It wasn't just my school though. That's how our entire system of education works. "Polish" lessons boil down to reading classic books, poetry etc. and learning how to analyze them. On surface it doesn't seem that bad. Learning different themes, motives, influences and such and then trying to apply that knowledge to look for it in different texts and analyze them. The issue is the reason it's that way. At the end of high school, after you already graduated, everyone in entire country takes universal "tests of maturity" supposedly showing that you gained enough knowledge to become a adult. When you apply to university, scores on those tests are what dictates whatever you'll get in or not. Your grades from high school are secondary. Some universities do have their own entrance exams, but those maturity tests still matter. Because Polish is mandatory (along with math), no matter which degree you pick, it's always taken into account, so it's in your best interest to do well.
There are two parts. Reading with comprehension and either you have 1 text to analyze or 2 to compare along with some kind of thesis which you need to base your essay around. Of course since those exams are supposed to objectively value your knowledge, they need a reliable way to judge your performance. That's why when people from ministry of eduction or whoever does it, sit down to make those tests, they make a "key" based on which they judge your work. You get points for following elements they included in it, so you can't just write whatever but need to aim to fit specifically into what they considered important. So in order to get a good score, you have to analyze it exactly the way they analyzed it and expect you to analyze it.
We have similar final tests for elementary and middle school, but they're taken much less seriously. For elementary they're pretty much a formality, since you're guarantee to get into middle school in your area and score for middle school doesn't really matter, since you're admitted to high school mostly based on your grades. Both had a reading with comprehension portion and write a short story/essay portion. I'm not sure how exactly they were checking it, since we were never taught to follow any key or anything like that. I basically wrote what came to mind and passed it with almost perfect score. And that is how it should work, since the point of it (I thought) was to express yourself and present your take on it. Things changed once we got into high school. It kinda already was case before, but because there's really nothing to do in Polish lessons, entire 3 years we just spend preparing for final exams. So all our tests were just reading with comprehension and testing our knowledge about books we were required to read. Every now and then we would write trial versions of maturity test. During third year, that was basically all we did. And through all those 3 years, our teacher was determinate to teach us exactly how to write according to key and what to look for, because examiners will judge us solely based on that. That's why I said our school system burnt me for poetry and any analysis. Because all we were ever taught is that there's only 1 right way to analyze it and we had to get it right.
As a funny side story, of course we also use our books and famous poetry. Some of author's of those are still alive. They actually had 3 of them doing those tests and 2 out of them failed, while 1 passed barely. To make it even worse, one of those who failed was analyzing his own essay and he supposedly "got it wrong".
Good Lord. I have Asperger's, so having to analyse stuff like "the author's intent" would have ruined me in school. I've learned how to read people better after living the sweet sweet adult life for a while, but back in my school days, ugh, I can't even imagine.
