A school motif in slovenian youth literature

In this diploma work we have searched through youth literature that has been published since the revolutionary year of 1848 and we have selected those books in which the motif of school is most clearly and vividly displayed. Economic, political and cultural changes in the Slovenian territory had a major effect on education, so in line with them, we divided the time we are dealing with into six periods. In the second part of our work, we tried to find the most representative literary works, describing education in the Slovenian territory. We wanted to determine from the analysis of the selected works how the changes in Slovenian schools throughout history reflected in youth literature. We tried to find out how teachers, students and school in general, were described once and how writers see them nowadays. We concluded that historical events had a major impact on youth literature. Books reveal between the lines the truth in their unique and very interesting way. Teachers were different than they are today. Their education skills, knowledge or attitude towards children, were not playing a very important role. They were often only messengers of political or religious ideologies of the individual ruling regimes. Pieces of youth literature are revealing the children's traumas that were engendered by physical punishment and the prohibition of expression in the mother tongue, but also happy, pleasant moments of gratitude, curiosity and good memories of school days. In the same vein literary works that describe and tell stories from today's classrooms reveal that we still face challenges. Law nowadays protects children better than it used to. Children can therefore feel more secure, but their attitude towards school has deteriorated. They do not like school and laugh at teachers