The issue concerning academic teachers within the system of education, further training, and professional development is largely overlooked and practically absent in our education system. Special attention needs to be given to their competencies. Ensuring these competencies requires: initiating research on the state of professionalism, establishing criteria for selecting individuals into the scientific and teaching profession, focusing on development, defining the related moral and ethical requirements, and creating a system for evaluating scientific research and educational activities.

The personality of a teacher is a complex and dynamic structure. It encompasses a set of psychological traits, attitudes, and dispositions. These traits enable the teacher to interact with colleagues, students, and their parents. The quality of these interactions largely depends on the teachers' competencies.

The education, further training, and professional development of teachers at all levels of education is a complex issue. This complexity is due to: the continuous reforms of the education system and higher education in Poland, strong societal pressure on this sector of social services, which leads to intense debate about existing and proposed educational models and forms of teacher training, further education, and professional development. Teacher education is entangled in phenomena of temporariness and the search for new solutions. This relates to the process of teacher education, its principles, goals, content, methods, forms, means, duration of roles performed, necessary competencies, and strategies.

From the preface by Prof. Andrzej Radziewicz-Winnicki

All reflections and observations that come to readers after reading Kazimierz Denek's new book will be very important and should – as I deeply believe – lead to positive contemplation and profound respect for the author's years of dedicated work. The credo of the briefly signaled achievements of Professor Kazimierz Denek boils down to the emphasized conviction that the modern academic teacher – a member of the university community – is not only a representative of the world of science but also has numerous and significant didactic obligations. Our author is thus a scholar passionate about knowledge and a devoted educator. By offering you this book, I hope it will serve as an inspiration for restructuring the traditional ideology and often provincial state of our higher education system, consciously guiding towards modernity, tolerance, pluralism, and democratization of knowledge, while avoiding fiction, distortions, or the repetition of established canons.