[etni] Korczak quote of the week

  • From: "avi tsur" <tsuravi@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 10:50:32 +0000

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continued from last week - Shabbat Shalom
Marsha and Avi

One thing, however, has caused me doubt and anxiety: How was it that 
occasionally the most trustworthy child would let me down? How was it that, 
though admittedly rarely, there would be a sudden eruption of unruly 
behavior by a given group? Maybe adults are no better, only more 
self-controlled, more certain, more reliable and dependable.

Persistently I sought answers to these questions and gradually the following 
began to dawn on me:

a. If a teacher is intent on seeking out traits and values which seem to him 
to be especially valuable, if it is his desire to force everyone into a 
single mold ? he will be making a big mistake; some will pretend to follow 
his tenets while others will genuinely heed his suggestions ? for a time. 
When the real face of the child shows itself, not only the teacher but the 
child as well will be surely hurt. The greater the effort in pretending to 
yield to influence ? the stormier will be the reaction. Once the child has 
revealed his real intentions, he has little more to lose. What an important 
lesson is there in this.

b. The teacher uses one measure of evaluating while the group uses another: 
both he and the group sense the richness of the spirit; he waits for them to 
develop, while they wait to see what immediate good will come of those 
riches, whether he will share what he has, or keep it all to himself as an 
exclusive privilege ? the conceited, jealous, and self-centered miser. He 
won't tell any stories, won't play games, won't draw or help out, won't be 
obliging ? he's doing a big favor, you have to beg him. Alone and isolated, 
the child makes a strong effort to win the good graces of his own peer 
community which eagerly accepts his conversion. He did not become spoiled 
suddenly; on the contrary, he understood perfectly and reformed.

c. I found the following explanation in a book on the training of animals. A 
lion isn't dangerous when angry, but when playful and eager to frolic; the 
group is as strong as the lion?
Solutions are to be sought not only in psychology, but even more so in 
medical books, in sociology, ethnology, history, poetry, criminology, in the 
payer book, and in the handbooks on animal training. Ars longa.

d. The best but by far not the final explanation dawned on me. A child can 
become intoxicated with the oxygen of the air as an adult can with alcohol. 
Excitement, loss of control, recklessness, giddiness; as a reaction, 
embarrassment, a lump in the throat, a feeling of disgust, and guilt. My own 
observation is accurate ? it is clinical. The most stable person can get 
tipsy.
Don't scold: this obvious childish intoxication arouses respect and emotion; 
it does not estrange and set apart, but draws us closer and binds us.

Janusz Korczak, "The Child's Right to Respect", 1923

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