School in the eyes of Polish seventh graders in the context of their life positions

In the period between 2016 and 2018 throughout 79 educational institutions in Poland there was implemented a project called „Wychowac czlowieka mądrego. Wprowadzenie modelu pracy wychowawczej i resocjalizacyjnej z zastosowaniem metody tutoringu szkolnego jako proﬁlaktyki pozytywnej problemow w polskiej szkole” [“To raise a smart man. Introduction of educational and resocialisation work model with the use of school tutoring as a positive prevention of problems at a Polish school”]. The added value of the actions taken was the opportunity to make an in-depth insight into the situation of Polish school in the view of the educational system reform that was underway at that time. The changes undertaken by the Polish Ministry of National Education were associated with the liquidation of middle school stage, and thus extending the education in primary school stage by two years. This situation turned out to be a multidimensional challenge for educational institutions, but above all for the students themselves, who have discovered a new set of educational procedures, not at the beginning of their education, but in its advanced point. This paper draws attention to this specific moment, focusing on what life positions the seventh graders were characterised by at that time, and therefore what was their attitude to themselves and the world around them. The considerations made in this paper are based on research conducted on a group of 764 seventh graders, who finally confirmed their definitely lower sympathy for school, as well as a significant use of life positions that influence the occurrence of negative interpersonal relationships.


On seventh graders
On 14 th December 2016, the Educational Law Act which outlined a new school system came into force. It was supposed to consist of eight-year primary schools, four-year secondary schools, five-year technical schools, vocational schools of the 1 st and the 2 nd degree (lasting three and two years accordingly), three-year special vocational schools providing preparation for work, and postsecondary schools for persons holding certificates of secondary school or secondary vocational school completion, with the period of learning no longer than 2.5 years ([Dz. U.] The Polish Journal of Law of 2017, item 59, sec. 18, point 1). Thus, a ten-year period of junior high schools established on 1 st September 1999 in contemporary Poland came to an end (The Act of 25 th July 1998 r. concerning the change of the Polish Educational System Act, [Dz. U.] The Polish Journal of Law of 1998 r. no 117, item 759, point 6), facing many organisational and curricular difficulties deriving to a large extent from haste with which the whole reform was implemented (cf. Zahorska, 2009, pp. 124-125).
Although the very idea of junior high school establishment was criticised as it did not reduce educational inequalities though it was its man aim, strengthening them and even making them bigger (cf. Zahorska, 2009, p. 119), junior high schools became part of students' educational path with their school life divided most frequently into 6+3+3 year stages. During that decade, new buildings were erected, new school communities formed, caring about high quality realisation of their main objectives, finding support in modern educational methods focused on working with junior high school students at a very sensitive age of 13-16, i.e. early puberty, and the process of identity formation related to it (Bardziejewska, 2005, pp. 346-347). This sudden decision to change the system and liquidate this type of school met a significant resistance of the whole environment. 1 However, the changes became a fact and in the school year 2017/2018, seventh graders appeared in primary schools again.
As the authors of the Ombudsman for Children report "Situation of seventh graders in the reformed primary school" remark, seventh graders found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. On the one hand, these teenagers commenced "[…] a period of abrupt changes connected with the period of adolescence, and on the other hand, they were forced to adapt to the new school situation in no time, even though they were preparing for completely different changes in their lives (primary school graduation and starting their junior high school). What is more, this group […] of students contains those who started following their educational path at the age of 6 and now they have to undertake difficult educa-151 tional tasks earlier" (Lewicka-Zelent et al., 2018, p. 7). Such circumstances turned out to be very demanding, which was confirmed by a questionnaire filled by 3328 students, carried out for the needs of the said "Report". The students pointed out that they associate school with tiredness and stress, which does not let them benefit from other extracurricular activities, and with the necessity to participate in private tuition or supplementary classes due to the fact that the content discussed during lessons is very often incomprehensible. What is more, being at school often means the feeling of indifference which might signify cutting off from unpleasant emotions, i.e. anger, helplessness, being lost, sadness, humiliation, fear, feeling of alienation and loneliness (cf. Lewicka-Zelentet al., 2018, pp. 102-104). Taking the above into account, the observation of this group of students who became the object/subject (?) of the educational system reform is of primary importance for undertaking preventive measures for this and following years of students, making it easier for them to follow this newly outlined path. One idea that has already been used in educational establishments might be school tutoring.

On the project
In the opinion of its authors, the project called "Wychować człowieka mądrego. Wprowadzenie modelu pracy wychowawczej i resocjalizacyjnej z zastosowaniem metody tutoringu szkolnego jako profilaktyki pozytywnej problemów w polskiej szkole" ["To raise a smart man. Introduction of educational and resocialisation work model with the use of school tutoring as a positive prevention of problems at Polish school"] (RSM) was to be an answer to the school experiences described above. The programme was created for schools which "[…] operate in the atmosphere of student support and stimulation to develop, and for schools which cater for the needs of students who require special support in the area of widely-understood development leading to their complete maturity and preventing various forms of social exclusion" (Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, pp. 49-50). The main assumption of measures undertaken by tutors was help in strengthening students' competencies, faith in their possibilities and effective realisation of their life goals (cf. Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, p. 50). It should be emphasised that the belief in tutoring effectiveness derived from its initiators' many years' experience in implementing this form of education in educational establishments (both public and private ones), 2 above all in junior high schools and secondary schools. The key to positive change was development of the tutor-student relation, authentic and full of engagement, based on the assumptions of the philosophy and pedagogy of dialogue. For it was assumed that school tutoring is "[…] a form of pedagogical work realised via direct and individual contact with a given student, especially taking into account the student's and the tutor's dignity deriving from the fact of their humanity; interand intra-activity of the upbringing process and setting it in a given life reality" (Budzyński, 2009, p. 31).
The above understanding of tutoring, emphasising the relation and concentrating on the student and their teacher as Persons can become an exemplification of the statement saying that "The mystery of pedagogic success does not lie in ideal curricula, but in who educators-teachers are" (Włodarski, 1992, p. 39). This kind of approach lets us assume that tutoring can be regarded as positive prevention. It consists in benefiting from an approach which strengthens students' individual competencies and their relations with their parents or other important persons, and these features of the school environment which can be considered positive (Ostaszewski, 2006). In its assumptions, the project "To raise a smart man" aimed to exercise a positive influence on each abovementioned area, by investigating it and working on the student's strengths and talents, building a school community around tutoring, a community improving mutual relations and effectiveness of performed duties, as well as by creating an alliance with parents really welcome to coexist and get engaged in school life via structured contact with a given tutor.
It should be noticed that the aforesaid project was an initiative of members of the School Tutoring Insitute (Instytut Tutoringu Szkolnego) of the Open Education Society (Towarzystwo Edukacji Otwartej) from Wrocław, 3 supervised by Mariusz Budzyńskia promoter of tutoring and a founder of Original Artistic and Academic Secondary Schools (Autorskie Licea Artystyczne i Akademickie ALA), constituting a laboratory of tutoring relations based on the pedagogy of dialogue. This experience, enriched by observations of tutoring implementation effects in many other schools, became the basis of activities undertaken within the project. They encompassed recruiting 76 schools (including primary schools, secondary schools, youth educational centres and youth sociotherapeutic centres), organising the training of selected teachers from these educational insitututions for the role of tutors via tutor training and implementation care with supervision, and supporting them in the very implementation of tutoring. This implementation was supposed to offer 126 students of a given institution an opportunity of cooperation with their individual tutor (chosen or selected) during one school year. Such a tutor was to have about 7 students in their charge.
The realisation of the abovementioned activities and those that were supposed to support them was linked with the necessity to verify their course and their final outcomes planned for one school year. The RSM project was treated by the Ministry of National Education as a pilot project, which required its thorough evaluation. Finally, it encompassed 10 thousand students from a pre-school grade to the final grade of secondary school and over 1300 teachers. Such a scale of the research made it possible to get an in-depth inside into the area of Polish school, yet its main aim was to determine whether and to what extent tutoring has an impact on the atmosphere of educational establishments, their students' creative potential or passive attitude of participants of tutoring relations, and their initiative in choosing life positions.

On life positions
Transactional analysis (TA) as a theory of personality serving personal development and change (cf. Jagieła, 2012, p. 24) offers tools for describing human relations. Among them we can find the concept of life, existential positions which constitute "[…] a fundamental stand we can take, evaluating our own value and others' value.
[…] someone's underlying beliefs concerning themselves and other people, which are used to justify decisions and behaviour" (Stewart, Joines, 2016, pp. 152, 154). The main term describing life positions is "being OK" towards oneself, or perceiving others as those who are "OK". It is worth noticing that the very term "OK" that means being all right, valuable, accepted, has its place in the philosophical assumptions of TA as it states that "people are OK" (cf. Jagieła, 2012, p. 24 Rogoll, 2010, p. 49), not finding any value in anyone, without any hope for acceptance. By defining such a set of categories one can assume that accepting a given life position determines " […] what kind of relations a given person seeks, and, at the same time, kinds of relations they develop confirm their dominant life position" (Szymanowska, Sękowska, 2000, pp. 97). Thus, in a broader perspective, determining a given life position can open an insight into relations occurring in a given environment, including an institution such as school. It is also worth mentioning that adopting a given life position does not have to be long-lasting. As Stewart and Joines note, "They can change minute by minute" (2016, p. 155). These changes can be presented with the help of the so-called "OK Corral Scheme" developed by Franklin Ernstai and can mean the occurrence of a particular social interactionoperation, i.e.: cooperation, avoidance, helplessness, rejection. Figure 1 illustrates this phenomenon.

Figure 1
Operations in OK. Corral scheme Source: based on Stewart, Joines, 2016, p. 155, Cole, 1998 Transactional analysis notices that flexibility in use of life positions offers an opportunity of change. Every man, having a life position they prefer, can make conscious effort leading them towards the most beneficial position I am OK, you are OK. As Steward and Joines remark, "If an individual begins with the position I− you−, they shall probably shift to I+ you−. Having spent some time in this position, they shall move to I− you+. An ultimate goal should be increasing the time spent in I+you+ till it becomes their favourite position" (2016, p. 160). This perspective can be used to a great extent for school educating purposes provided that appropriate steps are taken. In the opinion of the people conducting the RSM project, it can be school tutoring.

The research
The scholars running the project "To raise a smart man" were required to conduct evaluative research, which was to determine the effectiveness of school tutoring being implemented at that time. It was undertaken by the Research Team for the RSM Project Evaluation, formed at Jan Dlugosz University in Częstochowa (which was a consortium member in the project). The team decided that the research verifying the project shall be based on, among all, the pre-testpost-test procedure, with the use of the diagnostic survey method. Adopting such a solution made it possible to conduct the evaluation of the fourth level (level of use) 4 , which was to determine "if there are expected outcomes in the form of changes in the functioning of the project participants in their establishments (tutors and their students taking part in the project)" (Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, p. 83). It was established that the following dependent variables should show the effectiveness of tutoring: the atmosphere in the establishments, forms of passivity, creative approaches and life positions constituting the point of reference in this article.
A research tool "School situations" 5 was used to determine the activity (use) of life positions of the respondents. This tool was created by professor Jarosław Jagieła for the needs of the project in the Research Team for the RSM Project Evaluation. It was then evaluated by competent judges and verified in a pilot survey. Its final correct version destined for students in the 6 th grade and higher grades of primary school, junior high school students and secondary school students was used twice, at the beginning and at the end of the school year in which the project was realised. The picture below presents the tendency to adopt particular life positions at the beginning of the school year. In case of seventh graders it refers thus to the moment of their confrontation with the newly created school structure. While describing this tool, it should be added that it did not take a typical form of a questionnaire based on Likert scale, 6 but it contained a description of eight ambiguous, open situations that can take place in every school. Having read each description, a given respondent was to make a choice how this particular situation could end if they took part in it and if other students and teachers from their school environment took part in it. Each situation had four solutions corresponding to four life positions. In this way, the data collected were of a nominal nature.

Research group
764 seventh graders from 36 primary schools took part in the research organised in the autumn of 2017. There were 375 girls and 389 boys in this group. The participants were asked to fill in the questionnaire of "School situations," and, as it was mentioned above, to evaluate the atmosphere at school understood as "[…] the way of perceiving their working or learning environment by teachers and students and how this perception affects their behaviour" (Ostaszewski, 2012, p. 3) 7 . It constitutes a very important point of reference for analyzing how active life positions are, thus constituting a valuable background for considerations made in this paper. Four categories concerning the atmosphere of a given establishment were taken into account while creating this questionnaire, namely: sympathy for school, the feeling of safety experienced by the respondents, the atmosphere in a given establishment and relations among students. The data collected from seventh graders were compared with those coming from sixth graders and students from the second grade of junior high school.
The comparison was made with the help of the average obtained from raising the scale from the ordinal to the quantitative one (scale 1-5, where 1 meant "no" and 5 -"yes"), which can be studied in Table 1. Referring to the data above, it can be noticed that in each quoted category the average defining the atmosphere at school is the lowest among seventh graders. 7 Part of the evaluation tools set named "My school," referring to the evaluation of school atmosphere and tutoring implemented by the project participants took the form of a questionnaire consisting of accordingly 30 and 33 questions (in stage I and II of the evaluative research). These were closed questions with answers varying from "yes," "rather yes," "I don't know," "rather not," to "no." Only in the final stage of the research, two open-ended questions were added to the questionnaire in order to obtain the respondents' opinion on their tutoring partner and the very realisation of tutoring in their educational establishment. (cf. (Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, pp. 335-337). Thus, the data collected were the respondents' declarations.
Only for the category "good atmosphere at school" the mark given by seventh graders coincides with that given by sixth graders. However, the group of respondents presented in this article marked their sympathy for school exceptionally low. Additionally, the difference of marks in this category turned out to be statistically valid, which is proved by the results of the Kruskal Wallis H test (H = 11.08, p = 0.004 where Mrang7th grade = 710.11, Mrang 2nd grade of junior high school = 774.07, Mrang6th grade = 780,64). Thus, it can be noticed that among all the opinions expressed by the students, the representatives of seventh graders had the worst opinion about the atmosphere at their school. What is more, it is worth emphasising the fact that boys were in majority here. The analysis of basic descriptive statistics, including the average (cf. Table 2) showed that it is the boys from the seventh grade who are more critical in their perception of school than the girls from the seventh grade, at the same time feeling less safe than the girls, while on school premises. It was also confirmed by the Kruskal Wallis test (H = 9.59, p = 0.002 where Mranggirls = 405.84, Mrangboys = 360.00). The data collected coincided with the image of seventh graders emerging from the Report presented in the first part of the article. How did their life positions activate against this background?

Life positions of seventh graders
Taking into account the aforesaid perception of school by seventh graders,analysing their life positions was linked with the choice of one, most suitable answer out of four in eight depicted school situations. Each answer referred to a different life position. Having analysed them, it can be shown that the teenagers most often declared adapting the life position I am OKyou are OK, and it concerned 40.46% of the respondents. 26.19% among them stated that their attitude to themselves and the world corresponds to the life position I am OKyou are not OK. On the other hand, a comparable number of respondents said that either it is not OK, including the people surrounding them (16.05%), or that their environment is OK (17.29%) whereas the surveyed respondents maintain the position of not OK. Summing up the last two categories, it turns out that more than every third seventh grader declared their feeling of insufficiency, has a lowered self-esteem against the background of their surroundings, does not feel good with themselves. On the other hand, nearly every second seventh grader has a critical attitude to the people round them, diminishing their value and importance. It should be emphasised here that there were noticeable differences between the boys and the girls regarding their choice of particular life positions. It is illustrated by chart 1. This visualisation shows that there are differences between the boys and the girls in the percentage of people declaring a given life position. In this chart (presenting the average percentage of responses, taking into account all situations listed in the questionnaire), the boys have a lower percentage of functioning in the position I am OKyou are OK, and a higher percentage in the other remaining positions. These differences are confirmed by the chi square test, but this confirmation regards not all but half of selected items. 8  The comparison of the responses given by the seventh graders and students in similar age groups, i.e. from the second grade of junior high school and the sixth graders from primary school turned out to be an important point of reference in determining life positions of seventh graders. Chart 2 presents the choices made by the aforesaid students, pointing to the activity of their life positions.

Chart 2
Average percentage of chosen life positions in reference to the age (school class) of the surveyed students, taking into account all school situations Source: own findings.
As it can be noticed, the position I+ you+ takes about 40% in each group, however, the biggest percentage of choices pointing to high self-esteem and selfacceptance can be found among the students from the second grade of junior high school. At the same time, this group had the lowest percentage informing about the activity of the position I am not OK. What is important, in this perspective, the representatives of both seventh graders and sixth graders had a very similar percentage of selected life positions, including a significantly lower percentage of people choosing the position I am OKyou are not OK and a higher one in case of I− you + and I− you− in comparison with the junior high school students. This suggests that an independent class variable can be related to life positions chosen by the surveyed students. However, such a correspondence was confirmed in case of two situations described in the questionnairethe fourth and the sixth As it can be noticed in chart 3, the reaction +/+ in this situation remains the strongest among the junior high school students, whereas the reaction from this position is much less frequent both among the seventh graders and the sixth graders, who more often display positions strengthening uncomfortable feelings and attitudes. This relation was confirmed by the chi square test, whereby Cramer's V test showed that it is weak (chi = 24.52, df = 6, p = 0.00, where Cramer's V = 0.13). Chart 4. shows a very interesting picture. Facing a conflict with students (where the teacher is not engaged as a representative of the school system, like in case of situation 4), again there is a 40% group of people engaged from the state of I+ you+. On the other hand, there is a much bigger group of junior high school students who react to the situation described from the position I am OKyou are not OK, thus protecting themselves in some way against their peers (lowering their value), probably showing more activity and autonomy in their actions than the sixth and seventh graders. This relation was confirmed by the chi square test, whereby Cramer's V test showed that it is weak (chi = 13.67, df = 3, p = 0.034 where Cramer's V = 0.10).
Both aforesaid situations and the general comparison of activity pertaining to particular Self ego states show that there is a difference in perceiving the same school events by the students from the second grade of junior high school and the sixth and seventh graders of primary school. In each surveyed class there was in general a group of 40% of students who declared that in the aforesaid situations they would act from the position of I am OKyou are OK, so they would be ready to cooperate. The rest 60% of the respondents chose different reactions: the junior high school students chose to a greater extent those which let them maintain high self-esteem at the cost of diminishing the value of their surroundings (I+ you-), which would mean rejection, whereas the primary school students, the sixth graders in majority, more often diminished their own value (avoidance or 039% 030% 015% 015% 038% 042% 010% 010% 039% 026% 018% 016% 000% 005% 010% 015% 020% 025% 030% 035% 040% 045% I+ you+ I+ you-I-you+ I-youseventh grade (primary school) second grade (junior high school) sixth grade (primary school) helplessness). Taking everything into account, it should be said that although the perception of the school atmosphere by the seventh graders turned out to be more critical than in case of the other groups, it was the sixth graders who chose to a larger extent more negative positions, disqualifying themselves. Thus, it can be supposed that it was not the realisation of the school curriculum in such circumstances, but other factors concerning the students' social and mental development were important here. However, this conclusion shows the importance and necessity of preventive and educative measures in educative establishments, which could support such a big percentage of students who experience discomfort of not being OK. It becomes necessary to promote activities that favour the development of atmosphere and relations in the spirit of OKness on school premises (cf. White, 1994, pp. 170-171).

Conclusions and recommendations
This presentation shows a small fragment of the data collected during the realisation of the evaluative research for the project "To raise a smart man", yet, from the perspective of the educational system reform, it is an important fragment. It presents a picture in which the seventh graders, the first generation of students subject to that change, do not feel comfortable in their schools, having much less sympathy for them than the students from similar age groups. In this respect, the male seventh graders might be a cause for particular concern as, in comparison with their female friends, they showed they felt significantly less secure at school. Therefore, these data show an important side-effect of top-down activities, as a result of which school does not seem a friendly place, offering conditions for positive development in the area of education and school achievements, as well as in the area of social and mental development. It is worth mentioning that it is confirmed by the data finally collected during the evaluative research, which show further deterioration of school atmosphere categories in this group of respondents at the end of the school year (cf. Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, p. 200). In this respect, it seems necessary to notice that against this background, in the teenagers' opinion, the tutoring relation met with a positive response as an activity that maybe does not counterbalance negative experiences of dealing with the school system but lets them experience different-quality contact with a teacher who "goes beyond the desk," offers their attention, time and space for conversation (cf. Sarnat-Ciastko, Gębuś, Zalewski, 2018, pp. 206-207).
Referring this situation to the analysis of the activity of life positions pertaining to this group of surveyed students, it is worth noticing that more than every third student perceives themselves in the position I am not OK and almost every other student perceives their surroundings as not being OK. As it was shown, sixth graders are in particular danger of perceiving themselves in this way, while their self-assessment and perception of their surroundings depends on the context of the teacher's presence or absence. The data collected show that students should be offered system support that would let them see how it is to be OK. This support should not be relegated to the last school lesson, but it would consistently enter the school space, its timetables and relations, creating the atmosphere necessary for the emergence of autonomy and self-reliance.