In the Service of God, Poland, and Neighbours: Michał Justyn Bobrzyński’s Vision of Education

Michał Justyn Bobrzyński (b. 1946) is a scout and an educational activist, as well as a promoter of religious education associated with Lublin. Since the 1960s, he has raised several generations of students as well as teachers. The latter describe him as “an extraordinary personality” and “an idealist who devoted his whole life to the cause of education.” During the People’s Republic of Poland, he opposed the atheisation of scouting and created the Scout Liturgical Movement and, in 1989, the Zawisza Catholic Scout Association. After the political transformation, he founded a school where he implemented a system of individual simultaneous teaching of his own design. The foundations of his pedagogical practice are unchangeably the values of Deo et Patria. This pedagogy is also strongly subject-oriented. The aim of the presented article is to reconstruct Bobrzyński’s biography and his educational outlook (in particular his views on religious and patriotic upbringing), and to present their practical exemplification – the Fr. K. Gostyński Private Catholic High School in Lublin, which has been operating since 1991.