Patron
1904—1986
Roman
Czernecki
It all began with our patron, Roman Czernecki, a philologist, philosopher, and educator who devoted his entire life to education.
He was born in 1904 in Sielec in the Eastern Borderlands. In his youth, he studied Polish philology and the history of philosophy at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, after which he began working at the Department of Polish Literature. However, he quickly abandoned his academic career, and teaching became his mission. He became a Polish language teacher at the then famous Tadeusz Czacki High School in Krzemieniec. Later, he taught Polish at the Oil Society Gymnasium in Borysław, and from 1933 at the J. Śniadecki Boys' Gymnasium in Kielce.
World War II brought change. During the occupation, he risked his life to run a secret middle school and high school, as well as branches of the Jagiellonian University in Słupia in the Kielce region, as a member of the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ) and the Home Army (AK). After the war, together with a group of teachers involved in secret teaching, he founded a unique peasant school in nearby Szczekociny – politically and economically independent, running its own farm. The school was based on the ideas of partnership between students and teachers and involvement in local affairs. The institution quickly became an island of freedom in communist Poland, which brought Roman Czernecki into conflict with the authorities of the time. In 1950, he had to leave Szczekociny, but he accepted the position of school district superintendent in Zielona Góra. His further career was connected with Gdańsk, where he worked as a lecturer and vice-rector at the State Higher School of Pedagogy in Gdańsk, and then with Warsaw, where he held the position of director of the Teacher Training College for Working People. After retiring, he did not stop teaching. Between 1974 and 1980, he lectured on the history of philosophy at the Warsaw University of Technology. He remained a teacher until the end of his life.
After retiring, he did not stop teaching. Between 1974 and 1980, he lectured on the history of philosophy at the Warsaw University of Technology. He remained a teacher until the end of his life.
Roman Czernecki’s pioneering and uncompromising dedication to education became the ideological foundation of the EFC Foundation.
