Two popular and well known secondary school in Wroclaw: IX and XIV LOs will celebrate their respective 60th and 40th anniversaries. While the former has planned the celebrations for 4 October, the latter chose 10 and 11 October.
Their graduates are expected to arrive not only from Poland, but also from such remote corners of the world as the US, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Smiles will certainly return to their faces when they watch archive photographs and their former class registers, meet their teachers and reminisce the good old days during the graduate ball in the evening.
Author, actors and others
IX LO, which is located in ul Piotra Skargi, officially began its celebrations already in May with the event held at the monument of their patron Juliusz Słowacki. As many as 15 thousand graduates have left the school over the years. These include: bank CEOs, journalists, writers such as Marek Krajewski, a Polish crime story classic, and performing artists such as Ewa Skibińska and Wojciech Kościelniak. "We can form a small town when we meet," says Małgorzata Garbacz, a former journalist and the co-organiser of the event. She also represents the school's graduates association, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.
-"This year's celebrations will focus on the last ten years in the school's history as we organised a big event to cover its 50th anniversary ten years ago," she says. The golden jubilee ball was held at the Centenary Hall, and it attracted as many as 1100 guests! This time round, the organisers expect the smaller number, even though some graduates are planning to come from abroad. "The ball will be organised at the school, in collaboration with a hotel that is located in our vicinity. We are going to organise an auction of souvenirs to buy a climbing wall. The event will be hosted by our graduate, and our former students, who are now professional musicians, will also perform at the ball," recounts Małgorzata Garbacz. Prior to the ball, a graduates meeting will be held at the school between 10 am and 2 pm.
During the People's Republic of Poland, IX LO was regarded as the most liberal minded secondary school in town, and its students were given quite a lot of freedom to dress, behave or express their opinions the way they liked. "A lot of young people were dreaming to get to the school in the 1980s, but there were more than 10 candidates competing for one spot and you had to do really well in the entrance exams," reminisces Beata, once a former student, now a PR specialist.
Małgorzata Garbacz says that the power of IX LO is in its versatile, interdisciplinary and collaboration-oriented approach. "We place a lot of emphasis on volunteer programmes. We have been awarding out Złota 9 Prize to those graduates who make their mark with society- and community-oriented initiatives," she says. She believes that the spirit of the school is best expressed by Albert Einstein, who once said that the school should foster their students' personalities and not their professional skills.
To find out more about the meeting please visit www.juliuszada.pl, www.lo9.wroc.pl, registration for the ball closes on 12 September.
40 years elapsed
The Polish Community of Belgium Secondary School No. 14 [IX LO] has excelled in the ranking of Poland's best secondary schools conducted by Rzeczpospolita and Perspektywy. In 2013, it even came first in the competition. 5.5 thousand graduates have left the school since its inception. These include: eminent scientists (specialists in exact and life sciences), doctors and lawyers. Some of them have been appointed heads of large Wroclaw-based institutions. The school was also completed by Professor Jan Hartman, a well-known philosopher and bioethicist, Professor Ludwik Newelski, Head of the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Wroclaw, the popular TV presenter Monika Richardson (now Zamachowska) and the theatre director Agnieszka Glińska.
The school is widely considered an elite establishment, only for the most talented students who are able to meet its challenging admission criteria. "In fact, there were years when more than 10 candidates competed to continue their education here, and we were labelled a school for remarkable students while our students, clever as they are, also have to work hard and be ambitious to succeed. Those students who are prompted to choose the school by the ambitions of their parents hardly ever make it here," says Anna Rabiega, the school's graduate and now its Politics and Society teacher as well as the co-organiser of this year's anniversary.
Impossible is nothing
Anna Rabiega confirms that while the school's teaching standards are high and students have to meet challenging requirements, they can later on choose to follow ambitious engineering and medical studies both in Poland and elsewhere. "We go out of our way to foster civic attitudes in our students. That's why carry out numerous initiatives such as student exchange programmes or various projects, including volunteer programmes that attract a lot our students," she says.
"The prevalent opinion that we can only foster the rat-race atmosphere is simply unfair," emphasises Anna Rabiega. She also adds that students tend to develop powerful emotional ties with the school. The best example in this respect is one of its former students (Form IV b in 1987), who now lives in Chicago and has put XIV LO on his number plates
Anna Rabiega believes that her school teaches students that impossible is nothing and success is always within their reach. "Our graduates say that the school has shown then not only how to make their dreams come true, but also how to deal with failure and how to behave in the face of adversity."
To find out more about the gala and the XIV LO graduate ball please join us on Facebook www.absolwenci.lo14.wroc.pl or visit the meeting's website www.4014.pl.
Eliza Głowicka
