The Overlooked Turning Point in History
Zvonko Perat
Introduction
In this paper, we will demonstrate the state of our school after three self-managing innovatory - original communist - political reforms of the Slovene school in the period after liberation, i.e. from 1945 up until the birth of the democratic Slovenia. When suggesting about how to continue the path that our school system should follow, we limit ourselves mostly to the state of the low (class) level of the Slovene primary school. The main stress will be placed on the state of literacy in the first classes of the obligatory school.
We are going to describe the path that led to the current situation (Perat, 2004) and also suggest a solution to the current dilemmas with a help of the results of the researches made on the gifted and talented pupils carried out by Benjamin Jurman, a researcher on the Institute of Pedagogy in Ljubljana (Jurman, 1999; Jurman, 2004).
Although on June 25th 1991 the Slovene nation became independent, we still cannot get rid of the fifty-year long mentality based on the self-managing socialism. If we quote Wittgestein, "some idea has overshadowed the others, therefore we have to check them all over again - the neglected as well as the privileged ones' (Wittgenstein 2005: 98), to be able to find the forgotten paths to literacy which is on the decline.
The reasons for this decline have their origins in the decade (1945 - 1955) when our new post-war united single-minded state communist school of "the state of labourers, peasants and honourable intelligence'' was still in the establishing process. This school was based on three socialist school reforms (1955 - 1991) based more on the thesis of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Slovenia) than on the pedagogical profession. (Kožuh, 1987 - review of the Yugoslav reforms and reformatory documents).
As early as 1957, our Communist Party has shown its true face for a moment. »The colleague« Edvard Kardelj, the leading Slovene and Yugoslav ideologue, described the Party's vision of the Slovenes' existence on their own land in the introduction of his pre-war book reprint (published in 1939) entitled Development of the Slovene national question. Kardelj's Yugoslav vision of the future development of the Slovene nation was as follows: »Just like a nation was founded on the basis of a specific social division of labour in the capitalist era, it will be gradually effaced from history as a specific historical social category with a formation of new extents and forms of social division of labour brought by the socialist or communist social regulation« (Kardelj, 1957: LXXIII). With these words Kardelj - who was also a Slovene teacher on the low (class) level of the primary-school by profession - defined the meaning of the pedagogical principle on the basis communist proletarian vision: »Socialistpatriotism and internationalism« that was being forced into the heads of the pupils at the Slovene training colleges in the period from the end of the Second World War up until the abolition of the training colleges in 1969.
In this way, the new "Tito's" Yugoslavia and its Party succumbed to the great nation syndrome that was introduced by the French revolution. Beside that, a renewed unification in the united state of Yugoslavia - though this time under the leadership of the Communist Party and the "lifelong" sovereign (president) Tito - was supposed to awaken the tendencies towards union of all the nations of Yugoslavia in one uniform nation. Likewise the idea of a big uniform Yugoslav nation did not die away in Tito's Yugoslavia either. This is an idea about a fraternal and united community of nations that are voluntarily united into a community. In this community, all its parts are equal - only some of them are more equal than the others (if we quote Orwell). The very fact that some communities of citizens are more equal than the others (the Great-German tendencies) led to a decline of the Habsburg monarchy and a ruin of Yugoslavia (the Great-Serbian tendencies).
Embraced by the great nations
»The French Revolution introduced a new perspective of a nation. Up until that time the notion of a nation - regardless of the language spoken by the people - was based on the citizenship and the historic tradition of the state or country. From now on a nation is a Grande nation (a great nation) which combines in one single notion either the state or also its territory, population and language. In a couple of decades the notion of a great nation - state was spread all over Europe. On this basis some new states were also founded in the second half of the 19th century, as for example Germany or Italy. The others, like France, adjusted their internal regulation in accordance with this princi-
ple. The new big states didn't have their own historical tradition; therefore they were missing a proper prestige in comparison with the others. With this prestige their regimes could have prided themselves before the national and the foreign public. However, they surmounted this deficiency by simply faking their historical tradition. For this purpose theyfinanced universities and academic institutions, ethnological and other scientific interpretations. In that way the new nations became "historical". Even more! With the aim of new conquests these big nations started to deny the smaller nations their historical tradition - as if to say that they didn't mean anything.
Ideology - adapted academic explanations were the basis offormation of the ideology that the leading regimes usedfor regulation of the public opinion in the name of science. In the first place the ideology was the basis of nationalism, which served the regime of the big state for establishment of its authority, while later on it served for its territorial and economical conquests. However, not only the notion of great nations was established in Europe, but also the notion of superior and inferior ones. The academic world-financed for this purpose as well
-	had a crucial role in predomination of such views in the broad public.
Even the ancient Austria couldn't avoid the new perspectives of a nation, a great nation, and a historical and superior nation. In this state such nations -the Slovenes among them as well - were proclaimed as "non-historical" on the basis offaked academic interpretation. Comparing to the "historical ones" they were denied an appropriate political status. That was the obvious chauvinism whose consequences are still visible in nowadays Austria...« ...
The German nationalism and chauvinism, which was already prevailing in Vienna at that time was aimed mostly at the Slovene people who were being in a way to the German invasion towards the Adriatic« (Savli, 2010: 6, 7).
In the complex of the German territorial appetites at that time, there was also the German "scientific" presentation of Slavs. The purpose of such presentations was the argumentation of the cultural justification of expansion of the German territories towards eastern and southern subjection of the "uncultured" Slavic nations who lived there. This attitude towards small nations could not be avoided even by the "prophet" of the half-bygone period
-	due to his (German) upbringing - who wrote the following words: "These nations were not supposed to be capable to live and develop, so they would disappear in one way or the other.« (Marx, 1955: 100) Afterwards the German nationalism led to militarism, which later brought about the first and then also the Second World War.
»At the end of the 19th century even the newly independent Serbia couldn't resist the Pan-Slavism and Yugoslavism - alluring ideologies which could have helped to conquer new territories. But it was leaning above all against the tsarist Russia, which was in the spirit of the Pan-Slavic ideology presented as the
"mother" of the Slavs. Otherwise the Pan-Slavic ideology was not the official Russian politic at that time. Nevertheless the Great-Russian "Slavic" Empire was the ideal aim set by the Pan-Slavic movement as a solution against the ideology of the Great-German nationality. In Serbia - being independent since 1870 - the idea of a once common nation of the Southern Slavs which were supposed to come as such from the original homeland of the Slavs beyond the Carpathians (Russia) to the Balkans was being more and more enforced in Serbia - most probably following the Slavic-Russian example. This was supposed to be the original "Yugoslav nation "that was even using a uniform language. It was only later that more languages and nations were supposed to develop from this original nation. Their unification in the joint state of Yugoslavia and afterwards a return to the original Yugoslav nation was meant to be the only possibility for the fraternal Yugoslav nations to resist the unbearable pressure performed by Germans and Hungarians in the ancient monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century. With help from the Southern Slavs and their Yugoslavia, the Serbs would also become one of the great nations of Europe. Consequently as early as before the first world war as well as after it, the Serbian side openly presented the "Great Serbia" (Yugoslavia) and its place in the South-Eastern Europe to the world" (Savli, 2010: 8).
At the end of the First World War, Slovenes joined Yugoslavia without any constitutional and legal comprehension of a nation and corresponding political requirements. The heart of this incorporation was merely the antiGerman orientation. Everything else would come by naturally. »But even worse has come! Right from the very beginning the centralist regime in Belgrade considered Yugoslavia merely the "Great Serbia". It was not even hiding its unitarianism and it was only a matter of time when the "Great-Serbian nation" would be formed in the new state. In this respect its previous control and guidance of the public opinion via adapted interpretation of the history came in more than handy to this regime, the same as the Great-German side had been acting under the monarchy" (Savli, 2010: 18).
For the Belgrade regime, it was mainly about preventing the ideas about a proper state (whether some ancient state formation or only an expressed piece of wishful thinking) from entering Slovenes' heads. As for our historians, they concealed the Slovene state Carinthia and by that also the Carinthian law which is named »Institution Sclavenika« or »Slavica lex« in the sources. If nobody else, it was Bill Clinton who called our attention to the Carinthian law. He was the first American president who visited the independent Slovenia officially. »During his speech at the evening event organisedfor him in Brdo-on-Kranj by the Slovene political leaders and which was also broadcasted by the Slovene national television, Clinton admitted that the Americans had learned about democracy from Slovenes and stated that Tho-
mas Jefferson, the author of the American "Declaration of Independence", had introduced democracy into the political structure of modern America following the Carinthian Slovene example. (Savli, 2010: 79) As early as 1576, the procedure of enthroning of the Carinthian princes was described by Jean Bodin in his book Le six livres de la république (Paris 1576). During the Carinthian enthroning ceremony people handed over the authority to a sovereign if he showed himself "worthy of this honour". The authority was not given merely "by the grace of God" (Dei Gratia), but above all "at the will of the people".
We have to add something else, so that the Slovenes will not be irrationally pushing forward beside the others into the herd, which was driven up from beyond the Carpathians and trampled into a pen on the western side of the Balkans. We are forced into this pen by our eminent historians about whom the former Slovene Belgrade brothers maintained that they had adopted the "famous Resava School". Resava School - the copying and translating centre for manuscript books in the Manasija monastery in Serbia.
We have to take into account the fact that the Slovene language is not Southern-Slavonic, but a Western-Slavonic one. This is commented on by our most reputable linguist: »There is more than enough proof that the Slovene linguistic base is actually a language of the Northern-Slavonic type which has developed under a continual Southern-Slavonic influence right from the beginning.« (Bezlaj, 1967: 122)
In 1929 the collective Yugoslav committee was also formally introduced by the centralist Great-Serbian dictatorial authority who announced that all the nations of the kingdom of Yugoslavia are one single uniform Yugoslav nation.
The public proclamation of the formal introduction of the new "Great Yugoslav nation" was met by opposition from the Slovene people. That led to the "Slovene declaration" which was spread illegally in 1932 by a leading Slovene politician Anton Korošec. This was only a belated attempt to do something at any price, although the case was long since lost. However, as Korošec publicly expressed the idea about the special Slovene nation, he was rewarded with internation.
»Because of a lack of the right ideas about the Slovene state the left-wing side was looking - on the old Pan-Slavic origins-for a new righteous order with a help from Stalin, the "great" Slav from Moscow. The Catholic side - if it was aware of the gravity of the situation at all - was expecting the solution to come simply from a deeply religious life and finally from the Church or its leaders. However, the circumstances on the Slovene costal region (Primorje) - which belonged to Italy at that time - gave clear evidence that the Church leaders in Rome didn't show any comprehension for Slovenes' difficulties« (Savli 2010:
20, 21). Even worse; to consolidate the agreement with the Kingdom of Italy, Rome called back the bishops from the Slovene people who were assigned to Italy by the Rapal agreement after the First World War. In that way, nearly one third of the Slovene nation was left without their religious supply. After the Second World War Slovenes got back a part of this territory; however the region was plundered and many people had moved away and dispersed all over the world. Those Slovenes who had stayed on their land were either easy prey for the communist propaganda or they had to go abroad as well. However, those who stayed at home could feel all the beauties of the communism during various nationalisations and the compulsory delivery of goods for purchase by the state. Beside the motto: "Unite,, the proletarians of all the lands!" they also got to know in a bloody way the following Marx and Engels' formula: "Theproletarian has no homeland!" If the proletarian has no homeland, it becomes clear why our leaders traded with the Slovene land with such ease and generously donated it to the others. Both of the former Yugoslavias traded with the Slovene land with the same ease and also the territorial rights offer was made between Forgell - the Swedish King Gus-tav's delegate - and Mr Zamajski who was offering the Netherlands to the Swedish King (on Mr Zaglob's suggestion) in exchange for the reign over the Lubelj dukedom. (Sienkiewicz 1956 [Potop 2nd part]: 274) It was easy to trade with property of others and it would have been even easier if the former proprietors had been changed into proletarians who were, by definition, with no property (nema-nici; meaning: "to have - nothing").
In 1953, after the patriotic partisan enthusiasm had calmed down a little, by destroying the territorial property in Slovenia through nationalization; Belgrade started to diminish yet the last naive and romantic picture of the Slovene state and nation. »The right of separation was erasedfrom the federal constitution with a new constitutional law in 1953. And that was made in spite of the fact that the corresponding paragraph of the constitution was interpreted in such a way that these rights had already been used, namely when the representatives of the Yugoslav nations opted for a common state during the second AVNOJ session in Bosnian town Jajce in 1943. According to the Balkan interpretation: »The right of separation actually did exist, but it's been used and cannot be used again!« It was mentioned in the constitution, but it was none the less still reminding about the "separation", therefore it had to be effaced ultimately. At the same time the nationality data was equally erasedfrom the birth certificates and personal legal documents in accordance with the federal law.
We should make a special study of looting in Slovenia on the economical basis, over the tax system, investments, foreign trade and business with foreign currencies etc. Let us mention here only extermination and plundering of the rustic people, firstly under the pretext of collectivisation and after that open-
ly with the destruction of the agricultural product market by lowering the price far below the normal value. Therefore as early as in the sixties, the escape from the countryside - especially of youngpeople who were lookingfor a suitable job -grew into a serious problem. At that time the communist Yugoslavia opened its borders, whetherfor tourists or for its manpower that started to flow abroad. In this way Slovenia lost about 200.000people in the seventies - young and hard workingpeople who were our best force«. (Savli, 2010: 33)
Belgrade naively expected us to renounce the Slovene culture just like that. When filling the official forms, the students in those times entered the Slovene citizenship data into the citizenship column instead of the Yugoslav one. Even some institutions put the "Slovene" word into their names (e.g. the Slovene School Museum). I have to stress that as early as during the Second World War, our Academy of Sciences and Arts had became the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts and in that way it prevented - with a help of its name - being "drowned" in the Italian State Academy.
In some way, 1953 was a repeat of 1929, the year when the great nation of Yugoslavs was supposed to be born. That was the beginning of a series of school reforms, which more hindered than advanced the adoption of new knowledge. These reforms of the Slovene School will be discussed in the following sections.
»The Slovene university wasn't spared either. Its scientific level was being undermined under the pretext of ideology. Anton Slodnjak, an excellent literary historian and presernologist (a researcher of life and literary work of Preseren, the Slovene greatest poet) had to leave the university after publishing his History of the Slovene Literature - Geschichte der slowenischen Literatur (Berlin, 1958) in German language. During the post-war period more than ninety extremely qualified lecturers were removed from the university. Many were expelled from the Academy as well«. (Savli 2010: 34, 35)
1953 represented the beginning of our School proletarization. Two subjects - reading and writing - were abolished and the Slovene grammar gradually stopped to be taught on the class level (from the second to the fourth class) of the Primary School. At the same time, nationality was not being recorded in the legal documents any more. All over Yugoslavia the official state language was the Serbo-Croatian i.e. Croat-Serbian. The Slovene and Macedonian language are the official languages only on the Slovene and Macedonian territories and the national languages are used bilingual-ly where this is allowed. Consequently, some languages got a local character and nearly became only dialects. There was no longer a necessity for the students to learn grammar. All over the state we were learning the newly made Serbo-Croatian language and this was probably enough for the "proletarian literacy" of the citizens.
There were still cow deals going on with the territory that had always been Slovene. In 1953, we demanded Trst to be returned at a huge gathering of Slovenes in Okroglica by Gorica, but we lost it smoothly again the very next year. Those were also the times when we were moving the ancient borders and giving our territory to our brothers, the Croatians, although these regions had never in the history been Croatian. In Istria, the Slovene border moved from the river of Mirna to the small river of Dragonja.
After 1970, a constant decline in the quality of school knowledge was recorded in Slovenia. The quality of knowledge was controlled by the Communist Party and the teachers witnessed its constant interfering in their lessons, even in natural sciences and mathematics. In this way, the physicists were, for example, allowed to teach merely about the universe, which is expanding linearly. They were not allowed to talk about any curve of space and time, because this could lead to errors of ideas. In mathematics all the notions from financial mathematics were blasphemous, because they were remains of the capitalist ideology.
There was an affair of the joint pedagogical - educational nuclei breaking out after 1980. The joint nuclei was a notion from the Yugoslav school history in the period after 1980. It related to the proposal which in 1983 demanded that the teaching - educational programmes all over the state were made as uniform as possible. There were supposed to be uniform teaching programmes and the schoolbooks as consistent as possible. In the school cur-riculums, made according to the "joint nuclei" proposal, the part about each Yugoslav nation in the school teaching material was supposed to be given the same space, as there was the percentage of the same nation in the whole Yugoslav population. This orientation should have been respected in all the school subjects, especially history and geography.
The proposal came first of all from Serbia and the closely linked Monte Negro. This means from the very circles that wanted a higher centralisation of the federal state (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). Serbia was facing more and more demands for the national equality of rights on Kosovo. Demands for an equal federal united republic were still valid on Kosovo at that time. These demands were partly coming from the multinational and more developed Vojvodina as well. In the regulation of those times - especially as it was defined by the Constitution of SFRJ from 1974 - the content of the teaching programs was independently defined by agencies of the federal republics.
The ideas about the joint nuclei met a great and rather uniform opposition in Slovenia as well as in the other republics. The notion of the joint nuclei was later mentioned as one of the last desperate attempts to build a centralist Yugoslavia. One of the reasons for the tragic downfall of the states in
the nineties was the fact that the leading circles in Serbia were not prepared to continue the decentralization.
A plan of complete extermination of Slovenes appeared after the joint nuclei affair. »In the summer of1988four Slovenes were sentenced in the court of Yugoslav Army in Ljubljana: Borstner, Jansa, Tasic and Zavrl. They were found guilty of stealing a secret document, which was said to contain a plan of complete extermination of Slovenes. The sentence raised and drove whole hosts of people to protest publicly. From then on it was evident that Yugoslavia was not going to last much longer. At the end of the eighties the Yugoslav crisis with a yearly inflation of about 2000% made sober even the most naive Slovene sheep. No one could imagine a further life in Yugoslavia any more«. (Savli 2010: 59)
After so many experiences with embraces of large nations - Germans in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italian fascists (nearly one third of Slovenes), we got to know a fraternal embrace of the Yugoslav brothers as well. All this made us believe that some relatively small national community has the power to decide sovereignly only if it knows how to win the right of its own language and culture and how to successfully lead its economical politics in its own land which has internationally acknowledged borders and a state language that is accepted on the list of official languages of the European Unity at the same time.
After the downfall of the Habsburg monarchy and the rather strange steps of inclusion into the new multinational community "The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes" Dr. Karel Ozvald, the first principal of the Department of Pedagogy at the Faculty of arts in Ljubljana at that time warned the nations united in the joint kingdom: » ... »From the generation of noblemen and townspeople, employers and proletarians - who have been opposing each other to extremes in their fight for political autocracy and economical predominance - the citizens with the same law and of the same type shall develop, fellow citizens who know that they are indispensable to each other to a certain degree and who serve their joint homeland. Not before the fight between the classes, religions, tribes and parties is finished or before this fight is transformed into a tolerant discussion about relative justice and relative injustice of one single group or the other, Yugoslavia will become a uniform state. School is supposed to help us reach this goal - as much as it can. If we stay in the present situation - which is not a fight for acknowledgement but for oppression of the others - then everything is lost that the joint emergency temporary brought to the tribes and religions and a danger of collapse will knock on our door.« (A. Fischer) - this is the mirror put in front of the Germans by the famous philosopher and pedagogue before the war (in 1914), writing about the conception of a unit in the school organisation and this mirror he is putting in front of us now.
Each type of our school is able to produce a lot ofspiritual puttyfor the uniformity of three-nominal nations and our state, however the most of it is produced by its most developed form, universitas, in whose structure I can see thepre-image of the uniform SHS, capable of a gradually bigger life. Universitas is a community of all those teachers and pupils who - in spite of all the mutual differences -follow in calmness the same goal reasonably and with united forces: a search for the truth and a creation of the goals, growingfrom the discovered truth. One of these goals is a powerful state, but the path that leads to it is opened only by comprehension of the great command: Budme celek, a ne drobtove!« (Ozvald, 1920: 11-12)
However, all the warnings were to no effect - as early as at the beginning of our cohabitation in the kingdom the Great-Serbian nation clearly showed that it considered us merely its spoils of war. Thirty years later, after it shed off its communist skin, this same nation still thought that Slovenia was its feudal estate.
The case could not end up in any other way - we were forced to set up on our own. »The Slovenes' breakthrough among the nowadays modern nations appears as something unincredible. Many other nations in Europe haven't been capable of that, for example Venetians, Friulians, Occitans, Basques ...Some of them are awakening again.
The enemy tried to wipe out the Slovene language and even more the Slovene consciousness with many falsifications of the historian facts, humiliations, insults and infiltration into its structure, but nevertheless the Slovenes persevered through it all! Their neighbours tried to take possession of their strategic territory - among the first ones there were Germans and Italians, partly Hungarians, and also the supposedly fraternal Croatians and Serbs, but they did not succeed. And they won't succeed in the future either!« (Savli, 2010: 87)
Just recently there was a nice example in the Northern Europe, which showed us how hard it is for members of the large nations to reconcile to the fact that nobody is so big that he can play the leading violin every time and everywhere. Latvia - whose population is comparable to that of Slovenia - held a referendum on February 2nd 2012 when the citizens were opting for the acknowledgment of Russian as the second state language. Although a whole third of the citizens in Latvia are Russian born, there was no possibility that the case would end up to their advantage. The Russians came to Latvia as occupiers. During the occupation thousands of Latvians were deported to Siberia, while their homes were lodged by Russians who are -with occupational logic - in Latvia as colonists or in the best case economic emigrants, as their presence in those places is firstly the result of political and economical motives for the occupation and only later the emigration flows. However, in no case the Russians in Latvia are an autochthonous mi-
nority. After the announcement of independence in 1991, the Latvian language became the only state language and its mastery became the condition for acquirement of citizenship. Probably a lot of Russians still stayed in the country and they are somehow "effaced" from the register of Latvia's population. However Latvia is the only state on Earth where the Latvian culture and language can exist and develop, therefore it is right that the Latvian language is the only state language spoken by only 1.2 millions of it's people. Latvians think that a support of Russia at the referendum means a vote against Latvia. After the Soviet Union's collapse, Russians were allowed to stay in the state. Though such a referendum is a counter-state action. They think that now they have to become more determined in the enforcement of their only state language.
The Slovene people could learn a lot from this case. If nothing else, they could be aware of the fact that Slovenia is the only state in the world that is obliged to cherish the Slovene culture and language. Therefore a memory of our state's origins should be renewed in the teaching school programmes and all educational institutions should be aware that they are obliged to develop the Slovene language. The Slovene University was recovered with the intention of developing the professional terminology, so the Slovene language would not fall on the level of a folklore language. For this reason, the Slovene language was supposed to be a teaching language at the University as well. If that is not possible, a simultaneous translation of the lectures as well as bilingual notes must be provided. In that way, individual branches of the profession would get written notes of the material concerning a particular profession in the Slovene language as well as in some other language. This can give us the norm for Slovene as a professional language which is partly happening already, as many professional gazettes (reviews) are written at least bilingual now and such are some collections of subscriptions from individual professional meetings as well. For now this is only about good will in the individual cases, but it should become an obligatory professional and linguistically controlled good practice. Each department of University should be responsible for the development of its part of the professional Slovene language.
The Independent Republic of Slovenia - A reform
without reformation
Nowadays Slovenes have a democratic national state; therefore no one is allowed to force any actions on another. We have lost the right to complain that the solutions are being forced on us. As we accepted the heft of freedom - in accordance with the refrain of the famous revolutionary poem "we take freedom by ourselves" - we have accepted the responsibility for our actions as well. Now, on the turn from the second to the third millennium, we have be-
come responsible for our national educational system as well. However, we have not drawn profit from the opportunity.
The independent state of Slovenia was achieved, this was unequivocally spoken about by the professor Lambert Ehrlich as early as 1933 on Sv. Višarje: »Slovenia has to be the milestone which unites and links the south with the north and the east with the west. Slovenia alone can be neither the one, nor the other. It has to stay the milestone that unites like Sv. Višarje. This is God s will! Slovenia will be able to perform this task only infreedom, not under a master who would be sitting whether in the south or the north, in the east or the west! Its God's will that we all work for this freedom and God's will cannot be avoided by anyone... From the sermon, preached to students of the Ljubljana University who went on a pilgrimage to Sv. Višarje in 1933.« (Savli 2010: 22)
Professor Ehrlich talked from his inner conviction. Slovene individuals who somewhere in their subconsciousness were preserving the memory of the Slovene state, of the Ancient Justice, in spite of the fact that it had been erased from all the historical books felt the same as professor Ehrlich.
As far back as two hundred years ago, in times of the Illyrian Provinces (1809-1813), Slovene intelligence was still persevering in Kopitar and Vodnik's viewpoints who had rejected Marmont's plan to introduce the language of the Dubrovnik literature as a teaching language into the "Illyrian Schools" on the Slovene national territory as well. In this way, the first Illyrian attack on the Slovene language was overcome.
Soon afterwards, Prešeren and Čop had to give their word in defence of the Slovene language against the Croatian Illyrism. In the first half of the 19th century, the Illyrian movement was a Southern-Slavic literary-cultural and national-political movement. The Illyrian movement was of a great importance especially in Croatia, but neither Serbs nor Slovenes accepted it. In the thirties, the Illyrian name was used by the Croatian nationalists who wished to get a neutral name for the community of Croats and other Southern Slavs. The movement soon got a political character and had a deciding integration role during a formation of the Croatian national consciousness in a fight against hungarization and germanization. Beside that, it got a great cultural role, because in times of Illyrism the shtokian dialect became a basis of the Croatian literary language.
For Slovenes, Illyrism meant a tendency towards the omission of their language in the literature and acceptance of the joint Southern-Slavic language based on Shtokavian, which would be polluted with elements of other languages. The idea did not have many adherents among Slovenes, however the Illyrian tendencies were accepted as a possibility of cultural cooperation with regard to national individuality. The idea was best accepted in the border regions, i.e. Styria and Carinthis, mostly because of a strong germaniza-
tion pressure. In Carniola, it did not have any visible influence. Stanko Vraz, an example of the Slovene supporter of Illyrism, came among the Ljudevid Gaj's devotees with his idea that a financial background is needed for continual cultural development which can only come from a bigger number of users. However, not even Vraz was thinking about a complete omission of the Slovene language. He suggested that the higher literature is to be in the Illyr-ian language, while the lower one (religious, educational and school books) in the Slovene language. On these viewpoints, France Prešeren was his most important opponent who rejected these ideas in his letter written to Vraz on October 26th 1840 in which he opted for the Slovene literary language. In this way, he confirmed Matija Cop's demands for the Slovene historical consciousness and artistic creativity. (Reference: Illyrism, Wikipedia Nov 5 2011)
After 1848, the Slovene leaders were still insisting by their demand for the »UnitedSlovenia«. As the Slovene political history and particularly its state tradition was not properly researched (and still has not been yet), the Slovene political magnates of those times referred first of all to every nation's natural right of its own state unit. Numerous rallies were being held all over the Slovene regions. The first announcement of the rallies was published in the Maribor newspaper Slovenski gospodar (The Slovene landlord) on June 25th 1868. The rallies were supposed to give the answer to at least two thematic complexes:
-	Taxes and
-	Equality of nations (and languages).
The first public rally of this kind was held on August 1st 1868 in Ljutomer. This rally was followed by eighteen other rallies all over Slovenia (seventeen rallies before interdiction of such gatherings by the Hohenwart Austrian government in 1871 and then the last rally in 1878 in Dolina-up-on-Trst). All the rallies demanded the »>UnitedSlovenia« and had the same requests as the first rally in Ljutomer.
The Ljutomer rally demands, August 1st 1868:
»The here assembled Slovene nation declares with one voice that in the paragraph 19 of the basic state law we can not find the guaranty for the preservation and cherishment of our nationality as long as:
1.	Exclusively the Slovene language is not the official language on the Slovene land andfor this purpose the time limit (i.e. half a year) is notfixedfor all the officials on the Slovene land to master the spoken and the written Slovene language.
2.	The Church government on the Slovene land does not officiate in the Slovene language and the subjects of theological seminaries (which are now being lectured in German) are not interpreted in the Slovene language.
3.	The folk schools are not completely Slovene and have Slovene as a teaching language (German stays as a school subject).
4.	Slovenes are not united in the United Slovenia with a national government.
5.	The Slovene institutions (for example the Slovene secondary modern schools, the agricultural colleges...) are not built and maintained by the provincial Styrian treasure in proportion to the number of Slovenes and their contributions.
6.	These demands are not added to the above-mentioned paragraph of the executive law and actually introduced and a higher self-managing authority is not given to the individual regions.« (Tabori, 2012: 6)
The rallies represented the zenith of the Slovene nation's political activity and striving and at the same time the zenith of the political idea, i.e. the programme of the United Slovenia. Unfortunately, there was no Pan-Slovene committee or organisation in the period of the rally movement, which would have linked and planned the activities connected to the rallies. This was undoubtedly the most important deficiency of this political period -otherwise so dazzling for the Slovene nation - which did not give the expected results exactly for this reason. After the prohibition of the rallies, a disagreement between members of the Clergy Party and members of the Liberal Party came about. In this way, the ascent of the Slovene national movement was stopped and put down.
Fear of the triumphant German nationality and Germanization had appeared before the decline of the rally movement. Just like that, the Slovene political leaders started to sympathize with Yugoslavianism at a congress of the Yugoslav Social Democracy on July 1st 1870in Ljubljana.
As late as 1897, the membership of Slovene political parties still demanded the uniting of all the Slovene regions in one unit with its centre in Ljubljana. Similar demands were expressed again next year at the last Slovene rally in Dolina-upon-Trst. Those were also the last Slovene political statements that did not link the national existence of Slovenes to the Yugoslav issue.
That was followed by nearly fifty years of the worst German national pressure, supported by organised state activity. Slovene delegates in the Austrian parliament put up with smaller concessions, especially after wasting their power with "mutual discords" and were not appearing with the United Slovenia program. Therefore dissatisfaction and opposition to their politics was growing bigger and bigger amongst Slovene national crowds and were even more increased by the bad social and economical conditions which led to the emigration of ten thousands of young Slovenes who for the most part were lost in the wide world.
Likewise we have to be aware that in the European Union, we are also a milestone that "unites and links". A milestone that is a holder and a symbol of the oldest public law in the world. In the name of law, our grandfathers fought for their inheritance rights - for the ancient law. The following command to a son originates from the memory of this law: "Son, you shall remember that this land is ours! Its your grandfather's who lie in it - so continue to fight for our land!" (Igo Gruden) We are a milestone that unites the parts of Europe with all its existence - the bridges lead from us to all directions and not only to the Adriatic (Brücke zur Adria). Here the winds from all directions unite and the storms calm down and not only those from the south (S. Gregorčič, Soči), here the horsemen from the east grew tired. Here we can finally accept the delegates from all directions and we can all sing together: Let all the nations live who yearn for the day... (F. Prešeren, Zdravljica - the Slovene national anthem).
To be worthy of our position as guardians of the milestone, we finaly have to turn the key of our "ancient law". The key to the roots of the Slovene law ("Sclavenica instituto") is dated at around 1010 and is important for the acknowledgment of our state and for understanding the development of the European democracy. Unfortunately both us and Europe have forgotten it somehow. We have forgotten it because of the fear of our masters, while Europe has forgotten it because it was not capable of establishing a real community of cohabitation of equal states, for whom there is a law order which is the same for all and accepted by all. That means - by God's grace and the nation's will, only that the power of importance is reversed. Grace is important, but if there is no will of a nation, all the rest is null and void.
The key to a new state, that couldn't be found for a long time, was a freely and honestly presented history. The key that is still in the lock, but is still not turned in such a way that it would open the door to the real history of the Slovene nation. But sooner or later this is bound to happen, although the old ideological imperialisms - whether the Yugoslav (Great-Serbian) or the Austrian (German) one - still imagine that they can turn the flow of the historical events by distorting the real historical image of Slovenes on the basis of supposedly "sci-entifical"interpretations. (Savli, 2010: 9 and 12)
As early as 1020, in the time of the Slovene university establishment, professor Ph.D. Ozvald warned the nations in the joint state - during his inaugural lecture (Ozvald, 1920) - about a dangerous thought that some nations were more equal than the others. However, in Tito's Yugoslavia, the Slovene boat was stranded on the cliff of inequality and exploitation for the second time. After two failures that we had experienced (Habsburg monarchy 1918 and Yugoslav community of nations 1991) on May 1st 2004, we joined the community of equal European nations as an independent nation
with its own state - but recently two communities had collapsed and... I am rather superstitious about the number three. In some way I am comforted by a thought that probably two Yugoslavias collapsed - then the European Unity would be already the fourth union of states. However, the number four is not connected to the superstition in a negative way.
The Slovene nation - and the European Union, as well - should take a warning about equality of rights very seriously. Soon the time is bound to come that will demand equal decisions from Europe. A rightful answer almost does not exist any more. How are we going to react when the states that write in Cyrillic join the European region? From my point of view, we are going to write "EYPO". And what about if in the Cyrillic languages - in accordance to "the Vuk principle "Pisi sto kao govoris" (You shall write as you speak) - it is not pronounced euro, but evro?" Are we going to write "EBPO"? Slovenes were not allowed to write down "EVRO" on the European money; we have to write "EURO". But in the internal (private) trade we can write as we please. So where is the equality - which is violated in any way by writing on the Greek money and by saving Greek finances - in the midst if the financial crisis! As we are alone in the whole community that we have joined, we cannot keep quiet any more. "Right after a victory of the communist revolution in Russia and later, after predominance of communist regimes in many states after the second world war - especially in the Eastern Europe - rearrangements of scientific interpretations reached its summit. Nowadays we remember with dislike the names of many scientists and "scientists" who had built their academic career by adjusting their interpretations to the aims of communist regimes... However we can still find a high school apparatus that follows the national ideology also in the independent and democratic states of the West. Their scientific interpretations have always been and still are "independent", but only to the limit, defined by the regime thatfinances them. To hide the prejudiced character of such interpretations before the public, the regime gives their authors many different kinds of awards and enables their academic publicity. And that's not different to the bygone communism." (Savli, 2010: 9)
Now we should do what we should have done immediately after the emancipation and - on this basis and with a careful check of our Slovene school's false ideal believes in all the communities that we joined independently without being concerned about what someone else would say - build our own national school according to our needs and our national (nowadays also state) language.
After its promising beginning the first Slovene school reform in the independent state died away in a returning and a renewed insistence on the Yugoslav single-coloured school path. In 1983, school curriculums - which served as a basis for our first school curriculum after the emancipation -
were made under an impression of ruined "joint nuclei" at Slovene lessons (Šavli, 2010: 57; Kozinc, 2010: 57) as well as at mathematic (Tomic, 1984: 372; Perat, 2004: 69). However, the national educational system of the independent Slovenia should not be standing on such a questionable basis.
As we realised that the literacy process in our school is insufficient, we have to reawaken those forgotten school subjects and dealings with teaching material which were a constant repertoire of the literacy departments of the Slovene primary school class level (elementary classes) in the period when school was still trying to teach all that was written in the program of each individual class. If we ascertained that cases of tuberculosis are getting more numerous, we would probably fight the illness in the same way as we did years ago. Nowadays, when we ascertain an abnormal increase of insufficient literacy and reading as well as ignorance of the basic grammatical principles, we have to remember the times when these skills were still taught at school. And that was because possession of this knowledge was not yet a matter of course and could not be replaced by various more or less improved machines. Therefore, we think that the once typical subjects of the Slovene school elementary classes - writing and reading - should be introduced again at least to the first two classes of the primary school. Furthermore, there would be no damage done if we added Slovene grammar as well, so that our children would be able to write a letter in the Slovene language to their mother and not only to their friend in Zgornji Kašelj or in the English language to London. So would say that it does not matter anyway, as the world is globalising and we can get rid of the linguistic barriers most easily if we can express ourselves by writing just in one language. Therefore it is redundant to teach anything else than English grammar and to explain any other words than in English. Such a school would be applauded by many people I know, but unfortunately I am not among them.
The school reforms of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Ph.D. Franc Pediček divided our socialist reforms into three periods. Let's take a look at his words:
"Likewise the historical memory reveals to us how illegitimate was yet the first school reform - i.e. immediately after the liberation (1958-1960). During its preparatory period (1945-1955) it was all about revolutionary communist pre-ideologisation of education, while during the reform alone (1955-1960) it was about socialist reorganisation of the primary school system from four to seven (or eight) years.
The second school reform (1961-1967) concerned the secondary school. It dealt with »the first-rate status« of gymnasiums and reduced them to four
years. Consequently the classic gymnasiums were completely abolished. But even before the reform was revived it died in its educational body because of its illegitimacy which had its origins firstly in the non-investigated misdirected situation and secondly in its experimentally unchecked consequences for development of young schooling generations and for a confirmation of the socialist society.
Our third school reform (1968-1984) was named a transformation of education on the socialist self-managing basis. This was a famous reform of the "oriented" education. The point of this marxistic ideological action on a large scale was in a consistent self-management of the secondary and high school system as well as in a hard marxization of their educational process. Its illegitimacy - being the cause of its collapse - was in extremely aggressive and blind ideological voluntarism enabled by the political-state power and the authority of their creators and commanders.
It's normal to expect that bitter experiences with the mentioned historical illegitimacies of the school system reorganisation and transformation of its education taught us a lesson and directed us to legitimate paths. Unfortunately this still hasn't happened until today - even with legalized transitional renovation of the Slovene school system. The reason? An announcing and declarative acceptance and realisation of democracy (and not for its contents and profoundness) from our side. The basic ingredient - or a determinate of a democratic arrangement, modification and development of public domains as well as common matters of the social life and activity - is namely formation and realisation of legitimate - i.e. normatively suitable, allowed, permitted and required ways, paths and courses, how to plan, form, develop and realise new contents of changes, reforms, transformations, renovations of a public domain and common matters of a democratic community. Totalitarian systems pay no attention to this how. They thwart it systematically and intentionally with their single-minded ideologisms and political voluntarisms, which are the basic motives of all their modifications, reformations and revolutions of public matters and social domains.
In democratic social systems the whole attention is centred right in the judgemental pluralistic and action democratic acquirement and formation of consensus for changes, reforms, transformation, renovation of public matters and social spheres. A democratically managed and realised how is namely a guarantee to democratic systems for their suitable accordance with life, praxis, a joint (uniformed) will and an accepted responsibility of members of democratic societies for development and implementation of the accepted reforms and renovations. The basic touchstone of all reforms and renovations of a democratic society is therefore a way and a path how to democratically plan, form and harmonise or "consensualise" directions and contents of reforms, renovations, rear-
rangements, and not single-minded revolutionarism and unresearched creation of their contents and forms. Unfortunately we have to ascertain - on the basis of all pedagogical critical discussions stated in the present collection and concerning our nowadays renovation of the Slovene school - that the latest didn't pass the exam exactly because of this democratic "how". That's why it is deeply illegitimate for similar or the same reasons that were illegitimate all our "post-liberation, pre-ideologisation, rearrangements, reforms, transformations of the Slovene educational system and education within." (Pedicek 1998: 112, 113)
The preparatory period of the Slovene school restoration after 1945
In the preparatory period (1945-1955) of the Slovene school - right after the Second World War - the point was about revolutionary communist pre-ideologisation of education. Just the beginning of the school system alone was hard. Provisionally, we reorganised the old four-year school, but at the beginning there were troubles with its continuation. Four-year primary school was in some places continued by a four-year or a three-year higher primary school. Soon our school system was stabilized at performing the eight-year school obligation, namely at a uniform four-year primary school which could be continued for another four years with the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th class on the higher level. In some of the bigger towns, this continuation was organised with the four-year lower gymnasium. Pupils, who had finished the eight-or seven-year primary school, could continue their education at the technical schools and apprenticeships. Pupils who had finished the lower gymnasium, could continue their schooling at the four-year higher gymnasiums or technical schools. In 1958 our school was reformed again. The lower gymnasiums were abolished and the uniform primary school was introduced for all the professions.
At the end of the period (1945-1955) of the post-war schooling establishment and socialist-communist pre-ideologisation of the Slovene school -in 1958 - we took an essential element from the primary school, namely by abolishing the evaluation of reading and writing.
Everywhere in the world, each organised school starts with the learning of reading and writing. Reading and writing in every language are the school subjects that are closely connected to each other, so we cannot pride ourselves with literacy if we are not able to read a written text clearly as well as write down a legible message to ourselves and to others. The origin of all things - including school - is a word. Therefore this word has to be written "all at once", with linked up letters of the written alphabet. Not before a succession of the letters is linked up in a wholeness do we get a feeling of entireness. Unfortunately, I don't know about any other way of getting the
feeling about how to write down a word. However, in the literacy period, this feeling is extremely important. Personally I think that various popular attempts of replacing the written alphabet with new letters that are not linked to each other are not suitable for the literacy period. Such an attempt of learning for only a half-literacy is maybe the Czech project Come-nia Skript which uses unsequential alphabet. Literacy is above all a word that designates writing - in the past this work was done using scribes. However, written letters are not of a written type - they are not linked to each other. These letters (signs) are not written down but drawn or painted -this is sign painters' work. So the essential part of the literacy is the quill-drivers' and the sign painters' work. When looking at a sign painter's product we read the message, while a scribe's final product has to be rewritten (sometimes just signed). But we have to be able to write down every word (by writing - with a single line); otherwise the writer does not get the impression of a written word.
If a nation actually wants to be a nation, it should have schooling in its own language. When we are in a great danger, we always call for help in our native language - without regards to the surroundings, while we always calculate in the teaching language of the school where we learned arithmetic.
With this crime committed on pupils the school, (state) authority took the importance from the whole knowledge based on a printed and written word. Although, at that time, we did not feel it in such a way, the last battle for the Slovene language in some ""fraternal community" had already started. After the Yugoslav nuclei's collapse, this battle inevitably led to an attainment of independence and the announcement of the Republic of Slovenia.
After the emancipation, we got our own sovereign and an internationally acknowledged national state. However, we are still not aware of the importance of the Slovene language, the native language of all the citizens, which is the state language in the Republic of Slovenia and at the same time the teaching language in all schools in the state. Two multinational societies to which we were included have collapsed by now, namely because the equality was overlooked. In our recent history, we have already been a part of the multinational Habsburg monarchy which collapsed because they did not regard all its nations to be equal. After the First World War, we joined the Kingdom of SHS (Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), which was later renamed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After the Second World War the new multinational Yugoslavia grew out of the gutted ruins of the Kingdom, but it collapsed for the same reasons as the Habsburg monarchy. After this fiasco, the Slovene nation got a sovereign state and joined the community of sovereign European states. Let's hope that no third blow will follow.
The first school reform - introduction of the uniform compulsory education and abolition of the lower secondary school
In the preparatory period, the school system was established again. In 1945-1955 the revolutionary communist pre-ideologisation of education was terminated as well. In some places, it had already started with the "partisan schools". This reestablishment of the narrow-minded school of »workers, peasants and honest intelligence« was followed by the first school reform (1955-1960) which introduced a socialist reorganisation of the primary school system from four (or five) years to seven (or eight) years. Since 1953, the primary school has been becoming more and more of »>the higher nursery school«, as both the evaluating and the key school subjects have been abolished: writing and reading in the first four classes of the old (lower) primary school and the basis of the Slovene grammar in the three-year course from the second to the fourth class.
With a help of modifications on the class (low) level of the primary school (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4st class of the primary school) the »lower secondary schools« were abolished in the school year 1958/59 - according to the Party's directive we could not keep them because of the "undeveloped educational system in the south of Yugoslavia. (Kožuh, 1987) And so the lower level of the Primary school was becoming more and more »>the higher nursery school«.
Due to politics, arithmetic has also lost its original purpose - to manage and to research the quantitative and the qualitative relations between objects that we meet in our environment. During this transition, the "arithmetic with the basis of geometry" has become more and more the self-sufficient mathematic and so in 1958 it was renamed Mathematics.
The abolition of writing and reading - a pair of two fundamental elementary primary school subjects - presented a death-blow to the teaching of the Slovene language and to Slovene literacy. However, with the abolition of Slovene grammar and a related printing of the school books for the basic three-years grammar course as well as with a renaming of arithmetic to mathematic the Slovene educational system lost at least one quality level which it still has not won back - at most we have lost another level or two later on. This was the end of the fight for complete literacy of the population and so we began to tolerate half-literacy.
The second school reform - the first wave of the abolition of the final exam from the secondary schools
The second school reform of the socialist type (1961-1967) was linked to the secondary school. It dealt with »the first-rate status« of gymnasiums
in such a way that they were reduced to only four years (by the first reform). Beside that, the classical gymnasium was abolished. Right at the very beginning, in 1961 (the 1960/1961 generation of the final grades) this reform replaced the final examination with the seminar paper. Fortunately this caprice did not last for more than four years. The final examination appeared again in the school year 1964/1965.
Nevertheless the five-year teachers' training colleges (the last final exams in 1969) were abolished by this school reform and were replaced by studies at the Faculty of Education (named the High School of Education at that time). The third school reform was announced by a collapse of the second reform which still did not make the creators of the third reform sober. Actually, they got on with the reformation even more enthusiastically. Contrary to the second reform, the third one was led by the Party - an organisation whose members did not have the reputation of being very clever.
The third school reform - the oriented education reform
The third school reform (1968-1984), »a transformation of the education on the socialist self-managing grounds«, was the notorious oriented education reform. The aim of this Marxistic action on a large scale was a consistent after-self-management of the Secondary and High School system and a hard Marxization of their educational system. Beside that the final examination at the end of the Secondary School was also abolished by this reform for a period of about ten years. This showed that our planners of the Slovene school work and life do not possess even the short-term memory about the past school failures (the second school reform), still we would expect them to learn something from their past experiences, but unfortunately this was not the case. Obviously our permanent feature is to repeat mistakes so long that they become a law. Accentuation of the quantity and negation of the quality have also got its reflexion in the mathematic lessons. The quality of objects was no longer reflected in the quality of equal parts expressing the quantity of items (i.e. the number of equal units), but only in the number of parts in the examined pile and not the quality of each object's unit.
This is the reason for such an affinity of the school managers with the theory of groups, which was very popular in the seventies. Here a group (number of the parts) prevailed over the quality of each individual part. Those were the times of the "modernisation of the mathematical basics", a project which destroyed the presentation of a notion of a whole number with units (number of equal pieces) and the presentation of decimal writings with measuring and fractions with a division of units into equal parts.
The Slovene school reform in the independent Republic of Slovenia in 1998
Right after the collapse of the oriented education (still in the former Yugoslavia) researching as well as publishing activity became very busy. It can be recognised for its title "The education in Slovenia for the 21st century". The separation from Yugoslavia was still in the air, but nevertheless they tried to work honourably in the Slovene educational project and to create a new vision of the Slovene national primary school.
M.A. Ferdo Recnik managed the work. At that time the Education Authority of the Republic of Slovenia was divided into the advisory and the research part. The advisory part was supposed to serve school, while the research part should have supported "the school for the 21st century". As late as 1991, the following words were written in the global conception of the Slovene educational development: "The findings of the primary school evaluation could be summed up in the following apparently paradoxical cognition: The primary school is insufficiently exacting and as such it burdens the pupils more than necessary. (Recnik, 1991: 37). Due to the upright statement of the situation and a change of the centres of power during the emancipation process, the coachmen of our renovating carriage were replaced by new ones. Darja Piciga took hold of the reigns of the Slovene school vision. Co-members of the work group were replaced as well - advisors from the Education Authority of the Republic of Slovenia were replaced by researchers from the Institute of Pedagogy and some co-workers from the faculties of Ljubljana. Statements and reflections made by this group can be found in the special edition of Didakta (Piciga, 1992). However this group still had no important influence on the former school system transformation to the new one built to meet the requirements of the independent Slovenia.
With the change of ministers and the leadership of the school reform movement was now taken over by the third group, better known as "the school field". This was the group who finally interfered with the school system reformation of the independent Slovenia. This group's work - preparation of new documents - was done more or less with closed doors, so the group got quite a few complaints and critiques. This first Slovene school system reform actually added the first class to the eight-year school. This additional class was supposed to replace the former "nursery school" which in its least extent had 120 hours of work with the future pupils. Nowadays the first class has a schedule of 700 hours (lessons), but it gives knowledge comparable to 120 nursery school hours (lessons). Just from this data we can see that the efficiency of this activity is 17.14%. Beside this, knowledge levels measurements show that knowledge is in decline (Perat, 2004 - addition p. 465-513; Perat, 1999; Perat, 1994). Who is going to call the guilty people to
take their share of responsibility? We did not profit by the opportunity - to repair all the foolish and enforced solutions made by the federal state and (above all) the communist agencies. Thus, we have lost the chance to build such a school system that would actually teach something.
We fought for the Slovene state and school
In the short ten-day war for the independence of Slovenia, the Slovene people "stood and stayed" on our land. Between June 27th and July 7th 1991, we repelled the Yugoslav army's attack. This was the first armed battle in Europe after the Second World War.
With similar idealism, Slovene boys and men went to fight at the beginning and during the Second World War. At that time, Slovenes were not ready to fight a fratricidal war. "... nationally conscious Slovene people were ready to go to fight only for freedom and the Slovene state. Therefore all those who joined the partisans led by the Liberation front were presented with an image of some "independent republic" (a Slovene state). However, this was not allowed to be discussed, whether in a sense of political independence or in the range of Yugoslavia, if not even the Soviet Union... Because of the enforced communist ideology and implementation of the revolution there were fights between partisans and members of the home guard. The civil war claimed more victims than the enemy's occupation. The tragedy of such a fight was that fighters on both sides had the Slovene state in their minds, but because of different ideologies they imagined it each in their own way... Two ideologies, but one single wish: A state and a freedom to the Slovene nation!
But none of the two sides could imagine an independent and internationally acknowledged state of Slovenia. What was missing was an appropriate historical interpretation. Namely it had been falsified in this sense during the First World War and it still remained false. It means that what was missing was a historical argumentation of the Slovene state. Because of its weakness the Slovene intelligentsia equated it with the Slovene language or even more simple only with the fact that we were finally going to have "schools in the Slovene language" (sancta simplicitas!).
Beside all this simplicity people on both sides wanted to have a Slovene "government" as well. The home guard side proclaimed the "first" Slovene government on May 3rd 1945 in Tabor of Ljubljana. Immediately afterwards the partisan side also proclaimed the "first" Slovene government on May 5th 1945 in Ajdovščina. (Savli, 2010: 25, 26, 27)
If we seriously think about a change from a society of people who are the state's property to a society where freedom reigns, our new school curriculum should contain the knowledge which enables such a freedom and this should be reflecting from the school curriculum spirit. Besides it should of-
fer to each pupil such an opportunity for learning that they would not be deprived of their education just because of school.
If we want to start teaching anything, we have to decide that nowadays, literacy is essential for learning - that's why the two basic subjects (writing and reading) should be reintroduced and evaluated in first three classes. These are the subjects that demand order and discipline. A pupil has to master them in accordance with the school curriculum; otherwise he cannot make progress to a higher class. Beside these two subjects, Slovene grammar should be taught as well - at least from the second class onwards. A special problem is represented by mathematics; the name could be changed back to arithmetic on this level. However, in the first class, arithmetic can be still taught without a good knowledge of writing and reading, but not later on.
In the past, the class teachers were trained to teach these three subjects. Unfortunately that is not the case any more, but it should be. The problem of the reading and writing "knowledge" still remains unsolved. If a pupil does not master the basic teaching material of their class, they are not allowed to progress to the next class. It is better for the pupil to repeat a class than to be disabled for the whole of their life because of the unsuitable school model. In our reformed school, pupils automatically make progress during the first three years and during the next three years; they make progress even without sufficient knowledge if this is requested by their parents.
We have to ask ourselves whether the reformers - considering the social changes or "the transition - wished to change anything at all in the years after the emancipation, whether they had any idea at all about what, how and why our school should be changed? I'm afraid that everything was happening according to the Chinese saying: "If I run out of courage to start something, it means that I've already finished it." Our commissions simply ran short of courage and that is why they finished the renovation exactly at the point where it was started.
By the end of the compulsory education, the educational standards for the eight and nine year school should be the same, which means that children will go to compulsory school for one additional year and the state will be paying for an additional year of schooling to each generation with the same expected results. The first class teacher, with only half the number of school lessons (hours) has also an assistant, so this represents 16 % more costs of schooling for each class, but with attainment of the same standards. The fact which makes the tragedy even bigger is that the results of the TIMSS studies (2007 and 2003) show that as a rule, pupils at the nine year school have less school knowledge than their contemporaries at the eight-year school in spite of the fact that the former attended the school lessons for an additional year.
Warnings (Pediček, 1998; Perat, 1999; Perat, 2004) of the danger that the new school concept in the independent Slovenia might result in a decrease of the basic knowledge were soon proven true. Pupils at the nine-year school show a weaker knowledge than their contemporaries at the eight-year school. We were declaring and hoping to make a foundation for the new Slovene national school. We wished to have a new Slovene school - a school for the new democratic social conditions and at the same time a school, which could have offered our young generation an equal incorporation into the new European community of nations. However, in this community, first of all we have to fight alone for the rights of equal cohabitation on our land inherited from our grandfathers. The results of the international studies represent a warning that our boat is already directed away from Europe and not towards it. The state should stop and think about these results and somehow "reform the reformers'... Incredible, the state is suddenly tempted to lower the level of expected knowledge to a minimum; therefore it legalizes the expected results of the school learning. Namely it states in law: "In the school curricu-lums determined after the acceptance of this law the word "minimum standard" is replaced with the word "expected result" (Paragraph 47 of the Law About alterations and additions to the Primary school law (implemented on September 1st 2008)". (Law 2007) With this law a decline of our school knowledge becomes understandable, as the state expects only a minimum knowledge from our side; anyway the state does not need scientists.
With the publication of such laws, we still remain the true followers of the Austrian emperor Franc I's reflections in Ljubljana, who - during the congress in Ljubljana (the Holly Alliance rally in Ljubljana from January 10th until May 22nd 1821) - told the professors from the Lyceum, the Gymnasium and the Elementary School of Ljubljana just to bring up good citizens, as he does not need any learned men.
All the time before the emancipation teachers resisted the tendencies towards a school which would not be a school any more, therefore the warning from the first chairman of Pedagogy at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana is not superfluous at all: "The worst sin by which the school can burden its soul and which could be avenged on a nation in the next generations, is a wish to be some island of the blessed where one does not need to worry about waves of life and the flow of time. Because the essential element of both is still the fact that they are not halted in front of any idol, no matter how foolishly fond he is of himself. The know-all and seer of a nation warns the latecomers:
"Like lightning p asses the day of all the people alive,
He who has missed it, all his cry is in vain,
For it can be experienced only by him who is ready!" (Župančič) (Ozvald,
1927: 248) 228
If we make a sort of a resume, this lesson could be summed up in the following Ellen Key's thought: "At every step a child has to face life. Thorns shouldn't be removed from roses."This is a warning that could still be useful for all the creators of the school reforms.
Further reformation of the Slovene school - some suggestions
As early as during the reform in 1998 certain experts undertook their path. These were specialists of Pedagogy - searchers for experiences in a sphere of the six-year old children's literacy. Almost everyone entangled in a story about the planned nine-year school went to gather their experiences with the help of "thepedagogical tourism " However, almost no one remembered to look at the achievements that once were bearing abundant fruit in the homeland (at least during the beginning - literacy period of the schooling).
And nowadays the situation is still more or less the same. We cannot read in Slovene any more - we are not an interesting enough market for the other states. Besides nowadays "researchers" who maybe already belong to the group of people who have never in their life written a report in the Slovene language - the globalization is going to strike us all - whether in our pockets or on our tongue.
That's why we continue this review with some suggestions that could be useful if someone else would have the courage to start teaching in the Slovene language. First we will to present a terminology of two pedagogies: Pedagogy of capital and Pedagogy of culture. Secondly we will present two ways of how to create notions: notions formed as generates and notions formed as abstracts. Here the presented material is printed in two books. The covers of these books are presented at the end of this paper...
The pedagogically oriented school systems (Pedagogy of the capital - the culture)
"The analysis of problems in the Slovene school system showed that in this sphere there's a growing terminological chaos. This led to a suspicion that the terminological distinctions could be an expression of the two pedagogical concepts. On this basis we started a thorough analysis and came to a conclusion that the point is actually in two pedagogies. One of them was named "the pedagogy of the capital"and the other one "pedagogy of the culture".
The essential part of the pedagogy of the capital is in its overwhelming of an individual with one single value, that is with a profit or money. All the other cultural and anthropological values stay in the background as something secondary and in the forefront there is fighting for a profit.
On the contrary the educational essential part of the pedagogy of the culture is its orientation towards the anthropological and cultural values of Europe and a development of its humanism.
Of course this is merely a common denominator of such an orientation, as there are different nations in Europe who lean on their own tradition of cultural development, which results in various particularities in a formation of their school system. No matter how we look at the problem, we have to admit that the school system's common denominator of the majority of European nations is The Great Didactics by J.A.Komenski. (Jurman, 1999: 24)
Table 1: Objective and terminological distinctions between the pedagogy of the capital and the pedagogy of the culture (Jurman 1999: 24-26).
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	a) On the level of society	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Profit	Basic aim	Cultural needs ofthe individual
Functional (blind forces of the surroundings)	Aim^educational^purpose	Intentional (Cultural institutions)
Education	Realisation in the school institutions	Education
The single common denominator is money	Criterion	A group ofvarious cultural and national values
Creator of the capital	Individual as the product	Creator of the culture
		
Freedom within the framework of the capital	Determination	Freedom within the framework ofthe culture
		
Whichever individual with the capitalist orientation	Final orientation	An individual with the anthropological orientation
One-sided structure	Nature ofthe personality	Many-sided structure
		
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	b) On the level of the school system	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Teaching (school) program	Function ofthe school system	Directions
Knowledge applicable as the market goods	Aim ^ educational ^ purpose	Adjusted to the cultural and developme ntal level of the society
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	b) On the level of the school system	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
1.	To gather as much knowledge as possible in the earliest period 2.	To get the highest education before the others 3.	To specialize the knowledge for a narrow sphere ofwork 4.	To learn how to sell knowledge as dear as possible	^ aims ^ operative educational ^ purposes ^	1.	To form a complete personality 2.	To choose the profession to satisfy the basic needs 3.	To join the culture as its creator 4.	To form a world of one's own values
Teaching (school) programs	Organisation of knowledge transfer	List of school subjects
Catalogue of proficiency	Contents of knowledge transfer	School curriculum
Teaching technology	Principles of the knowledge transfer	Didactics
Methodology	Knowledge transfer procedures	Methodology
		
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	c) On the level of school lessons	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Workbooks	Revision of knowledge	Various forms
Mainly by writing	Checking methods for examination of knowledge	Oral, written, practical
1.	Examinations 2.	Essays 3.	Standardized examinations	^ forms of examinations ^	1.	Oral examination 2.	School exercises and tests 3.	Handiwork products
		
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	c) On the level of a teacher	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Achievement	Direction ofthe teacher's pedagogical work	Path
Measurement	Level ofthe examination	Evaluation
External (political)	Level ofthe control at examinations	Internal (professional)
Objective	Credibility and comparability of results	Subjective
Subject - subject	Relation teacher - pupil	Subject - object
		
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	c) On other levels	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Positivism	Empirically theoretical level	Structuralism
Pragmatism	Ontological level	Existentialism
PEDAGOGY OF THE CAPITAL	c) On other levels	PEDAGOGY OF THE CULTURE
Behaviourism	Psychological level	gestalt (image) psychology
Aggressive Protestantism	Religious level	Original Christianity
A formation of notions (generates and abstracts)
»Until now notions were treated completely under the influence of a profession, without any methodology and other sociologically directed disciplines which have an influence on the pedagogical process of the knowledge transfer. However, people relied only on their experiences - if they had any at all - but otherwise just on the traditional customs which are common during the arrangement and explanation of notions in a certain profession. Textbooks, which were created on such a basis, can be considered as inured.
It has to be taken into account that both the profession as well as the pedagogical transferring process have each their own principles and that they are not identical. In this case it was therefore decided that some of the results of the investigative project named »Ascertainment of talented pupils« should be taken into account when advising about how to form the notions in a textbook as well as by their actual understanding. Within the range of this research an interesting result was obtained by analysis, namely those notions can be formed on two levels:
-	on the level of a definition
-	on the level of an idea.
Picture 1: An abstract in a generate, formed by the same perceptions (Abstrakt = abstract; Generat = generate; Source: B. Jurman »How to make a
good textbook on the basis of anthropological education«; Jutro, Ljubljana 1999: 92).
On the level of an idea we have generates:
A generate is a notion which is formed on the basis of integration of the individual and common signs. A notion is formed by a multiplication of essential signs and a supplementation of individual signs. No perception is redundant, so the wholeness of a notion is being gradually created with each new and slightly different perception. A generate is a relatively expansive formation with a high associative value which is formed in the human non-consciousness. The individual has no clear view over this, so only individual parts - each part hav-
ing characteristics of the wholeness - could be recalled from the memory. A generate cannot be classified nor defined, it can only be described, but the description can never embrace the whole content of a notion. From the linguistic point of view, a generate is the multi-dimensional idea of a notion which is composed of various essential elements.« (Jurman, 1999: 92-93) On the level of a definition we have abstracts:
An abstract is a notion that is formed on the basis of ignorance of unessential individual signs and a generalization of common essential signs.
During abstraction, the individual takes the individual and unessential signs from the perceptions as well as condenses and generalizes the common signs. This abstracting process is stopped on a certain point, that's why this point is never the same for two separate individuals, because it is affected by the cognitive, emotive and conative factors. In that way we get great differences between various individuals when it comes to the same notion. An abstract is a completely rational formation with a potential possibility of association. It is the smallest component of mind, which is determined by a definition. It is arranged by classification (a higher family term / distinction of species) in the individual's memory and from there it could be any time recalled into consciousness. From the linguistic point of view an abstract is something that is designated as the essential part of a notion.
Picture 2: Explanation on the level of abstracts; formation from perceptions - to a term [abstract] and from a term [abstract] - to a group ofpercep-tions (Induktivna metoda = Inductive method; Deduktivna metoda = Deductive method; source: B. Jurman: »How to make a good textbook on the basis of »the anthropological education«; Jutro, Ljubljana, 1999: 93).
»Generates are notions formed by an individual on the basis of subconscious logic, while abstracts are a product of conscious logic. Very intelligent and talented people use them both during their thinking process, but with no equivalence between the two logics. Highly intelligent individuals use mostly abstracts, while the talented ones use generates. Above all an analytical mind - where logic prevails - suits the first ones, while a synthetic mind - where intuition prevails - suits the second ones. The mutual connection of different thinking ways leads to the greatest creations in art, science and sociology, which are mostly formed with the help of generates. Abstracts are simple terms that could be defined with regard to a higherfamily term and distinction of species. Gen-
erates cannot be defined because they are integrities which are much too structured, however, they can be named, but only in parables with the figurative sense. Generates don't have a two-dimensional form which is otherwise typical for abstracts, but a multi-dimensional one. Thinking with a help of generates is very tiresome, because the person is constantly confronted with various individual views. Not before the person masters all these views can a generate, as a whole, enter into his consciousness and then we can talk about illumination. In consciousness, a generate gets a kind of a notional image which can be sketched by the individual in a form of a symbol. This notional image has to be transferred in such a way so that it can be explained by notions (abstracts) in the world of the known and the existing.
Talent is the human integrative potential, namely the whole potential of a personality, while intelligence is merely a potential of the human intellect. It appears only in some people who differ from all the others precisely from this point of view. Talent can be understood only as the potential of the personality, so now we get to the question about how the individual can bring this potential to a good effect or about how the talented people's creativity is materialised. We'll try to define thisfact with the following equation:
Creativity = a special structure of the personality x the potential of energy x versatility
However, this pattern of creativity is valid for all people and not only for the talented ones. The reason why these people differ from the others is in a special quality of these three creativityfactors and their power. The third creativity factor of the talented people is their information system called "versatility" in one of the studies of talent.
A definition of an abstract and a generate also includes an idea about applicability of notions formed by the first or second method, during planning and a realisation of school lessons: »Notions as abstracts never represent good knowledge. It could be sooner maintained that they represent only plain formal knowledge, which has a low practical value. Good knowledge is based on generates. In this context arises a question about how to form the notions for the pupils on this level. The old school was creating mostly generates, namely through a repetition and establishment, therefore their knowledge was not extensive, but it had a high quality. The modern school is productivity oriented, however the pupil s knowledge is built mostly on the level of abstracts. Their knowledge has a low quality, it is very extensive and not very applicable.« (Ju-rman, 1999: 93, 94)
Some words about learning on this and on the other side of the learned
On this side of the learned knowledge the individual acquires his knowledge in two stages.
The first stage is the preschool period. Knowledge acquired by the individual on this side of the learned is very scarce at least during the first period, but it has a very good value, because it represents a child's certain ancient knowledge. Although this knowledge is scarce, it is basic and has a fatal meaning for the further development of the child. As a rule it is represented by ancient knowledge connected to habits (alimentation, hygiene and partly also working and social habits) and skills (physical, sensory and partly also intellectual) and finally some of the notions, which enables the child to orient himself in his surroundings. All this knowledge is formed on the basis of lower methods of learning, i.e. conditional reflex, learning on the basis of experiments and mistakes, associative learning. Hereby notions are formed by elementary perceptions, which are the one-dimensional characteristics of objects and things (angular, sharp, wet, red, above, painful etc.). Normally the child experiences them in contrasts, e.g. white - black, above - below, outside - inside etc. This pre-knowledge, habits and skills are learned very slowly and the child needs a lot of energy and time before they are able to master them with the help of maturing and learning. If the parents help them in the right way, the learning process is faster than in a case when the child is left more or less by themself. Furthermore, when forcing a certain child's function (e.g. walking) we cannot reach the goal if we do it too soon according to the maturing function. The scope of the learned ancient knowledge is the condition for every intentional and functional education.
The primary school does not build the educational process on the zero basis, but on the previously mentioned level of pre-knowledge. If the child does not have this knowledge, they cannot make progress, that's why the child has to pass the maturity test before they are admitted to school. Tests, scales and questions are created on the basis of this ancient knowledge, however they check whether the child's personality is mature enough for school.
We shouldn't forget that in the past the first and the second class were designed for a reconciliation of communication and a more precise definition of this ancient knowledge acquired since the children were born. The learning curve of a child's acquisition of knowledge follows a progressive curve, as the progress is very slow at the beginning of learning, however it gets faster and faster afterwards.
We shouldn't forget that this level is connected to the basic literacy process and mostly to a kind of versatility as well as an ability to valuate things in some way.
For valuation we have to be able to:
Count up the individual phenomenon
Measure a certain quantity in the appropriate way and with the right »unity«
Define a value of something (a price)
All these activities have to enter our subconsciousness, that's why we have to acquire them sufficiently early in our life.
A certain text for the school freshmen is mentioned in the book, but unfortunately this text doesn't exist any more - although it would be very useful -but regretfully the school bureaucracy tries to make the teachers' work as hard as possible, so it represents more of an obstacle than a help....
The second stage is a period that lasts up until the end offormal education. The second period oflearning starts when the child is admitted to school and it is usually not finished before the end of the vocational education, though it can last longer if the individual wishes so. According to our opinion, the learning process in this period follows a digressive curve which means that the individual already uses the potential of their pre-knowledge, i.e. the knowledge from the first learning period. During this time they already use the higher methods of learning, like imitation, analysis and insight. The reason for this progress is in the fact that the learning process is performed on the notions of the ancient knowledge as well as on acquired skills and habits integrated with new perceptions. New notions are formed in this way, while the input of energy gradually gets smaller and the learning time shorter. For these learning methods the point is not in perceptions as individual properties of objects and things any more, but in the acquired notions with these characteristics. Acquirement of new notions is based on the integration of the old knowledge with the new one, that's why the learningprocess goes so much faster here.
From my personal point of view, our new modern Slovene national school can not boast about extensiveness of its teaching material, although every school keeps on complaining about overflowing curriculums, especially during the reformatory times. The apparent overflow is a result of our desire to define the entire teaching material with abstracts. This situation is nicely illustrated by the principle of a developing system dynamics: »once you've opened a tin of worms, the only way to close it again is to use a bigger tin.« (The Zymurgy's Law - Murphy's Laws, 2000).
As the modern school builds the knowledge on the level of abstracts, our »real, true« school does not begin before the child is about ten years old. However, this is the age when the children in the past (before 1958) already went to the lower secondary school. It's true that the school lessons at this school are based on abstracts, but these abstracts - discussed in the higher classes (on the second stage of the primary school and at the secondary school) - have to be collected carefully and united in a useful wholeness (a generate). This uniting is valid for every subject, especially for the lessons in mathematics.
Conclusions
We have come to the end, so what are we going to do now? We have to decide whether to execute all the small things that are nevertheless the condition for us in the future to succeed to turn the key of our past.
Picture 3: Examples (ISBN 961-6006-70-3, left; ISBN 961-6068-40-7, right).
At the beginning, there was a word and it was the pupil's personal property. This word was a real "magpie nest" (i.e. a mess) - a real miracle of imperfection, but it meant everything to the pupil and it actually was everything. All the necessary, less necessary and even not necessary ornaments namely surrounded it. Children brought these magpie nests with them into the classroom - the generates of their magpie homes which are more or less poor, more or less littered with more or less glittery junk... At that moment, all these nests are the most beautiful and unique to every pupil. However, the teacher is the one who shall motivate the children to learn how to measure dimensions of their nests in space, to see and count the supporting twigs of the nest... An abstract was drawn out of numerous nests of various owners. These common abstracts - gotten from the individual nests - are used for building our new (class) common generate which reflects all the individual nests.
This is the path that can be walked only by the class teacher. This is also why we demanded that the class level is given back to its original guardians, as their mission (profession) and fief is the sphere of literacy.
Therefore we would be glad if the literacy subjects were returned back to school, so the pupil would be skilled enough by the age of ten years to be able to write to his mother a simple letter in his native language without too many spelling mistakes. However one should not forget that in the sphere of literacy there is also arithmetic which is in some sense the orthography of mathematic. This subject should also be given back to the class teachers in all its splendour. Now that we are independent and the school is not a property of our big brothers any more, it would be nice if some "professional" denationalization were made in the school system as well.
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nih področjih. To so: učiteljsko voditeljstvo, oblikovanje »socialnega kapitala« in upoštevanje subverzivnih pristopov.
Ključne besede: vodenje, območja z omejenimi možnostmi, izobraževanje, študije primerov, primerjalne raziskave, Poljska, Anglija
Zvonko Perat
The Overlooked Turning Point in History
The main focus in this paper is on the current state of the first and the second period (from the 1st to the 6th class) of Slovene primary schools. The emphasis is placed on the state of literacy on the first stage of compulsory education. A detailed description of the path leading to the current situation as well as the results of the research on the gifted and talented pupils, conducted by Benjamin Jurman (a researcher at the National Education Institute in Ljubljana) with a proposed solution to the current quandaries will be also presented.
Slovenia became independent on 25th June 1991, but we still cannot get rid of the fifty-year long mentality based on self-managing socialism. If Wittgenstein's points of view are distorted a little bit, we can see that a certain conceptuality (method) has overshadowed the others. That is why all the methods have to be reviewed again - those neglected, as well as the privileged ones in order to find the forgotten paths to literacy, which is unfortunately in decline. This sad stage was achieved in just one decade (1945 - 1955) with the establishment of a unique model of the school »of workers, farmers and honest intelligentsia« and by implementing three socialist school reforms (1955 - 1991). With today's Slovene school reform, we just keep on this bleak path.
We have a democratic nation - state, so no actions can be imposed by anybody upon ourselves. If we want to be in line with the famous revolutionary song chorus: »we will take freedom by ourselves«, we have to accept the weight of freedom and consequently we ought to take responsibility for our actions as well. For the first time in history, we are responsible for our national education. However, it seems that this opportunity has not yet been seized.
Key words: Literacy process in the light of the school reforms; Pedagogy of capital and pedagogy of culture; Structure of notions on the basis of abstracts and generates; National history in the service of development of democracy and national self-consciousness; State-formative consciousness of a small nation.