Janusz Korczak_The Child's Right to Respect_En

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The Child’s Right to Respect
sheltered Jewish children. They were first forced into the Warsaw Ghetto and then
sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. Even though he was offered the chance
to escape he chose death along with his children. This poignant ending grew into
the Korczak legend. However, those who hold Korczak’s legacy in trust are keen
to remind us that before Treblinka there had been 40 years of work with children
and for children, 40 years of medical practice and educational work, 40 years of
life. They urge us not to let the memory of Korczak’s death make us forget the 40
years of enlightened education and child-care.
l The humanist basis
The humanist basis of Korczak’s work could be described thus: in his writings
the reader discovers a natural scientist’s and mystic’s fascination with mankind
and with life. In the individual child and in groups of children he felt he was
encountering human beings in their most imposing form. Korczak approached
them with reverence and curiosity, and at times with melancholy and resignation.
The children themselves became the obvious starting point for Korczak’s work.
This expressed not so much an educational principle as a way of seeing mankind.
Children are first and foremost human beings. They embody the whole mystery of
the human race.
The child … that little nothing, is the flesh-and-blood brother of the ocean wave,
of the wind, and ashes; of the sun and the Milky Way. This speck of dust is the
brother of every ear of corn, every blade of grass … every fledgling from the nest…
there is something in the child which feels and explores – suffers, desires, and
delights … loves and hates, believes and doubts, something that approaches,
something that turns aside.
In its thought this small speck of dust can embrace everything: stars and oceans,
the mountain and the abyss. And what is the actual substance of his soul if not the
cosmos, but without spatial dimensions ….
For Korczak, his social and educational work with the child firmly at the centre
was a way of showing reverence for what is human in the figure of the child. It
was also a way of recognising, through action, the child’s full human worth. In that
sense, his work was based on humanistic foundations. This was also the reason for
his involvement in international work for children’s rights.
The company of children can indeed be tiring, Korczak conceded. But this is not
because we have to strain to lower ourselves to their level. On the contrary: the
exertion lies in our having to raise ourselves to their level, to their feelings, so
as not to hurt them. Once we have learned to know children we realise, Korczak
claimed, that we have no reason for boasting.
As to feelings, they outdo us with unbridled power. As to intellect, they are our
equals, lacking only experience …
All other differences are reduced to the fact that children do not earn money; they
are dependent on us for their maintenance and must abide by our wishes.