What is a Folk High Scool?
and why do you need one?
At a folk high school, you dedicate time to figuring out who you are. But you don’t just sit around and think about it, you are exposed to all kinds of knowledge about the world, from history and philosophy to science, politics, and the arts, and then you are expected to form your own taste and opinions.
The purpose is to promote personal bildung and to help young people become conscientious and active citizens who appreciate diversity and who can stand up for democracy.
Among the hallmarks of the folk high schools is that nobody tells the students what to think or what do with their life. They need to figure that out themselves. This is freedom, the Nordic way.
This presentation introduces the history, the concept and the unique pedagogy of the folk high schools.
- Presentations outside the Nordics will typically focus on how to start and run a folk high school, and how to teach at a folk high school.
- Presentations in the Nordics will typically be for the high school students who might consider attending a folk high school or the folk high school students who have just started their first semester at a folk high school.
Folk high schools are a Danish invention from the 1850s, they were exported to Norway and Sweden in the 1860s, to Finland in the 1870s, and they are a substantial part of the reason why the Nordic countries are among the happiest and most prosperous countries in the world today. This is explored by Lene Rachel Andersen in her book The Nordic Secret.
Lene Rachel Andersen is the author of The Nordic Secret, and since 2015, she has been researching an studying the folk high schools, pedagogy in the Nordics, and education around the globe. She is also a board member at the Nordic Folk High School in Kungälv north of Gothenburg, and she is a full member of the Club of Rome.
The presentation will contain the following:
- How the folk high schools were invented and developed in Denmark and exported to the rest of the Nordic countries.
- What makes a folk high school a folk high school:
- How teaching at a folk high school is different from other kinds of education
- How studying at a folk high school is different from other kinds of education
The presentation can be a standard lecture with Q&A, typically 45-60 minutes of presentation, a short break, and then dialogue.
Or it can be a workshop, typically 2-4 hours, where the participants get to explore their own expectations and intentions regarding the folk high school.