Brochure jksnl childcare 2011 8p en by Droits de l'enfant et Janusz Korczak

JANUSZ KORCZAK FOR WORKERS IN CHILDCARE AND AFTER-SCHOOL CARE Joop Berding, Inge Smit en Inge van Rijn

JANUSZ KORCZAK – INSPIRATION FOR EDUCATORS The Polish pediatrician and pedagogue Janusz Korczak (1878-1942) lived and worked with children in his orphanage in Warsaw. You see the building on the picture below. It was a large house, two hundred children lived there. Until the Second World War he remained there with them. Korczak has written a great deal about the way he lived with children. His most important work is How to love a child. He defended children’s rights. He wrote a book The Child’s Right to Respect about that theme. He also wrote children’s books and books with stories, such as King Matt the First and When I Am Little Again. Korczak was good at observing and describing children. He had an eye for their differences and how they played together and (sometimes) argued. He led the orphanage together with the children like a small republic. They participated in the decision making, but Korczak made sure things went in a fair way. Older children weren’t alowed to boss the little ones. At that time children, and especially orphans didn’t have any rights. In 1989 the United Nations put children’s rights on paper, and most countries ratified this Convention. Korczak was ahead of his time, when in 1919 he wrote his ‘Constitution for children’s rights’. He mentioned three fundamental rights of the child: 1. The right to a life of one’s own: Educators want to create a safe environment for the child, we guard it from every risk in life. But sometimes we try to protect the child so much, it doesn’t get the space, literally and spiritually to discover things on his or her own. 2. The right to today: We want to prepare children for the future: ‘Soon, when you go to school…’, Later when you grow up…’. But children yearn to live in the here and now – their play is all about actual experiences and not a waiting-room; 3. The child’s right to be as he or she is: We have to accept the child the way it is, including his or her talents and shortcomings. Many educators are disappointed when a child doesn’t meet their expectations. But as an educator, you’re not all-powerful, the child isn’t makeable. In this brochure you read about Korczak’s thoughts on important educational principals: respect for children and seeing to fairness in the group. He invited children to participate and talked with them all the time. He also thought about his own way of educating. Let’s see if we can put Korczak’s ideas into practice, in your own organization and group. After taking a Korczak–course a pedagogic worker said: ‘You need inspiration to turn regular things into something special and you can get inspired by those special things.’ We wish you the same! Joop Berding, Inge Smit en Inge van Rijn

CONCEPT 1: RESPECT

Janusz Korczak wrote about respect:

‘A child has the right to demand respect for his sorrow, even if it’s only about losing a stone. You’ll never really know children if you won’t take their complaints seriously’.

Korczak’s opinion

According to Korczak, respect is the most important educational means. You can’t educate a child without respecting him or her. Educating without respect becomes compulsion or indoctrination. How do you educate with respect for the child? According to Korczak it starts by acknowledging and recognizing the child with all his or her talents and flaws. And then there is another important form of respect. It isn’t always easy to be small and not to be taken seriously. It costs a lot of energy to grow up. The hard labor of growing up, the child’s every day job, earns our respect.

Respect in childcare

In childcare we come across a large amount of different children (and parents). Wouldn’t our profession be much easier when the children and parents where more like ourselves? If they liked and gave importance to the same things as we do. Nevertheless, what makes our job so interesting is the fact that we are interacting with all these different people. Childcare is really a small society. The crucial thing is, despite all differences (or maybe thanks to), to create a mini-society where everyone has the right to be themselves, the workers, the parents and the children. This may be difficult, but if respect is our cornerstone and if we learn to use differences in stead of denying them we’re already on the right track.

Children among themselves

A three year old toddler rushed through the group: ‘Whoeeeaaahhh, woehaaaaahh’ he screams to everyone he meets. Some kids are laughing, but one girl is frightened and starts crying. Just before the worker makes a comment, the bogeyman turns around, walks towards the girl and says with a sweet voice ‘It was only a joke’. How many times do we intervene, without giving the children the opportunity to solve arguments themselves?

Respectful interaction with babies

How do you clean the faces after a meal? Do you rub them quickly, while discussing the next fun-activity with a colleague? Or is ‘rubbing faces’ itself a nice and worthwhile activity? The older children can ‘do it themselves’ while showing the little ones what to do in a respectful way.

CONCEPT 2: JUSTICE Korczak’s thoughts on justice

How to respect every child and his or her uniqueness? How can we see to it each child, every worker, every parent comes to his own? You’ll have to deal with different interests, desires and needs. Don’t forget your own! Korczak says: ‘There isn’t an educator who loves all children equally’. With some children and parents there’s a ‘click’ and with others the contact is less loose. But it wouldn’t be fair if some children get more attention and space to be themselves than others.

How do you make sure there is fairness in the group?

As a worker in childcare you have the responsibility to create a fair situation. You direct children when their desires and needs collide, during arguments and conflicts. Rules are helpful. But rules aren’t always fair and sincere. Every now and then you have to examine if the rules are still serving a cause. Or are they only helpful to yourself? Be honest. In fact, you should constantly correct yourself and eachother and ask the question: ‘Are we on the right track?’

Janusz Korczak about justice

‘If someone did something wrong, the best thing to do is to forgive him. If he did something wrong because he didn’t know better, he knows now. If he did something wrong on purpose, he’ll be more careful. If he did something wrong because he can’t get used to the group, he’ll do the best he can. If he did something wrong, persuaded by others, he won’t listen to them again. If someone did something wrong the best thing to do is forgive him and wait until he improves himself.’

The children’s forum The children of the after-school care group are sitting in a circle. Today Joshua is the president, he checks if everyone is ready to start. Almost everyone is quiet. Joshua says, okay, let’s start the meeting. Who has a subject to discuss? Some kids raise their hand. They get a go, one at a time. Jasper has a problem: other kids push him away from the computer. Fiona wants to discuss the rubbish in the girl’s room. Vera had difficulties finishing her homework because other kids are intruding. Peter writes down the topics in the meeting’s minutes. Joshua proposes to start with the computer problem and gives the floor to Jasper…

CONCEPT 3: PARTICIPATION (JOINING IN) Why Korczak wanted children to participate

Participation means to join in. To Korczak it was a very important idea. He learned from experience that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do everything on your own. You have to involve children with matters that are important for them, ask their opinions and let them bring forward solutions. Does this mean that we, as educators, can sit back and let children go their own way? Absolutely not, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about a shared responsibility and involvement, not about letting go and indifference.

Summer-camp

When Korczak was a group leader at a summerFDPS IRU WKH Ă&#x20AC;UVW WLPH KH GLGQÂˇW H[DFWO\ NQRZ what to do. So he just let the children do whatever they wanted. Sometimes he got upset and started to give orders. It turned into a big mess. The children threatened to beat eachother up. Then Korczak realized that he should talk with children in stead of talking to them. He gathered the children in a circle and talked with WKHP DERXW WKHLU H[SHFWDWLRQV RI FDPS ZKDW they liked, how they could work together and which rules they thought where necessary. The childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting was born.

How it works in childcare

Living together in an honest way and making sure everybody comes to his or her own, canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be realized without involving the children. They also have a responsibility in creating a safe and fair environment for the group. If we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give the children a voice and make decisions and rules without involving them, they often rise up against them. But if we share our search towards a genuine society, they will think with us and cooperate. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll come up with surprising solutions. Are you up for it?

In practice A pedagogic worker: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;At our centre we had a standing ritual for celebrating birthdays. It involved singing and handing out treats. At one point the children where singing, but it sounded terrible. I asked them if they enjoyed it. They reacted negatively. They had already sung at school, which according to them was enough. We asked the children what they wanted. They wanted to shake hands, congratulate and then go play. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the way we do it now. With more pleasure and sincere attention.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

CONCEPT 4: DIALOGUE Why was the dialogue with children important to Korczak?

Korczak learned in practice why it is so important to listen to and talk with children. He noticed that when you really open up to children and their world, you can learn a great deal from them. Does this mean you always have to do as they please? No, definitely not! Korczak is very clear about that.

‘So, should we allow everything? Certainly not’, says Korczak. ‘We make a bored tyrant out of a bored slave. By forbidding things, we strengthen the child’s will-power, so that at least he will learn to restrain himself and refrain from things’.

A dialogue with the children… is that possible in childcare..?

En de dialoog in het team ..?!

How well do we listen to what children have to say? More than often adults talk to children instead of with them. How many times have we already decided what should happen and how it should happen without truly listening to the children? It will probably try to have it his own way… After which we do as we planned, encounter opposition and have it our way… An important means to have children participate in the daily routine is creating a dialogue. By giving the children a voice, a choice, and by asking their opinion, we let them know that we appreciate them and that they are important.

Korczak about dialogue

‘You have to work hard when you want to communicate with children. It isn’t effortless. A child must know that it is permitted and worthwhile to speak openly, that it won’t raise anger and that it will be understood. And there’s more to it: the child must be certain that his friends won’t laugh at him…’.

Zo kan het ook .!

A student says: ‘At our after-school care centre we have an umbrella with pictures of the songs, so the children can pick the song they want to sing.’ Another student says: ‘That’s fun! I’m going to do that as well! Often when I start singing, the children shout No, No; but I just don’t know what they want to sing!’

CONCEPT 5: SELF-REFLECTION Is this about me?

It was about you the whole time. This concept is about reflecting on your role as an educator. Self-reflection = thinking about yourself. How did you set about it? What went well, what went wrong? What’s my opinion about that? To Korczak, thinking about yourself-as-an-educator was very important. When something went wrong, he was honest about it, towards himself, the children and his colleagues.

As an educator Korczak learned by bitter H[SHULHQFH +H DVNHG KLPVHOI FRQVWDQWO\ ZK\ KH did what he did. Was his share directed towards honesty, respect and justice or did it derive from self-interest? Did his input had a positive effect on the lock, stock and barrel of the group? Had he genuinely listened to a child, or was he focused on other – more important - matters? .RUF]DN HYDOXDWHG DQG UHÁHFWHG RQ KLV DFWLQJ every evening. ‘A child is like a carefully written parchment with tiny characters which you have to decode’, says Korczak.

And in childcare?

What we as educators can learn from Korczak is that we’re never finished learning. We can’t learn to understand children if we don’t make a constant effort to understand ourselves. We are our own instrument, like a violin-player who tunes his violin every day, we have to ‘tune’ ourselves constantly. We have to practice every day. There won’t be a moment whereupon we can say: ‘I’m finished, I know how it must be done’, because the next new child in your group will be a new puzzle. This means that we as educators have to talk to eachother constantly, correct eachother and be surprised by the children every single day. This makes our profession tough, but also very interesting.

Looking into a mirror Handling children’s work respectfully:

In training: The students are divided into four groups: the red, blue, yellow and green group. Each group gets cubes to construct a building. They go about it with enthusiasm and within five minutes they’ve build great constructions. After which the instructor comes along the tables with a large container. She sings ’tidy up, tidy up…’ and she sweeps the buildings in the container. The students are upset, some really shocked: ‘What are you doing?’ ‘How often have you done the same thing towards the children?’, the instructor asks. The students are quiet for a moment. How about respect …

A worker said after taking a Korczakcourse:

‘What struck me the most was the children’s participation. Children have the right to participate in the after-school care group. To make their own rules and to point out what they want to do during the holidays. I thought: “How am I going to put that into practice?” The most important is to see the child: What’s on his or her mind today and how can I engage in a conversation with the child? For instance: If a child went to the zoo recently, or someone celebrated his birthday, I take out animals or candles and birthday-hats. That starts a conversation between the children. I enjoy doing that. It can lead to a whole theme about the subject, with corresponding activities. Therefore: don’t plan the themes on your own, but together with the children. Very nice.’