The Three Basic Rights of Children

Selected Works of Janusz  Korczak, (Translated by Martin Wolins) Warsaw Poland: 1967. p. 128

 

Stand at attention. Either we come to terms now or we part forever. Every thought trying to escape and hide, every feeling running loose, should be summoned  and lined up in militant order through  the exertion and will power.I call for the Mgna Carta of children's rights.

 

I have found three basic ones, though there may be more:

1. The right of the child to die.

2. The right of the child to the present day.

3. The right of the child to be what he is

 

One should learn to know the child well so that in granting these rights as few mistakes as possible will be made. Mistakes are unavoidable. We should not let fear stop us: errors will be certified by the child himself with an astounding vigilance as long as we do not weaken one of his precious abilities – the mighty defensive power of the system.

 

The Child in the Family - How to Love a Child (1919)

Selected Works, , p. 132-133



40.  Fearful that the child may be snatched from us by death, we snatch him - life; not wanting him to die, we won't let him to live. Reared ourselves in an inert and corrupting expectations, we are in constant rush toward an enchanting future. Being lazy, we refuse to seek the beauty of today so that we may be ready for an appropriate reception of what lies ahead: tomorrow will bring its own inspiration. What prompts the words: "I wish he were already walking and talking" - but a hysterical expectation?

He will walk: plenty of time to bump himself against the hard edge of oak chairs. He will talk; chopping with his tongue the chaff of day-to-day dullness. In way is the child's today inferior to his tomorrow? As regard effort concerned, it will certainly be tougher. When tomorrow finally comes, we start waiting for the next one. For essentially the view that the child is not yet but will be somebody, knowing nothing but will know, is not able but will be able - enforces constant expectations.

One-half of mankind does not exist at all; the life of that half is just a joke, naive strivings, passing emotions, amusing opinions. Children differ from adults, their lives lack something, but at the same time there is something more in them than in ours; that life different from ours is a reality and not a virtual image. What we done to learn to know the child and to create conditions under which he may thrive and mature?

 

The Special School - Theory and Practice (1924)

Selected Works, p. 528-529.

​

[...] The teacher does not have to take responsibility for a distant future, but he is fully responsible for the present. This assertion, of course, will arouse controversy. Some think just the opposite, erroneously in my opinion, though sincerely. Sincerely? Perhaps hypocritically? It is far more comfortable to suspend responsibility, to hold it over to hazy tomorrow, than to account for every hour - right now, today. The teacher is indirectly responsible to society for the future, but for the present he is directly and pre-eminently responsible to the child under his care.

It is convenient to sacrifice the child's immediate present to tomorrow's lofty ideals. To teach morality is simultaneously to nurture the good, to obtain a good, which exists in spite of faults, vices and innate vicious instincts. And confidence, faith in man, is this not in itself a good that can be perpetuated, developed as a counterweight to the evil which occasionally cannot be eradicated, and which can be controlled only with difficulty?



How much more reasonable life is than many teachers are. What a great shame.
[...]