20 commandments of Janusz Korczak about education

When I was ten, I shed tears reading King Matt the First. Then for me it was just a sad book.

Several years later, I cried when I learned about the fate of its author. Polish teacher, writer, doctor and public figure. The director of the Orphanage for Jewish children founded by him, Janusz Korczak, prioritized moral education of a person. In peacetime, he fought for the souls of his pupils. When the Second World War began, the struggle was already going on for their lives.

In 1940, despite all the efforts of the teacher, the children from the Orphanage ended up in the Warsaw ghetto. Jews are second-class people for the Nazis. Korczak spent a month in prison and got out of there with poor health, but not broken.

On August 6, 1942, 192 children from his orphanage were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. They were accompanied by two teachers – Korczak himself and his assistant Stefania Vilchinskaya.

According to eyewitnesses, at the last moment one of the German officers handed the paper to Korczak. The Germans were ready to give life to a famous teacher. But only to him. Without children. Janusz refused. And after a while he died with his students in the Treblinka gas chamber.

After himself, Janusz Korczak left an amazing pedagogical legacy. Back in 1934, at a kibbutz, he formulated the five main commandments for parents.

1. To love the child in general, not just your own.

2. Observe the child.

3. Do not put pressure on the child.

4. Be honest with yourself to be honest with your child.

5. Know yourself so as not to take advantage of a defenseless child.

Years later, Betty’s biographer John Lifton, in his book The King of Children, dedicated to Korczak, will recall: Janusz Korczak spoke of the need to create a declaration of children’s rights long before such documents were developed at the UN.

“By reading The Child’s Right to Respect, How to Love a Child and other works, I have brought together the rights that Korczak considered most important,” Lifton wrote.

Some of these theses are perhaps surprising now. Something – a desire to argue. But everyone will read something of their own in them. And, perhaps, will accept – as a guide to action.

• A child has a right to love: “Love a child, not just your own”
• The child has the right to respect: “Let’s demand respect for shining eyes, smooth foreheads, youthful energy, and trustfulness. Why do dull eyes, wrinkles, unkempt gray hair or tired indifference command more respect? “
• The child has the right to optimal conditions for growth and development: “We demand: down with hunger, dampness, stench, crowding, overpopulation.”
• The child has the right to live in the present: “Children are not people of the future, they are people of today.”
• The child has the right to be himself: “A child is not a lottery ticket that is expected to win the main prize.”

• The child has the right to make mistakes: “There are no more fools among children than among adults.”
• The child has the right to fail: “We reject the deceptive desire to make a child perfect.”
• The child has the right to be taken seriously: “Who asks the child’s opinion or consent?”
• The child has the right to be appreciated for what he is: “A child, being small, has a low market value.”
• The child has the right to wish, make demands, ask: “Every year the gap between the needs of adults and the desires of children is rapidly widening.”
• The child has the right to secrets: “Respect their secrets.”
• In some cases, the child has the right to lie, deceive, steal: “A child has the right to lie, lure, force, steal. A child has no right to lie, lure, force, steal. “
• The child has the right to respect for his property, his budget: “Everyone has a right to property, no matter how small or of little value.”
• The child has the right to education.

• The child has the right to resist pedagogical influence if it conflicts with his own beliefs: “Humanity is fortunate that we have no way to force children to give in to our attacks on their common sense and philanthropy.”
• The child has the right to protest against injustice: “We must put an end to despotism.”
• The child has the right to the Children’s Court, where he can judge and be judged by his peers: “Now we are the only judges of the actions, thoughts and plans of the child … I know how important the Children’s Court is, and I am sure that in fifty years there will be no school, no organization without such a court.”
• The child has the right to protection under the juvenile justice system: “A child who transgressed the law remains a child … Unfortunately, poverty, spreading like an epidemic, feeds sadism, crime, rudeness, cruelty.”
• The child has the right to respect for his grief: “Even if it’s just the loss of a beautiful stone.”
• The child has the right to fellowship with God. The child has the right to premature death: “The deep love of a mother for her child should give him the right to premature death, so that his life lasts one or two springs … Not every bush grows into a tree.”