Although the very term “constructivism” appeared rather recently, its concept was knownin 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 see m 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.
Wacław Nałkowski is certainly an outstanding figure for Polish geography. In many publications he has also been classified as positivist, anti-metaphysician, evolutionist, anticleric and socialist. Perhaps these designations are not always right, since in his works one can also find the ideas that do not quite match the labels conferred. His broad interests, diligence, criticism in selecting arguments, and the ability to see the essence of complex phenomena of different nature (both natural and cultural), yielded several interesting reflections contained in numerous articles and books. It should be emphasized that among his written thoughts and observations there are also those that resisted rapid changes in culture and environment that occurred in the century after his death, and can also be repeated today. Among them surely are his geographic and educational concepts. However, Nałkowski’s interests extend far beyond geography. The article focuses on interpretation of Nałkowski’s statements concerning the issues associated with the development of civilization, evolution, nature, as well as philosophy and sociology of science.
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