INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

13 APRIL 2000
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Janusz Korczak 1878-1942

Finding our own way

Janusz Korczak is widely recognised as one of the pioneers of our profession. Kees Waaldijk, a well-known teacher and writer in our field (who is also a member of CYC-NET's Board of Governors) tells this charming story —

Korczak did not mark out a road for us to follow, but greatly stimulates and supports us in finding our own way. His openness nicely materialized into an anecdote, related to us by an eight-year-old lady, Yanka Zuk, in Israel, who was an educator in Korczak's orphanage in the thirties.

One day, one of the children under her supervision ran away but returned before the end of the day. She dealt with the child in a certain way, later told Korczak about the event and asked him: "Would you, doctor, have done the same?

When Korczak answered: "No", she was quite upset, and asked: "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing," answered Korczak, "But why should you handle such a situation in the same way I would have done?"

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Other Korczak snippets:

He claimed to be "a doctor by education, a pedagogue by chance, a writer by passion, and a psychologist by necessity." At another time he said: "Thanks to theory, I know. Thanks to practice, I feel ... The truth about children is not to be found in books, but in life."

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