the Mediterranean tradition."
• The experiences of the teachers taking part in the Prometheus Program were published in booklet form.

Prometheus Program - Stage 1 carried out in 2000/2001

Among the most important tasks that the project's executors faced was how to engage the intellectual potential of the academic community and experienced teachers to effect the changes in the methods of programming educational activity at the school level. In accordance with the education reform, it is the teachers who take the greatest responsibility for the school curriculum. Within the Prometheus Program, participating teachers will receive assistance in choosing a curriculum and in programming their own work. Another motive for undertaking the project was the necessity to promote curricula with different degrees of integration - subject blocks and integrated subject paths.

The program is addressed to teachers, school principals and representatives of local governments (the bodies running the schools) on one hand, and on the other, to students and postgraduate students of the Interdepartmental Individual Studies in the Humanities and other students participating in classes within the framework of the University of Warsaw's Educational Laboratory. Cooperation between these two communities should lead to the development of materials that will inspire the authors of school curricula and offer methods and guidelines to persons involved in teacher training.
 

Project manager - Grażyna Czetwertyńska
Scientific secretary - Elżbieta Putkiewicz

«Artes Liberales» Institute Foundation
Nowy Świat 4
00-497 Warszawa
Tel.: (+48-22) 628 10 12

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