But What Do Australians Look Like?: An Excerpt From Janusz Korczak’s How To Love A Child, Part 1.

October 30, 2012 Leave a comment

,In the Children’s Home, students who caused trouble were often assigned guardians to watch over the students progress.  Writing letters was encouraged, and Korczak himself sometimes read such correspondence.  Indeed, he made it clear that he didn’t want children to interrupt his work, and he had a short temper, which he always regretted.  What follows below is an abridged version of an exchange between a girl-guardian and her assigned boy student.

S:  “I love Hela a lot, but I’m not going to marry a girl from the Children’s Home.”

G:  “Hela also likes you, but not a lot, because you’re a trouble maker.  Why don’t you want to marry a girl from our Home?”

S:  “I don’t want want one from here, because I’d be ashamed.  Tell me, please.  Should I get married to Dora, Hela, or Mania?

G:  “Dora thinks you’re a twit.  Mania doesn’t want you, and Hela burst out laughing.

S:  “Now I’ll be ashamed to approach them.  Please tell me where I should sit, so I’ll behave better, and write me a long story.  And please don’t show my notes to anybody.  But I really want to know what Australians look like.  What do they look like?

G:  “If they aren’t ashamed, why should you be?  If they want you, you can sit at the third table.  I ‘ll try to show you a picture of an Australian and I won’t show your notes to anybody.”

S:  “Please give me advice, because something is really bothering me.  I’m worried, because during the lesson I think about doing something bad.  But I’m afraid to do what’s bad(to steal), and I don’t want to upset anyone.  I’ll try hard not to think about it and think about voyages.  Good night.”

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Michael Parciak Speaks About Janusz Korczak And Children’s Rights, Part 2.

October 21, 2012 Leave a comment

Korczak, himself was summoned five times by the court.  Three times the court accepted his plea.  One time the court forgave him, because he regretted his action.  And one time the court accepted his admission of guilt.

Korczak also sided with children when accusations were made against adults.  For example, he rebuked a policeman who had wronged a child…

Korczak stood for democracy, freedom of opinion, and human rights as well as social justice, responsibility, and social progress.  Although, he mainly assigned himself to “his” children, this does not mean that he released the adults from their responsibilities or that he thought them unable to carry out their responsibilities for the future of their children.  Hints of that opinion are found in part of “Senate of the Mad” where one of the mad requires certificates for the adults to be understood as allowances for the keeping and educating of children.

What did Korczak expect from the adults in the community around him and the children as future adults?  Did he intend to build a bridge between both?  Which demand did Janusz Korczak make in regards to educating adults?  Did he really accept the possibility that his demands could be realized completely in the times he lived in?  Really, the main question is:  Which demands must be fulfilled to guarantee that children grow under optimum conditions and protection of their rights?

Korczak surely would have used the internet for pedagogic goals if it had been available.  He saw providing education to every child as a basic child’s right.  He also saw discussions as a valuable pedagogic platform for children to develop their own mind– social, political, cultural, and any other way.  In his eyes, a good school education was never just for the privileged.

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Michael Parciak Speaks About Janusz Korczak And Children’s Rights, Part 1.

October 16, 2012 Leave a comment

In 1997, we at MEI had planned a Janusz Korczak Symposium, which did not take place due to problems with my health.  The previous year, we had acquainted educators with the work of Vasilii Sukhomlinsky in an effort to bring teachers and theorists from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. closer together.  We chose Sukhomlinsky, and later, Korczak, because their pioneering work coincided with our motto:  Nothing is more important than the education of a child–heart, mind, and spirit.  Although plans for the Korczak Symposium had to be canceled, I was fortunate enough to contact many proponents of Korczak’s seminal work for children.  One of the people I contacted was Michael Parciak from Germany, the Chief Architect of Korczak City on the Internet.  What happened to this project, I was unable to discover.  Also, I could not find Michael Parciak.  However, I did locate an article he had written for MEI in May-June 1997 and I felt I should share some of it with you, because it contains interesting information concerning Janusz Korczak.

…The children’s court and the children’s newspaper… were important parts of Korczak’s philosophy of education in integrating  the children into all the important decisions, and demonstrating the relation between the granted rights and the required responsibilities.  The newspaper was used also for spelling practice and an exercise in developing one’s own opinions.  The children’s court was a steady exercise toward developing one’s own feelings for justice and social responsibility.  The judges were equipped with easy texts on common law to enable them to reach a just decision.  It was similar to the Napoleonic Code, which is still the basis of Polish laws, but it had one addition:  the right to forgive and to prefer forgiving more than punishment.

From the preamble of the text:

In case somebody has done wrong, it is better to forgive than to punish.  In case the incident happened as a result of inexperience, the subject will now know better.  In case the incident happened with knowledge, the subject will be more careful in the future… but the court must protect the shy from the aggressive, and the careful from the apathetic and lazy.

The court is not justice itself, but its goal is to achieve justice.  It is not truth, but its goal is the truth.  Judges might make mistakes.  Sometimes they might punish an action that they have committed themselves.  But it is a disgrace if a judge forces an unjust decision.

The court had to be dissolved for four weeks, because several aggressive kids did sabotage it.  When the court was reactivated there were new requirements.  The Premium Court would consist of two children and one adult for a three month term.  And children now had the right to accuse adults.(More in another post.)

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In Memory Of Paul J. Pearson

October 5, 2012 Leave a comment

“… we don’t have boundaries here.  Prospect is simply a concentration, and, if you go away, it dissipates.”  Paul J. Pearson

On September 21, 2012, the town of Prospect lost one of its most prominent citizens and supporters, Paul J. Pearson.  He was born in 1921 and lived most of his life in Prospect until his recent death at the age of 90.

My last post dealt with Pearsoney Falls and he was one of the discoverers.  He retained a lifelong affection for Mill Creek and the nearby Rogue River.  In fact, when I was Director of Medford Education International, he gave a lecture on the Rogue River and its habitat.

I first met Paul in 1987 when I started interviewing people for my Prospect book.  My friend Evelyn Ditsworth Walls had supplied me with a list of names of people, who she thought would be excellent sources of information for my history.  Paul’s name was the first on the list.  When I drove to his home on Mill Creek Drive, I was accompanied by my friend, Hollywood architect, Michael J. Evans.  When we entered Paul’s driveway, I took out my camera and tape recorder and then I heard a yell:   “You can just put that camera right back in the car.  I don’t allow pictures.”  And there are no pictures of Paul in my Prospect book.  Despite an inauspicious beginning, we had a pleasant conversation about Prospect’s history and its inhabitants.  However, his keen, analytical mind displayed itself from the start.

RW:  But your main interest is engineering?

PP:  Well, you have to categorize that.  If you’re asking in terms of what is my approach to the physical world around me, engineering is a very important part of it.  But if you ask what’s my sense of social values, well, engineering has no place at all.  So, that’s why I say the question has to be categorized to be answerable.”

Wittgenstein would have been pleased.  Paul always chose his words carefully, taking time to present his ideas.  When I turned off the tape recorder, Paul felt more relaxed.  We spoke about our mutual respect for the Rogue River, and the fact that we we both opposed the Lost Creek Dam, which flooded the Laurelhurst area.  We also shared an interest in classical music, and a thirst for knowledge.

I liked Paul and respected him.  He was a main contributor to the growth of Prospect and will be missed.

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