Wacław Nałkowski jako prekursor konstruktywistycznego podejścia do edukacji geograficznej

Abstract

Although the very term “constructivism” appeared rather recently, its concept was known in science long before now. According to modern cognitive psychology, the reality is created individually in person’s mind. An individual transforms and interprets the flow of information which he receives in his own way, depending on cultural, social, biological or situational context. Nałkowski’s statements concerning perception and thinking from the beginning of the twentieth century, connected with the idea of “rational geography”, were mainly based on intuition, but can serve as the evidence of his broad psychological and pedagogical competence. They seem to be conformable with the principles of constructivism and can be useful nowadays, especially in approaches relative to the so-called emancipatory pedagogy. The main objective of the paper is to assess the Nałkowski’s principles of geographical teaching from the point of view of the concept of constructivism as the modern educational approach.