How do we understand each other? The Philosophical Premises of Janusz Korczak‘s conception of Education

The article is a reconstruction of the educational philosophy of Janus Korczak based on his theoretical and prose works. It identifies the contexts of Korczak‘s educational and philosophical concept by referring to selected aspects of the philosophu of Buber and Lévinas (the dialogic principle, relationship, responsi-bility, hostage). Education here is conceived as a meeting that is possible only on the basis of honour and respect for the child, for the human being. The key prerequisit for education is an understanding of the otherness of the child, his thinking, his experience, understanding for his values, his ideas about right and justice, and his vulnerability. Education is the forming of fundamental life disposition, and it has an essential dimension of eime, and its own unique, heterogeneous rhythm. An important role is played here by the pause , the waiting for the right, fortunate moment, the proportionality of time. Understanding as the prerequisite of education is fundamentally influenced by the double charater of time - chronos and kairos, the double dimension of time - synchronous and diachronic, and also by continuity and discontinuity, which defines two poles of humanity - childhood and adulthood that differ in bodily experience (self-reflection and capacity to experience another) and form of hought (self-reflection and capacity to reflect on the other), and yet somehow inseparably depend on each other. This inseparability we have followed Levinase in calling „hostage“.