The ways and sideways of Latin language teaching in the years 1945-2021

The place of classical languages and ancient culture in general education has been a matter of debate in Poland for many years, and these debates have been particularly important within the development and implementation of further structural and program reforms, the result of which has been a progressive marginalization of institutional teaching of Latin and ancient culture. When analysing the history of Polish education after 1945, it is easy to note that the main feature is the constant restructuring of the school system motivated by political and ideological factors. As a result of these successive reforms, we see that they have led over the 20th century to a change in the form and concept of the Polish school, and these changes were particularly visible in the field of classical education, which before the World War II was the basis of humanities education but is now almost absent from institutional secondary schools. This dramatic situation of the classics in Polish education makes us reflect on the condition of Polish humanities and on the direction of further changes in humanities education. However, regardless of the changing organizational conditions in Polish schools, the centuries-long tradition of teaching Latin language, and above all the Greco-Roman heritage’s cultural influence on contemporary Polish and Polish culture should be strongly emphasized.