Childhood education students took part in the excursion "In Janusz Korczak's footsteps" in Warsaw.
Students on the Childhood Education course took part in the excursion "In the footsteps of Janusz Korczak in Warsaw" from May 17 to 21, 2016.
This was a joint event organized by the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, the Ludwigsburg University of Education and the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart with the aim of further promoting national and international cooperation between the faculties.
Together, they visited places where Janusz Korczak (1878-1942) worked, which are closely linked to the life and work of the Polish-Jewish doctor and educator: the Dom Sierot orphanage with the Korczakianum research center established there today; the "Maria Grzegorzewska" Academy for Special Education, where he himself had already given lectures; the Umschlagplatz memorial site, from where he was deported to Treblinka together with the children and the other caregivers in 1942; the Treblinka memorial site itself; the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and, on a short tour of the city, some traces of the Warsaw ghetto in present-day Warsaw.
The 4.5 days were filled with many impressions and offered ample opportunity for exchange, firstly among the students themselves, who came from different courses of study and thus have a different approach to Korczak's pedagogy (childhood educators from Görlitz, teacher training students from Ludwigsburg, social work students from Stuttgart). Two workshops were also held at the Academy for Special Needs Education together with Polish students and a group of students from Jerusalem.
The spontaneously established contacts were continued at further meetings in the evening in the old town of Warsaw. The participants will produce a brochure on the excursion, which will provide information on Korczak's pedagogy and reflections on the significance of his pedagogy today for future excursions.
The excursion was organized by Dr. Rosemarie Godel-Gaßner (Pädagogische Hochschule), Daniel Febel (Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg) and Cornelia Müller (Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz).