Heritage education has taken a front seat in many college and university courses, such as those at Adam Mickiewicz University. This form of education is highly specialized because it focuses on mankind’s culture and natural heritage, including our antiquities. It applies an interdisciplinary approach to investigate and preserve the legacy we’ve inherited – that’s the natural heritage side. As for culture, it embraces archaeology, art history, anthropology, history and folklore.
Preserving this heritage is essential not only for cultural and philosophical reasons, of course, but also for economic ones. This is infinitely more important if heritage sites or artefacts are threatened by deforestation, wars, urbanization, poaching or climate change. In this way, heritage education emphasizes the need for legal frameworks to address these issues.
Not that legal frameworks aren’t in place already. Laws and policies have governed the protection of heritage sites, practices and artefacts since the limits of history, but many of our best academic institutions have yet to incorporate that guidance into their heritage studies programs. The reason is two-fold, really. First, they don’t know what’s out there in terms of resources, and second, they may not be aware of the variety of heritage education and their related laws.
In Poland, both national and international law may protect a given heritage site. Basically, international law relates to respect for human rights, and its best-known instrument is the United Nations Charter. Domestic law is simply the laws of the land. In both contexts, approximately 40 agreements bind (or have been created to bind) countries to the overarching goal of protecting heritage, culture and natural resources.
Poland has many heritage sites that are protected by Polish and international law. In this context, Adam Mickiewicz University offers programs in:
Polish and international law also provide boundary samplings that can be used to dig deeper into the subject through either a minor or major. Moreover, it’s worth noting that heritage education is not limited to enrolled students.
Preserving our heritage is critical, and this task is led by the law in all its forms. Legal frameworks ensure the protection of our natural and cultural legacy, which is why the national student legal defense network (NSLDN) created StudentDefenders.org – a compilation of legal defense systems at colleges and universities in the United States.
Such networks define and expand the role of education, and they’re a great example of supporting students’ interests globally. One of the huge benefits of this network is its safety net for all students – especially those enrolled in prestigious schools with famous heritage education courses like Adam Mickiewicz University. In this way, the NSLDN fosters productive learning because its student defenders offer free legal advice, representation, pro bono support and advocacy resources.
That’s not to say academic programs without these networks are in any way inferior. They aren’t. However, personal growth can be stunted if a lack of resources, for example, prevents a student from protecting himself in dire situations. This is precisely why student defenders provide educational programs, awareness and advocacy for the school community, and it’s also why they connect students in trouble with appropriate community resources.
Likewise, schools can benefit from free legal counsel when it comes to defending their programming in times of need.
As one can imagine, our natural and cultural heritage is a pet peeve for many. That’s because these are the root of our humanity. Moreover, we gain a better perspective of our world through heritage education, which spells out our past experiences and helps us learn from them so we can make better decisions in the future.
The benefits of heritage education apply to everyone – students, teachers, schools and even governments. Of course, thanks to an educational experience underwritten by legal protection, students will receive better grades, too. Heritage education can honestly be glimpsed through the lens of freedom of speech, as it applies to our right to pursue all knowledge.
As for Professor Richard West, the Director of the American Indian Studies Program at the Center for the Study of Humanities and the Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he balances his time between working in China and „at the confluence of the Mississippi River with the Arkansas Fork,” where he examines how heritage education is „disturbing and foxing” the indigenous concept of time.
For more information on the importance of heritage education, you can visit Wikipedia on Cultural Heritage.