A Practice of Care: Learning from Danish Folk High Schools

Earlier in the Summer, I had a very welcome invitation to the International Folkemøde, a gathering of Folk High School educators at the International People’s College in Helsingør, Denmark.

I travelled there with colleagues from Fircroft College of Adult Education, which is long entangled with the Folk High School movement; indeed Peter Mannische, who founded the International People’s College, was inspired to do so after a visit to the field hospital accommodated at Fircroft during World War 1. 

Folk High School is an established tradition in Nordic countries, a rite of passage for many young (and older) people. Given the history of migration, no surprise that there’s also a strong tradition in the United States, of many different flavours, from ‘craft schools’ focused on personal development to the radical Highlander Center in Tennessee, where Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and others went, to learn and share the ‘craft’ of civil disobedience. (Having learned about Highlander over the last decades, I couldn’t believe it when I found myself alongside some of their team. Reader, I was a fangirl).

Broadly speaking, the tradition of Folk High Schools is residential, with a focus on justice, peace and democracy. During my week there, I was also processing news about the merger of my long-time workplace Northern College into general FE, which will leave Fircroft as the only independent adult residential college in England. So I was curious, excited, thoughtful; also I needed a rest and I love Denmark. Having a good time was inevitable. 

Discovering the Practice of Care

I didn’t expect to learn so much about practising care and it got me thinking about how we can bring elements of the wraparound experience of Folk High Schools into general FE settings. The Folkemøde was deliberately not a ‘conference centre experience’, as IPC Principal Nelima Lassen said, in her welcome to us. We made our own beds and drinks, kept our rooms clean, cleared our food away and there was a clear expectation that we’d turn up on time and fully participate. Had we been students there, we would have joined in growing and preparing food and attending to the beautiful landscape. Naturally, this doesn’t directly translate to thirty 16 year-olds in classrooms where they don’t always want to be, but in my own little corner of FE – professional development, I believe we can do more.

What made the difference was that in those few days we were a community, a constellation, if you like, brought together for a short while. And communities take care of one another, not always looking for the organisers/facilitators to sort things out (they did that too, especially when there was a shortage of wine in the honesty fridge on the final night). Community-building was intentional. Breakfast was at 7.30am (and this is Denmark, you were expected to be there at 7.30), then everyone attended ‘Morning Assembly’ at 8.30am, where we sang together from the Danish Folk High School songbook (Beatles songs are popular). There would be a short presentation and then we were encouraged to offer ‘Open Space’ workshops in the afternoon – I went to Body Therapy, a researchers’ meeting and offered my own Thinking Environment space. Facilitators worked hard at cringe-free activities where we were compelled to learn one another’s names and made sure we didn’t naturally drift off with our compatriots, but mixed in with one another. When I think of some of my experiences with UK FE conferences and professional development events – coffee cups and tissues (ugh!) left on tables, people drifting in late and leaving early for the train – I wonder what more we can do to build community across our own events.

We sang at the start and end of every day, and every workshop. At Fircroft, we also sing – every Tuesday and Thursday at 2.45 all classes and meetings stop and everyone gathers in the common room to sing along to Spotify (check out the Fircroft Folk playlist). That’s everyone. Even when I’m back in Yorkshire, my phone alarm goes off at singing time and I have a little chunter along to myself, thinking of the community I’m part of down in Selly Oak.

Finding Room to Wriggle

In the UK, education which is free at the point of access for the student is conditional on qualifications and a strict policy and funding framework (this is as true at Fircroft as anywhere). We don’t have the same freedom to design our curricula as Nordic Folk High Schools do. But we do have wriggle room. In my changemaking work, I would love to see us wriggle a little more towards the building of citizenship and community.

The shift, perhaps, will be in embracing the principle of all caring for all, rather than the expectation that care comes only from the institution. It’s a shift towards mutual responsibility – and mutual self-efficacy, which can only be a good thing to prepare all of us – staff, governors and students – for healthy and productive futures.

By Dr Lou Mycroft, Co-Director FE Constellations, a nomadic educator, writer, and Green Changemaker.