School lessons in Poland: When students have to learn to shoot

As of this school year, schoolchildren in Poland have had to learn how to use a firearm – in preparation for a possible case of defence, government officials say. So far there has been little criticism from parents.

Nikola has his index finger on the trigger. The nails painted black, a striking eyeliner. She handles the airgun a little awkwardly and tries to focus on the target. The trainer briefly corrects her posture and moves on to the next student at his shooting range.

Nikola is 15 years old and holds a gun for the first time. Her whole class is in shooting practice at a lyceum in Łódź, Poland. The mood is good, including Nikola, who is nervous but wants to try something new. “I’m curious,” she says, adding that it’s good “to have such an opportunity these days.”

Since this school year, shooting training has been compulsory for all pupils in the 8th and 9th grades in Poland. It is part of the subject “Safety Training”. Here, the young people learn how to react in threatening situations, take a first-aid course and, since September, have also completed basic defense training, which also includes a visit to the shooting range – but only once.

“You have to defend yourself”

The fact that this lesson exists is due to Minister of Education Przemyslaw Czarnek. After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the PiS politician campaigned for young people to learn how to use a weapon. Similar to military instruction – which many Poles from the 40-year-old generation still know from their own experience. According to Czarnek, the war in Ukraine shows “that history is not over. It repeats itself and you have to fight back.”

But the minister’s initiative met with sharp criticism. The Polish teachers’ association criticizes that there are neither enough shooting ranges nor enough teachers for the subject – and that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of zlotys have to be invested. But there are much more pressing issues, says Chairman Sławomir Broniarz: “These include the issue of Polish teachers’ salaries, who earn the least in Europe, poor school equipment, and subsidies for rising energy costs.”

He believes the government’s plans to equip every school with the appropriate number of guns and shooting ranges are wishful thinking that will probably never materialize.

No outcry among parents

Criticism also comes from psychologists such as Aleksandra Piotrowska from the University of Warsaw. Because in order to find space for shooting training in the curriculum, other content that would have taught students psychological skills in interpersonal communication: building relationships and negotiating compromises were eliminated.

Piotrowska believes that the fact that Polish schoolchildren should now learn to shoot is political propaganda: the children are already quoting the politicians’ narrative that it is important to be able to defend yourself. This is just an attempt to “heat up the fighting mood among the people”. However, it is unrealistic “that war consists of us running around with our little guns, coming out from behind a corner of the house and shooting at the enemy”.

In any case, there hasn’t been any outcry among Polish parents so far. Probably not because most of them had been trained with weapons even when they were at school. Military instruction was only abolished in 2012. Nikola’s mother Agnieszka, who came along for the shooting training, even thinks that the one-hour lesson on the shooting range is not enough. In her opinion, the shooting should take place at least once a month “so that the children can really deal with it”.