Janusz Korczak (real name Henryk Goldszmit). 1878 – 1942. Polish teacher, writer, doctor and public figure. He chose to remain together with his students and went with them to the Treblinka death camp.
Quotes:
1. One of the deadliest mistakes is to consider that pedagogy is a science about the child, not about the person.
2. Everything is achieved by rote training, pressure or violence is unstable, wrong and unreliable.
3. Childhood is not a paradise, it’s a drama.
4. I noticed that only stupid people want everyone to be the same. Who is smart will be glad that day changes night, there are summer and winter, young and old, that there are butterflies and birds, and flowers and eyes of all colors and that there are girls and boys. Only one who doesn’t like to think will be annoyed by the diversity that drives thought.
5. Nothing good can be born in fetters. It is the man who fetters a man.
6. An adult is a hopeless potpourri, a backwater of views and beliefs, herd psychology, superstition and habits.
7. I thought today: what is water? It can be liquid, steam or ice. Bat what is the true water: is it ice, steam or liquid? A person can be different, too.
8. It doesn’t concern me whether one is small or big and what others say about him: neat, ugly, smart, stupid; I don’t even care if his is a good student, better or worse than; whether one is girl or boy. For me, a man is good if he treats people well, if he does not wish or do evil, if he is kind.
9. Respect every single minute, for it will die and never happen again, and it always comes for serious; a wounded minute will bleed, a killed one will haunt with the ghost of bad memories.
10. You say: the kids are exhausting us. You may be right. You explain: we need to get down to their rules. To lower, to lean, to bend, to crouch. And you are wrong! It is not because of that that we get tired. It is because we have to rise to their feelings. To rise, to tiptoe, to pull up. So that we don’t offend them.
