Moral Education Between Hope and Hopelessness: The Legacy of Janusz Korczak

Abstract

The responsibility for addressing morality and moral education in the current moral climate is a daunting task for conscientious educators. What educational response can extricate us from the debilitating feelings of hopelessness and helplessness as we are confronted by horrific terrorist actions, controversial use of military might, displays of corruption and greed and a growing general tension and anxiety? At this demoralizing juncture of uncertainty and doubt, the figure of Janusz Korczak (1878–1942), a Jewish-Polish educator, looms large. For more than 30 years, Korczak devoted his life to educating orphaned Jewish and non-Jewish children. He stayed with the Jewish children to the end as they all perished in a concentration camp. At a time when the surrounding society surrendered to fascism, anti-Semitism, and self-destruction, Korczak encouraged individual autonomy and caring relationships within the context of a community where a vision of justice and trust was an integral part of life. The orphanages he directed were democratic, self-ruled communities, where the children had their own parliament, court, and newspaper. This article describes the principles and the actualization of Korczak’s moral education and explores how Korczak reconciled the differences between the ethical world he created in his institutions and the surrounding immoral society. The example set by Korczak’s educational praxis serves as an inspiring model of school life across the boundaries of time and place and touches our need to believe in education’s responsibility to strive and struggle for a better world, even when it seems an unattainable goal.

And the hour shall come when a man will know himself, respect, and love. And the hour shall come in history’s clock when man shall know the place of good, the place of evil, the place of pleasure, and the place of pain. (Korczak, 1978, p. 237)

Notes

Notes

1 For a more detailed description of Korczak’s life and work see the following books written in English: Bernheim, 1989; Cohen, 1994; Lifton, 1988. Dialogue and Universalism has devoted two double issues to Korczak: 1997, vol. 7, issue 9–10 and 2001, vol. 11, issue 9–10, as well as Dialogue and Universalism 2003, vol. 6.

2 Korczak wrote in Polish. Most of his literary and pedagogic writings have been translated into Hebrew. Several of his pedagogic writings have been translated into English (Bacharach, 1979; Kulawiec, 1992). Several articles can be found in Dialogue and Universalism 9–10, 2001. While I mainly used works that were translated into English, where the references could not be found in English (his letters to friends, lectures, and short children stories), I relied on the Hebrew translation. Also, several of his children’s books are widely read in Europe in contemporary times.

3 Researchers (e.g., Cohen, 1994; Eden, 2000; Yifrach, 2001) concluded that although Korczak shared many of Dewey’s concepts of education and the role of school in society, he was not directly familiar with his educational theory.

4 Probably as a response, Korczak soon after conducted a follow-up study of the orphanage graduates during the institution’s first 21 years. The study showed that even though the majority of the children came from poverty-stricken and troubling emotional backgrounds and brought with them a wide range of anxieties, fears, and distrust, with the exception of five, they all grew up to became decent, law-abiding, and productive members of society (Cohen, 1994; Lifton, 1988).

5 “Other orphanages breed criminals, but ours breed Communists,” Korczak noted dryly (Lifton, 1988, p. 183).

6 We can assume that the idea of shaping children’s character by engraving in them predeterminate traits, “like craftsmen etching metal plate or sculpture shaping a stone” (Ryan & Bohlin, 1999, p. 11) as proposed by the “virtues” approach of character education associated with Edward Wynne, Thomas Lickona, Kevin Ryan, and William Bennett would be unacceptable in his eyes. His farewell message was, “The road is theirs [the children’s] to choose, freely” (Korczak, 2003, p. 101).

7 Another reason that led Korczak to forbid political Marxist activities within the orphanage was his fear that the authorities would close the orphanage since the communist party was illegal (Arnon, 1962, 1983; Cohen, 1994; Lifton, 1988; Mordetkovitz-Olatchkova, 1961; Perlis, 1986). He also became disillusioned with political slogans after seeing the violence and bloodshed of the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. In a letter he wrote in June 1937, he declared, “I have no curiosity about Russia, that tragic and bloody attempt to change and renew humanity. There was cruelty, there was madness, and there was forced violence and valor under whip. With what arrogance and dishonor was the humanitarian flag sold out for the measly price of a slogan” (quoted in Cohen, 1994, p. 212).