Venkovský učitel Jaroslav Petr – Martincová Petra (2023)

The book focuses on the somewhat forgotten personality of the rural teacher Jaroslav Petr (1862–1922), who significantly contributed to the reforms of Czech education at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and was also an active cultural, educational, social, and enlightenment worker. Petr was one of the first educators to recognize the importance of the environment in which a child grows up and lives on the development of their personality, and thus the necessity to base teaching on that environment. He was our most prominent representative of so-called pedagogical regionalism and wrote one of the first textbooks on natural history. However, he also dealt with other issues specific to rural schools. He advocated for a free and active school, and his insights and teaching methods can still inspire teachers today. He also paid considerable attention to literature for children and youth. He wrote critiques, reviews, compiled a list of suitable reading materials, and initiated the publication of artistically quality literature for readers of this age. Above all, he was a positively inclined person, brave, sociable, active, with an interest in everything happening around him, and a great desire to influence that happening. He was an active member of many local associations, from firefighting to theater, founded the firefighting magazine Metuj, and a village library,…