Topic: Yanush Korchack

Age:

13-16

Goals:

The student will learn about Yanush Korchack, his life and way of

educating children, through responsibility and trust.

Lesson structure:

CommentsAccessoriesBasic topicsTimeNum.A blanket or

sheetThe blanket game8.1

Deserted island10.2Ap.1A trial7.3Ap.2"Life quotes"20.4

Lesson procedure:

1 .The blanket game:

Bring a blanket or a bed sheet, place it spread on the floor.

Ask all the students to stand on it and explain that their ship

has wrecked and this is a raft in a sea full of sharks. They

have to try to flip the blanket upside-down without anyone

stepping of the blanket. If anyone stepps out. Start all over

again. There are few ways to do it. It's more challenging than

it seems.

2 .Deserted island:

At last the group has found themselves on a deserted island .

Ask them what the first things that they must do are. (Usually

the answer will be finding food and shelter, but then what?)

its up to the group in the next 5 minutes to decide what rules

they need and what rights and responsibilities all of them

have. According to the different characters in the group

) Girl's vs. boy's jobs, weak vs. stronger kids etc (.

The next 5 minutes will be used for mini discussion questions

such as :

a. what was the reaction of the individuals to the

responsibilities?

b. what are the problems with rights denials ?

c. does different people need different rights and

responsibilities ?

3 .The trial:

Read the next situation:

" A counselor, during lunch, started playing with his food,

throwing it on his friends, his campers, spilled water on the

table on purpose and called the cook names and used bad

language. He blamed the cook that the food was not warm

enough, and that he is not to be blamed"

Ask the group to set a short trial, in which you will

Point out question from [Ap.1]

) Act as the bad counselor(.

At the end of this part tell the group that a similar trial was

held by kids, in the 1930, In an orphanage house in Warsaw .

The trial was held by young kids and the "bad counselor"

was Janusz Korczak.

4 .Life quotes :

Use Ap.2 and give the group reading cards.

5 .Compare to camp:

If there is some time, try to compare the life of the kids, of

Janush, to those in camp, in terms of responsibility, limits and

being a member in a community.

Appendix:

Ap.1 :

Mini discussion questions

* Does higher authority needs to be trialed ?

* So what if the counselor broke the rules ?

* Are rules needed to be followed all the time?

* What if it was a camper?

* What punishment, if any, should the counselor get ?

* And a camper?

Ap.2:Reading cards:

reading card 1

Korczak was born in Warsaw in an assimilated Jewish family. His father died in 1896, leaving the family without a source of income. Over the next few years, the family was forced to abandon their spacious apartment and, during his teens, Korczak was the sole breadwinner for his mother, sister, and grandmother.

In 1898 he used Janusz Korczak as a writing pseudonym in literary contest.

Korczak studied medicine in Warsaw and also wrote for several Polish language newspapers.

reading card 2

After his graduation he became a pediatrician. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905–1906 he served as a military doctor. After the war he continued his practice in Warsaw.

The Krochmalna Street orphanage where Korczak worked. He lived in a room in the attic

In 1911–1912 he became a director of Dom Sierot, the orphanage of his own design for Jewish children in Warsaw. He took Wilczyńska as his closest associate. There he formed a kind-of-a-republic for children with its own small parliament, court and newspaper. He reduced his other duties as a doctor.

reading card 3

In 1914 Korczak again became a military doctor with the rank of lieutenant during the World War I. After the war he resumed his job in Dom Sierot and also founded another orphanage called Nasz dom (Our Home).

In 1926 he let children begin their own newspaper, the Mały Przegląd, as a weekly attachment to the daily Polish-Jewish Newspaper Nasz Przegląd.

reading card 4

During the 1930s he had his own radio program until it was cancelled due to complaints of anti-semites. In 1933 he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Polonia Restituta. In 1934–1936 Korczak traveled yearly to Palestine and visited its kibbutzes. That lead to increasing anti-semitic attacks in Polish press. That also lead to a break with the non-Jewish orphanage he had been working for. Still he refused to move to Palestine even when Wilczyńska moved there for a year in 1938.

reading card 5

In 1939, when the World War II erupted, Korczak volunteered for duty in the Polish Army but was refused due to his age. He witnessed Wehrmacht taking over Warsaw. When Nazis created a Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, his orphanage was forced to move to the ghetto. Korczak moved in with them.

reading card 6

Korczack used to bet, with his kids .Every Shabbat, after the meal, anyone who wanted to bet with him, that he would make a difference, in his or her behavior, in the coming week .

For example, a boy would say that he will not lie or get into a fight. He would tell him that it’s a thing he cannot do so he better bet that he would lie 6 times and get into 4 fights. The boy would try and hackle for 3 lies and 2 fights. If the kid evaluated correctly, it would have been his winning against korczack.He preferred that the kid would evaluate himself correctly, better than not get into fights.If the teacher is shouting, it's only normal, because he is also a human being, with feelings, worries, responsibilities and friends.

reading card 7 Once a year, there was a vote in the house. In which the children got titles such as: "members", "citizens", "indifferent citizen" and "hostiles". During the year a kid could change his or her status. One way was to get a mentor from the older kids, to help them change their status. korczack trusted his kids totally, in any age group and any situation, that if they would only want to- they could become good citizens. He wanted to let every one of them to know, that he is not alone. And the best mentors were the former "hostiles". Both kids and adults, were bound to the same rules, were judged by the same judges.

reading card 8

On August 5 ,1942, German soldiers came to collect the 196 orphans and about one dozen staff members to take them to Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” of Warsaw but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. Now too, he refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point to the death camps):

reading card 9... A miracle occurred. Two hundred children did not cry out. Two hundred pure souls, condemned to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to their father and brother, Janusz Korczak, so that he might protect and preserve them. Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar. (...) On all sides the children were surrounded by Germans, Ukrainians, and this time also Jewish policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. The very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession.

reading card 10

According to a popular legend, when the group of orphans finally reached the Umschlagplatz, an SS officer recognized Korczak as the author of one of his favorite children's books and offered to help him escape, but once again, Korczak refused. He boarded the trains, to treblinka, with the children and was never heard from again.

Ap.3:

Biography:

Janusz Korczak

 (1878-1942)

Janusz Korczak was born Henryk Goldsmit in Warsaw on July 22, 1878. During his youth, he played with children who were poor and lived in bad neighborhoods; his passion for helping disadvantaged youth continued into his adulthood. He studied medicine and also had a promising career in literature. When he gave up his career in literature and medicine, he changed his name to Janusz Korczak, a pseudonym derived from a 19th century novel, Janasz Korczak and the pretty Swordsweeperlady.

In 1912, Korczak established a Jewish orphanage, Dom Sierot, in a building which he designed to advance his progressive educational theories. He envisioned a world in which children structured their own world and became experts in their own matters. Jewish children between the ages of seven and fourteen were allowed to live there while attending Polish public school and government-sponsored Jewish schools, known as "Sabbath" schools. The orphanage opened a summer camp in 1921, which remained in operation until the summer of 1940.

Besides serving as principal of Don Sierot and another orphanage, Nasz Dom, Korczak was also a doctor and author, worked at a Polish radio station, was a principal of an experimental school, published a children’s newspaper and was a docent at a Polish university. Korczak also served as an expert witness in a district court for minors. He became well-known in Polish societyand received many awards. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930's restricted only his activities with Jews.

In 1934 and 1936, Korczak visited Palestine and was influenced by the kibbutz movement. Following his trips, Korczak was convinced that all Jews should move to Palestine.

The Germans occupied Poland in September 1939, and the Warsaw ghetto was established in November 1940. The orphanage was moved inside the ghetto. Korczak received many offers to be smuggled out of the ghetto, but he refused because he did not want to abandon the children. On August 5, 1942, Korczak joined nearly 200 children and orphanage staff members were rounded up for deportation to Treblinka, where they were all put to death.

Ap.4:Pictures:

In summer camp,

with kids

Last picture

In his only trip to the

land of Israel

The last march to the train

to Treblinka with his

kids

Moving the orphanage to

the Ghetto

The orphanage in

Warsaw

Building an island

A memorial in

Yad-Vashem,

Israel.

Memorial in Poland