A hero for children
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An Ofsted report revealed this week that pupils as young as four are being excluded from schools.
It was the latest instalment in the ongoing debate about how we treat children, a debate in which we could do worse than consult Dr Janusz Korczak.
He it was who founded the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish orphanage in an ultimately futile attempt to protect 300 children from the Nazis. His writings became the basis for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Now David Greig’s award-winning play, Dr Korczak’s Example, about his work in the ghetto — and how he finds his pacifist principles pushed to the limit by a child who believes in fighting back — is being staged at Dalston’s Arcola Theatre by the Tangram Theatre Company. “I want everyone to know about Dr Korczak, about how he believed that children should live,” says producer Daniel Goldman.
The play opens on June 30 (tel: 020 7503 1646, www.arcolatheatre.com)
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