One of the worst blunders is to think that pedagogy is the science of the child; no! It is the science of man (Janusz Korczak, How to Love a Child).

Janusz Korczak’s ideas and practical pedagogical achievements permanently went down in the history of Polish and world pedagogy. They have become a unique source of knowledge, ideas and inspiration in the quest for new educational solutions… .

For Korczak, his social and educational work with the child firmly at the centre was a way of showing reverence for what is human in the figure of the child. It was also a way of recognising, through action, the child’s full human worth. …

The company of children can indeed be tiring, Korczak conceded. But this is not because we have to strain to lower ourselves to their level. On the contrary: the exertion lies in our having to raise ourselves to their level, to their feelings, so as not to hurt them. Once we have learned to know children we realise, Korczak claimed, that we have no reason for boasting.

“As to feelings, they outdo us with unbridled power. As to intellect, they are our equals, lacking only experience …” (Topicality and Relevance of Janusz Korczak’s Pedagogical Approach to Children and Their Upbringing).

Question: In your opinion, is pedagogy for children or for adults?

Answer: It is to understand the children.

Question: So, it turns out that it is for parents, for teachers, and not for children?

Answer: Yes, and what is there to teach a child? How can you teach him?! He will gradually learn on his own from life.

Question: So, all these institutions where they teach, teach, teach, in fact …?

Answer: They don’t teach anything. The child has his own conceptual apparatus; he is constantly in it and processes all the data received from the outside world. And it all happens very rapidly for him.

Question: Does the child process it on his own, as you say? Is he studying precisely by himself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Then why does the whole system of upbringing, education, all this huge system, exist?

Answer: It is spinning around us on its own and that is it. There is nothing we can do with it. You cannot put anything into a child, but just the environment, friends, teachers, also partly. But all this creates the inner world of the child, who then enters into life. And then he begins to take from life.

Question: What do you think parenting is? You have pushed education back a bit now.

Answer: First, education and upbringing are not the same thing. Education is filling a child with all sorts of wisdom, and parenting is an example of an adult to a child of how to behave in certain circumstances.

Question: Is an adult a teacher, a parent, an environment, and so on?

Answer: Yes.

Question: So, it turns out that the right upbringing is to put the child in an environment that gives the right examples. What examples should be shown to a child so that this child grows up correctly and is brought up correctly?

Answer: It is impossible to say. The child selects these examples himself and assimilates them.

Question: I’m showing an example, but maybe he takes something of his own from this and only understands that?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How do you penetrate into this child’s world?

Answer: There is no need to! Let him develop on his own.

Comment: But I have to guide him somehow.

My Response: I don’t think it is necessary. Let him run down the street, communicate with his peers, and thus he will develop.

Question: Should there be an ideal environment for a child to grow up in?

Answer: Children and animals.

Question: To have children and animals around. And where is the place for an adult?

Answer: There is no place for an adult there. Adults will impose all sorts of behavioral laws on children, and this is not necessary. Gradually, the child will grow up, and he will discover these laws for himself.

Question: Should an adult get involved in the children’s battles?

Answer: No! I think there should be no teachers here.

Question: And then what grows out of a child if, as you say, he is surrounded by children, animals, nature?

Answer: In accordance with his inner world, he soaks in and absorbs everything that can be obtained from the world.

Comment: There is also drawing, dancing, and natural history. There is a place where an adult comes and says: “Let me teach the child.” Things like that.

My Response: There is no need! He will learn by himself. And all these disciplines imposed on him, on the contrary, will limit him.

Comment: I’m already talking about simple disciplines: dancing, drawing. Will he master even that?

My Response: Yes.

Question: Is there any conclusion to be drawn?

Answer: The conclusion is very simple: leave children alone with your great thoughts and instructions, pedagogy, everything-everything-everything that is in you.

Question: What about the parents then? Parents, adults, somehow still exist. How should parents raise their children properly?

Answer: I do not see in any generation, and we have lived for many, many, many hundreds of generations, that some generation took something useful and good from their parents and achieved something useful and good. Every time we just relearn.

Question: So, you learn from your mistakes, you learn from your life, you learn everything yourself. And it is necessary to leave, you say, a person with this “himself,” to leave him to go?

Answer: Yes. I hope that we will come to a state when we understand how we should treat children in general. I hope that this will be understood and realized in the near future.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/14/23

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