CARNIVAL AS A TIME OF CELEBRATION: RITUALS IN KINDERGARTEN

When noticing the carnivalization of contemporary Polish customs, one can often see the accompanying ambivalent tendencies in the context of socialization and education and the alarming phenomenon of kindergarchy. When introducing a child into a moral culture, modern parents try not to impose behavior patterns on their children; rather, parents use methods that are focused on the child's individuality wherein the wishes of the child are satisfied. However, this approach does not teach that the needs of others are also important. On the other hand, in preschool education, there is no shortage of opportunities to set a clear framework in ritualized behaviors. The carnival period is a time that is particularly saturated with rituals that can serve to integrate preschool and family communities. Carnival as a tradition – inscribed in the “Calendar of events and celebrations” – has become a favorite ritual among kindergartens. For most preschoolers, this is their first real exposure to a carnival ball. The symbolic representation of carnival requires rejecting individualism. Indeed, carnival remains the quintessence of collectivity and community and is broadly understood as a ritual that renews fitting into educational functions. In the social formula of the carnival, cultural memory is expressed. This cultural memory represents a considerable socialization and educational challenge for the cooperation between the institution of kindergarten with the family. This paper describes the application of participant observation in the form of an interview with children, as well as, an analysis and synthesis. The aim of the paper is to draw attention to the modern phenomenon of carnival, which in the common understanding, is a well-known form of fun. Carnival also serves culture, builds relationships, and creates identification with a given community and place.


INTRODUCTION
Education, also the one at the preschool level, is one of the basic pillars of each culture and aims to develop respect for Polish cultural heritage, while being open to the values of European and world cultures (Act -Educational Law, 2017, item 59).
The main driving force of such activities is the transmission of cultural content constituting a wide range of knowledge, patterns, rules, norms, values, symbols, which everyone uses selectively, depending on social positions, roles and group affiliations.
The kindergarten as an educational and educational institution, in its aims and tasks, provides the pupils with such a message in all activities undertaken on a daily basis, espe-disorder, integration and disintegration. As the features of fun J. Huizinga also enumerates freedom, a specific place and duration, and the fact that he likes to surround himself with mystery, enchants, repeats himself, and tension plays an important role in it (Huizinga, 2007).
The carnival is one of the oldest and extremely interesting ritual and festive phenomena as well as folk and spectacular phenomena (Dudzik, 2013), performing a number of social functions, such as: integrating people, stabilizing social structure, evoking emotional states and meeting related needs; determining socially desirable ways of spending free time; regulating intercourse between individual units as well as social groups; providing a sense of stability and affirmation of human life; intentional education, especially of the young generation (Pełka, 1989). "Rituals are a system of functioning signs as part of human action, and the more active participation is in this activity, the more authentic the human experience becomes, the deeper the impact of rites on society" (Pełka, 1989).
Carnival celebration has a ritual character, as evidenced by carnival practices referring to such aspects as: space, time, ways of participating in the feast, social relationships and interaction between participants, masks, costumes, props, carnival language (Dudzik, 2013). This corresponds to the structure of the ritual described by Pierreʹ Bourdieu, which includes: elements of time and space, language and body, material objects and atmosphere (Choińska, 2012). It all becomes a system of symbols separated from everyday space and time, which is the most permanent element of the carnival. Symbols, emphasizes Wojciech Burszta, are an important element of the memory of culture, transfer its sense from one level to another, "they are a reflection of reality, reveal something basic, try to reveal the beginning, genesis of phenomena and contain a holistic picture of the world, are multivalent, express the modality of things and the sense" (Burszta, 1998).
Carnival is included in the so-called annual ritual, celebrated according to the calendar cycle, seasons and the aftermath of religious holidays. It is now assumed that the official start of the carnival is on Epiphany, January 6, and Ash Wednesday marks its end. However, the carnival does not end everywhere on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. In Basel, for example, it lasts from Monday to the first Sunday of Lent for three days. Many ashore ritual games take place in many European cities on Ash Wednesday.
According to Jan Grad, the carnival is the time between two periods of sacred seriousness: Advent introducing the winter holiday time ended with Christmas and Lent, which prepares for Easter, introducing the spring holiday season. It is a time to manifest Christmas joy of life, religious and festive joy as well as ritual and rapture (Grad, 2004). Can carnival be included in the concept of the rituals of the passage of Arnold van Gennep, which are actions that symbolically symbolize the transition from one phase of life in the second, which are accompanied by exclusion rituals -preliminaries, transition periodliminal and inclusion rituals -postliminaries? (Gennep, 2006). This is debatable because we are not dealing here with unambiguous changes in social statuses; considered in the context of carnival, they are assumed to be transient.
Anthropologist Michał Buchowski postulates far-reaching consideration at the stage of classifying studied phenomena. "It seems that the rite of passage should not be understood too broadly, so as any rite, in which one can almost always find a change in status, but as those whose primary purpose is to change social status" (Staszczak [scientific ed.] 1987; Kowalska, 1999). Nevertheless, according to Andrzej Bursztyn, carnival can be considered as a kind of rite where there are characteristic elements of action: 10 A. Curzytek "1) always repetitive social practices consisting of a sequence of symbolic actions in the form of dance, singing, verbal messages, body movements, manipulation of various objects etc. 2) activities separated from the social routine of everyday life, their festivity is assumed in advance, 3) culturally defined ritual patterns existing in each culture, variable regardless of its type, but always recognizable, 4) behaviors closely related to a specific set of ideas ( ideological messages, myths): they may concern the nature of evil, the relationship of human beings with the spiritual world etc.: the purpose of ritual and ritual activities is to symbolically recreate and comment on these primary ideas" (Burszta, 1998).
In carnival rites one can find features attributed to the liminal phase in Victor Turner, who calls it communitas, and this inverse model of "society creating an unstructured community of equal individuals based on direct ties and homogeneity. It is characterized by, among others, spontaneity, selflessness, simplicity, anonymity, lack of property characteristics, sacredness" (Dudzik, 2005). Turner himself, as W. Dudzik reads it, defines the carnival conter-structure as a transitional phase in which the differences in the "... (pre-carnival) status are canceled in order to create communitas between the participants. Community is the domain of equality where everyone has been deprived of distinction and are at the same level of social hierarchy, but equality established between them is ritualistic. (...) Carioca carnival is a model example of anti-structure. To make a carnival means doing chaos where everything is mixed up and nobody knows where to look. In carnival, men can dress like women, adults, like children, poor as princess" (Dudzik, 2005).
But carnival in its apparent chaos appears as an ordered festival, taking place according to a fixed scenario in which order is observed and which, like the ritual, stabilizes order. Carnival can be referred to the phenomenon of performance, defined by V. Turner as social dramas (games), and by E. Goffman as theater and shows in which rituals play an essential role. According to the famous interactionist, what happens during gatherings can be compared to a theater, a dramatic metaphor. In such circumstances, people behave similarly to the actors on stage, playing a spectacle, partly thoughtless, partly manipulative and strategic, modeling their behavior so as to make the best impression on others. Their essence is the presentation of self, which, as Goffman states, "contains and visualizes officially recognized values of society" (Sztompka, Bogunia-Borowska [scientific ed.]

2008).
Body and masks play a significant role in carnival performances because changing the identity of participants is its most important feature. The carnival body covered with a costume and mask becomes the body of the Other, and this creates perfect conditions for undertaking a ritual game, because in carnival interactions, any activity performed in the presence of others gives an opportunity to perform many small rituals, and gestures, which are sometimes called empty, are in fact "the most meaningful of all" (Goffman, 2006). Carnivals were ritual productions that create in this cultural drama unity with the myth by reference to some model event that took place in the early days. The myth explains and authenticates the ritual, and it then shows strengthens the effectiveness of the myth (Filipiak, Rajewski [scientific ed.] 2006). Carnival practices reveal the action of magic, which is based on faith in the supernatural ability of a man and provides "tools to fight human impotence on the plane of practical problems of life" (Sroczyńska, 2013).
For Jean Maissoneuve, carnival celebration expresses a departure from the established order -breaking norms and prohibitions, abolishing and ridiculing authorities, virtues, and all kinds of extravagance (Maisonneuve, 1995). However, it is not about reversing everyday order or replacing order by disorder. Carnival disorder is ordered according to the scenario of the show, games, parades, holidays. Without this scenario, no carnival can do, because the celebration does not arise from chaos, but introduces its periodic order (Dudzik, 2013). Wojciech Dudzik notes that traditional carnival theory has long defined it using the category of reversal and subversion. Currently, it is perceived "the sense of carnival not in the wording of the social hierarchy, but in the affirmation of the community" (Dudzik, 2013).
Contemporary carnival has become a community celebration that allows communities to temporarily free themselves from all burdens, to strengthen and shape the community and to remind about common values. The common ground for all carnival Christmas practices is its joyful and cheerful time. The carnival becomes a symbol and personification of an authentic street holiday independent but tolerated by the state and the church (Bachtin, 1965). Carnival funs have a peculiar character in different cultures, and its celebrations have a long and rich tradition.
Many years of tradition meant that carnival in Western culture appears as a mass, orderly festival, which takes place according to a strictly defined scenario, requiring long-term preparations and expenditure maintaining order throughout the whole period (Dudzik, 2013). The contemporary phenomenon is not only about participation, but also about watching this spectacular spectacle, which not only abolishes the daily social hierarchy, but creates its own, and equating all participants is only apparent and temporary. Today, the carnival remains in relation to everyday time, constituting the culmination of life pleasures, as well as a form of custom.

THE SPECIFICITY OF THE MODERN CARNIVAL
The carnival is still an up-to-date event, and this kind of celebration unites and attracts more and more people. The contemporary carnival participant no longer puts on a costume and a mask to "escape from the real world or to look at him upside down, and from a different perspective find that everything could take place in life differently, but ratherjust -to play a different role" (Dudzik, 2013). Today, only in some regions of Poland one can see interesting rituals, often resumed and reconstructed by ethnographers (Chwalba, 2014). The examples include the Zapustier Bands Review or the carnival parade in Włocławek, which has been passing through the streets of the city for over twenty years, arousing the admiration of residents. In the traditional procession the group of costume participants is accompanied by "inhabitants of mass imagination". Their costumes refer to the products of contemporary culture -film, TV and comic characters. The parade in Włocławek has become a permanent element of the local cultural calendar, more and more reminiscent of processions from many West European cities (Chwalba, 2014). Another example is Żywieckie Gody, which combines the tradition of singing carols and carnival. This festival lasts about a week and includes in its program old winter customs, e.g. tearing feathers, spinning wool, or shelling beans. The Highlander Carnival organized in Bukowina Tatrzańska has a similar character. Its main point is the performances of carol groups, but you can also watch a robber dance show, a performance of highlander bands, a performance "Highlander Wedding", take part in a folk art fair and outdoor events (Chwalba, 2014). In the examples shown, it can be seen how the old rituals are gradually transforming into events that combine the features of an emotional gathering, a performance with the participation of amateur actors and spectators, ludicity and commercialism (Zduniak, 2018).
In contemporary postmodern culture, the carnival has penetrated everyday life. There is a growing phenomenon of carnival, which J. Grad describes as a way of "making psychophysiological pleasure as the meaning of life" (Grad, 2018). In our everyday life, just like in a carnival, the boundaries between the real world and the world of fun, virtual world, seemingly blurry. This is due to easily available technical means (e.g. television, the Internet), play equipment (e.g. theme parks, arcades, amusement parks, commercial institutions), which evoke collective excitement, even pleasant bewilderment with the view of various goods and their purchase. It is a "consumer pleasure reminiscent of experiences implied by games of the ilinx type", typical of old carnival celebrations.
Contemporary associations with the carnival are primarily the pre-Christmas shopping intensity, commonly referred to as the "shopping craze or madness" (Grad, 2004), where entire families, including small children, take part. Dorota Mroczkowska, analyzing the phenomenon of free time folkism, notes that: "shopping time becomes a kind of carnival of buying, recalculating and consuming, sometimes unusual, because the »"reigns«" the desire to indulge, a kind of »enjoying life« -buying, eating and drinking man absorbs the world instead of being absorbed by him" (Grad, Mamzer [ed. scientific.] 2004). Seeing the carnivalisation of contemporary Polish customs it is easy to see that it is often accompanied by ambivalent tendencies in the context of socialization and education. The phenomenon of kindergarchy is worrying (Papugowa, 2007), which in this case means a kind of generational relations where children have real power. They can be observed especially in so-called "free time" that children spend with their parents in public, consumption places. Contemporary parents, when introducing a child into a culture of manners, try not to impose on them behavior patterns. They are guided by methods focused on the individuality of the child (Adamski, 2007) and rather allow them to do everything, rather than setting clear boundaries. Kindergarchy may refer to various situations in which, despite the power of the elderly, the needs of children come first. While working in kindergarten, I notice that most parents prefer this style of upbringing, but it is worth specifying that they care more about striving to build the individuality of the children rather than encouraging them to cooperate with others. Children have a developed self, but it is more difficult for them to find themselves in social relationships. It satisfies the child's wishes but does not teach that the needs of others are also important.
There is no shortage of opportunities in the kindergarten to set clear boundaries that cannot be crossed. Often these are everyday forms of ritualised activities, but also all kinds of celebrations that organize children's behavior, teach order, respect for themselves and others, and facilitate community life. As W. Papugowa emphasizes, by controlling adults, the child acquires "habits of regularity, implementation of tasks in a set order, respect for harmony and social order" (Papugowa, 2007). In kindergarten, Christmas time is a special period of noticing the order that comes from the aftermath of public holidays, and cultivating family, local and national traditions. This particularly ritually saturated time strengthens and integrates the preschool and family community. However, the culmination of children's Christmas experiences is a carnival ball that brings joy and arouses positive attitudes. It is a favorite ritual of preschoolers, which they look forward to all year long.
Carnival as a time of celebration: … 13 One can therefore hope that: "The last carnival traces will be guarded by childhood, the natural heir of all the rich and the bizarre props from which adult humanity has gradually parted throughout its history: these include the feathery kits of musketeers, Iroquois plumes, customs and ceremonies of the knightly state. And yes once fun ritual kneeling downs and protocol splendor changes" (Starobinski, 2018).

CELEBRATION OF THE CARNIVAL IN THE KINDERGARTEN INSTITUTION
Today, the carnival ball is an inseparable element of childhood associated with a stay in kindergarten. Currently, for this category of children, the carnival ball is: "an event where you can dress up for different characters from fairy tales" (own archive). The pre-school carnival ball inscribed permanently in the calendar of celebrations is a favorite ritual that has many important educational functions. The first is the personality-forming function which consists in shaping individual features as a result of participating in ceremonies, rituals and satisfying the child's emotional, intellectual, moral and aesthetic needs. The second is the identification function of confirming the community of people and their belonging to a peer community; thanks to the celebration of specific behaviors and traditions, the community feels integrated. The interpersonal function strengthens community ties and regulates intercourse between individuals and a social group. In turn, the function of social control consists in compliance with common, generally accepted and recognized standards. The fifth function, called educational, consists in informally introducing individuals to life in a specific system of values, norms and behavior patterns. The task of the integration function is to connect units around accepted values, forms of behavior and norms of conduct. The seventh function -differential, consists in differentiating and isolating smaller communities in the context of commonly practiced customs and rites. It is opposed to the identification and integration function. Emotional function is very important because of the age of the children. Its role is to provide a variety of experiences: reflective, ludic, relaxing. The ninth function -affirmative, relates to confirming and approving the meaning of meanings in celebrations. Another functionsocialization is to adapt to existing social norms and adapting to the rules, forms and customs in force and practiced in a given social group; the eleventh is a moral function, and its role is to sensitize and cultivate the ethical principles of coexistence in practiced habits. In turn, the affiliate function, subordinate to the emotional one, consists in strengthening and making friends more attractive and releasing these feelings through joint participation in practiced ceremonies. The penultimate function -pattern-forming, is combined with the stimulating one, whose task is to preserve traditional moral patterns or shape new varieties. The last, equally important, is the ludic function that connects with a relaxation function, and consists in meeting the needs of fun and entertainment (Gajda, 2018).
The kindergarten carnival ball can be referred to as "the fifth season" (Dudzik, 2005) as the waiting time for the pre-school carnival ball precedes many festive celebrations and spectacle, to which the preschool community carefully prepares by setting them time, place, appropriate props, but most of all a way of participation. Some of them take on the character of the festival of "seriousness", which is the patriotic celebration of independence on November 11, others become fun with an element of "magic", such as "Andrew's". This atmosphere is maintained by another pre-school celebration, which is an emotional meeting with the Santa Clause, followed by a waiting time and preparing for Christmas, shrouded in mystery, family warmth, rich religious symbols and deep aesthetic experiences. At this time, wafer meetings are organized in which the parents of the children also participate. In many kindergartens there are performances showing Christmas traditions. It is also a time for Christmas wishes, sharing a wafer and carol singing.
An extension of the joyful mood and the culmination of the pre-school carnival period is the carnival ball, also known as the costume party in kindergartens. This holiday day is set aside from daily activities and games, as a suspension of the normal, established order of things, it is guided by its own "rules" based on a carefully planned scenario. But does it really reflect fully the classic Turnerian ant-structure, which is defined by the concepts of liminality and communitas? Communitas ties are anti-structural, they belong to the I-You relationship, and communitas are spontaneous, direct and concrete (Dudzik, 2013). Preschool carnival fun is characterized by an oxymoron, it has its own anti-structural structure, which undergoes transformation in communitas, where the greatest importance is attributed to the liminal phase, i.e. play. The latter, however, takes place under the control of adults. Pre-school carnival fun, like the carnival celebration of adults, refers to many important elements: space, time, interaction between participants, costumes and masks, carnival joy, laughter, comedy, as well as the culinary aspect (Dudzik, 2013).
The pre-school carnival in its apparent chaos, as well as in adults, it is a carefully planned celebration and takes place according to an established ritual scenario. It can be divided into three phases -the so-called preliminaries, which precedes the most important -liminal and final referred to as post-minimal. The pre-elimination phase includes all previous preparations, among others, the order of the lecturers, placing parents' announcements, preparing the room, meal, preparing costumes, engaging parents, because they help children become the dream character, most often from a favorite fairy tale. At this stage, you can notice some elements of the kindergarchy phenomenon, as indicated by children's statements: "I choose the outfit myself.", "I have a lot of princess dresses and I chose one dress for the carnival ball", "I was surprised myself, because my grandmother from America sent me, and I was surprised that she sent me two outfits and I had to choose which one and I chose Peter Pan", "I could choose my own outfit. There were various things in my wardrobe for this outfit, and my mother did the rest for me" (Curzytek, 2019).
The second phase, called liminal, is a day of fun, exactly its start time, when the ball gathers the entire community in one fixed place, where the leader holds the central position with the accompanying music band, who watches over the overall course of the game. He greets and introduces successively arriving groups of costumes and leads a colorful pageant throughout the room to the rhythm of cheerful music. When the whole kindergarten community gathers, everyone gets mixed up on an agreed signal, jumps up happily, claps, dances to a song that is known to everyone. The hall is crowded, but no one bothers anyone and, surprisingly, nothing bad happens to anyone in this crowd because no one is aggressive. Everyone plays with everyone, like in a "real" carnival, where the difference in age and social status is blurred. One of the secrets of the carnival is that, despite the enormous crowd, no one is generally injured. Everyone experiences being together, they move in a common, joyful rhythm, they have their music, dances, gestures and calls. This extraordinary time requires getting rid of individualism, it is the quintessence of collectivity and community (Dudzik, 2013). Selected costumes release the activity of the host, which he would never allow himself in everyday, ordinary clothes, because the carnival allows you to reveal your identity. All this is joyful fun, as emphasized by J. Starobinski, and the person wearing the mask knows about it and he wants it. Symbols that were once fearful become swords made of cardboard. Only nobody's face reigns around it, reproduced indefinitely, repeated until the loss of sense, enchanted and immobilized by their own emptiness (Dudzik [scientific ed.] 2018). Very often being a different person manifests suppressed desires to be yourself. By wearing a costume and mask, the relationships between ballroom participants are simplified, new relationships are built, and the nature of past and future relationships is revealed. In the carnival party, inexplicable, fairy-tale things happen, where everything is possible, because the child takes on and plays the experiences of his favorite hero, while at the same time experiencing playing a role, and thus also understands the experiences of others. These skills create a feeling of respect for children and empathy (Ostrach [scientific ed.]

2016).
This unique, magical time is filled with spontaneous joy, comical laughter that allows releasing the emotions accumulated in the child. Carnival laughter is a festive laughter, a common laughter lying in the nature of that time. It is a universal laugh, focused on everything and everyone, it is ambivalent laughter: "it is cheerful, full of joy and at the same time mocking, ridiculing; it denies and approves, rummages and reborn" (Bachtin, 1965). During the carnival party, the children renew their mental strength, as well as the group's values, elements integrating, building and refreshing contacts between them, as well as many different mechanisms of humanization (Grad, Mamzer [scientific ed.] 2004). Participation in the carnival party is not only about active participation and activity but also about memorable mutual watching. Every year, pre-school carnival fun has group kings and queens, selected from pre-school disguises. Confetti falls on selected couples, after which they make a funny, comical oath, causing the other participants to burst out of carnival laughter, spontaneous joy.
Of course, while playing, the participants take a break for group photos, a sweet treat to gather strength again and be able to continue playing. At the appointed hour, which was previously set by the ritual script, the ball ends, everyone says goodbye and each group of preschoolers returns to their halls. Then a post-minimal phase occurs, in which the collected energy supply together with renewal flows back to the real world (Dudzik, 2005). This is a form of moral renewal, which is the main object of positive worship. "After fulfilling our ritual duties, we return to everyday life with greater courage and zeal" (Maisonneuve, 1995).
Carnival fun provides children with many strong numinotic experiences. Statements of children confirm their physical and emotional commitment: "... you can sweat with this music", "I liked dancing in pairs the most because I could dance with who I wanted", "we sang songs, there were various games and there were a lot of costumes", "there was a competition for the best couples in dance", "There was one fun game because they chose the king and the prom queen", "I was crazy", "it was very cool, I have such impressions from here, nice that the last ball, because later to school, but it was good anyway", "for me it was very cool first, then I got tired so much that I didn't feel like doing anything anymore, but I still moved my leg back and forth, even persevered", "in fairy-tale costumes it's nice, joyfully, like in a fairy tale on TV, as if we were in a fairy tale" (Curzytek, 2019).
Carnival, as a community ritual, can generate changes in the state of consciousness that is born in dance as a result of increased coordination. Then a kind of communitas appears, which is characterized by poorly structured social relations and remains a source of cultural creativity (Sroczyńska, 2013). Children as participants in the fun feels part of the group, a shared mood is given to them, and the contacts they make with their peers are for them a source of satisfaction, joy and shape a positive image of the world and himself. This is because the pace, rhythm and emotions of having fun together are shared by participants who anticipate mutual rhythms and "are captured by current events" (Collins, 2011) in a better mood. Everyone is overwhelmed with enthusiastic energy, which is not what children experience every day. R. Collins calls this "collective excitement", which is associated with joyful excitement by absorbing emotional charge. The result is long-lasting emotions that cause group solidarity. The researcher compared this high emotional energy, adoration of joy to the psychological concept of "drive" which gives a feeling of confidence, enthusiasm in dealing with others. As he emphasizes: "This is the individual side of having a high level of Durkheimian ritual solidarity with the group" (Collins, 2011). Emotional strength makes the child an enthusiastic supporter of the group with whom he feels good and is its energetic leader who awakens and transmits feelings in the group. In addition, emotional energy is also a "moral sentiment" because it contains a sense of what is good and bad, moral and immoral. Children full of such energy feel good and needed, they believe that they are doing the right thing (Collins, 2011). This is a kind of symbolic regeneration that we can call a renewal ritual.

CONCLUSIONS
The carnival is a part of the cultural heritage and recently UNESCO has gradually begun to include various characters on the Intangible Heritage List. The time of the modern carnival, although it refers to a centuries-old tradition, has the features of a ritual, recalling the costumes of consumer culture and event, allowing "heating up" in public and institutional space. This is a cultural phenomenon where both adults and children participate. Carnival fun, which takes on a ritual character, remains outside the daily lives of preschool children, completely absorbs participants and is done within a certain time and space, and also runs in a certain order and according to certain rules. The possibility of using categories appropriate to the anthropological theories of Arnold van Gennep's ritual and Victor Turner, in the analysis of the features of the institutionalized carnival, remains an open issue and requires further study and analysis. Nevertheless, the carnival party brings to life social relationships which surround themselves with mystery or by means of "disguises" emphasize their otherness towards the so-called the ordinary world to which preschool children are socialized.