A one day conference and workshop organized by:
The Institute of Education & The Spiro Ark
Who Needs Democracy?
What is the Point of Being a Citizen?
MONDAY l7th MARCH 2003, from 9.30am-5.30pm

In response to the urgent need for educators, teachers and curriculum specialists to address the questions of citizenship and democracy, an international group of speakers will present papers. They will be guided in part by an awareness of the importance of the issues of democracy and citizenship and in part, for the first time in the UK, by the ideas of the Polish educator Janusz Korczak, which will provide an important focus for the presentations and workshop.

The conference and workshops are aimed at teachers and administrators, social workers and those who work with young people inside and in parallel with the formal provision of education.

Dr. Janusz Korczak (1879-1942)

„If you want to reform the world, first you must reform education.”

„Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with respect as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be ö the unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future.”

„Politicians and legislators make rules and decisions about children, which often fail to work. But who asks the child for his opinion or consent? Who is likely to take note of any advice or approval from such a nave being? What can a child possibly have to say?”

„Be yourself and seek your own path. Know yourself before you attempt to get to know children. Become aware of what you yourself are capable of before you attempt to outline the rights and responsibilities of children. First and foremost you must realize that you too are a child, whom you must first get to know, to bring up and to educate.”

„We donât like it when a child who has just been scolded, keeps mumbling under his breath, because in his anger, he might let slip what he really thinks of us, which we may not be too keen to hear.”

• Introduction to Rabbi Julia Neuberger (UK): „Involving the young: education in citizenship”
• Dr. Joop Berding (Holland): „Janusz Korczak's practical theory of democratic education.”
• Dr. Aloni (Israel): „Pragmatic Humanism and the cultivation of democratic personality: Dewy, Korczak and Nussbaum.”

• 2.00 - 2.30: Dr. Mohammad Harani (Israel): „KORCZAK and Civic Education. The Meaning of citizenship in the context of a multicultural implication.”

• 2.30-3.00: Prof. Hartman (Sweden): „A citizenship for all times. On Janusz Korczak's humanistic education.”

• 3.00-4.00: WORKSHOPS with themes including the life and thoughts of Janusz Korczak; victims of repression and the loss of democracy, and education for democracy.

4.00-4.30: Coffee Break

• 4.30-5.00: Prof. Bauman (UK): „The Project of Humanity”