School as a place where young people experience joy and sadness

School is an institution and an environment in which a young person spends a significant amount of time. Adding the tasks performed related to education, this time reaches almost half a day, and in some cases even more. A fundamental question arises: to what extent, in the opinion of the surveyed graduates, was school a place of experiencing joy and sadness? This general question implies specific questions: what is the hierarchy of sources of joy and sadness?; who was the source of joy?; who was the source of sadness?; what situations were the factors that caused joy and sadness?; how did the respondents experience joy and sadness? In search of answers to the above questions, empirical research was conducted among students of pedagogy studying at the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, the John Paul II Pontifical University in Krakow, the Pedagogical University in Piotrków Trybunalski, and the Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Pedagogy in Warsaw. The research covered 215 students. It was of a qualitative nature. Students were asked to freely state in writing: „The school I graduated from was a place of joy and sadness”. The analysis of freely expressed statements was the source of the obtained results. The presented material contains general results concerning the hierarchy of sources of joy and sadness experienced by the respondents, as well as detailed results concerning two sources of joy and sadness: the teacher – his/her behaviours and attitudes, and the peer/class group – interpersonal relations.