How to Love the Child?

This is what Korczak wrote on 1919:

 

A hundred children — a hundred individuals who are people — not people to be, not 

people of the future, not people of tomorrow, but people now ... right now ... today. 

Not a miniature world but a real world of values, virtues, shortcomings, aspirations 

and desires not trifling, but significant, not innocent but human. 

(Korczak, Selected Works, 1967, p. 208)

 

This is the faith of Janusz Korczak, a world known humanist who dedicated his life to the service of children.

Children are individuals who deserve our true and respectful attention.

Their present, their childhood years, is precious. We have to respect their world.  Education is about an encounter with another individual who we have to learn and understand his or her world. It is about empathy and a serious dailogue. 

 

Korczak, a Polish Jew, looked for a common ground for all men - maybe, he expressed his hope, education will bring all men together.  After his two visits to the Land of Israel (1934, 1936) he suggested that this land can be the sanctuary of education.

Korczak remained with his children in Poland. With them he forced into the Jewish ghetto on 1940 and with them he went to Treblinka death camp on August 5th 1942.

 

Korczak's legacy inspires generations of educators all over the world.