The Founding Father

The idea of the Folk High Schools first saw the light in the 1830s.

The founding father was Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783 - 1872) – a Danish theologian, writer, philosopher, historian, educationist and politician.

Grundtvig was a man of his time – both inspired by enlightenment and influenced by the growing national romanticism. Therefore it is important to read and understand his ideas from the perspective of time.  
The tradition of the Folk High Schools of today has modified some of his ideas, some ideas have died out, while others again are still strong elements of the tradition today. 

International Inspiration

Inspired by study trips to England and a stay at Trinity College Grundtvig developed the idea of “folkehøjskolen”, the Folk High School.

The idea came from the collegial atmosphere and mutual respect between the teaching staff and the students who all lived together in a small community.   

What was important for Grundtvig apart from living together and the learning was the athmosphere at the schools. Through singing, reading and exploring the surroundings the stay at a Folk High School should be jolly and amusing.

The Schools

Grundtvig fought for a school whith popular education as the primary focus. The Folk High School movement was an act against a conservative ideal of both education and culture. An act against an ideal of literacy and book-learning, a use of language unknown to common people and a learning ideal where the primary relation was between the individual and the book alone.

The movement therefore started as a row with the old school. Grundtvig fought for a public education as an alternative to the university elite.
The Folk High Schools should be for those wanting to learn about the general and to help people form part of human relations and society.  

The Folk High Schools have changed naturally - some also radically - through time, but many of Grundtvig’s core-ideas about the Folk High Schools are still to be found in the way they are run today.

The folk high school of today is engaged in a complex modern reality and influenced both by national, international and global questions.  

Alfabetic list of Folk High Schools

Lifelong learning

One of the main concepts still to be found at the Folk High Schools today is:
“Lifelong learning”.

The schools should educate for life. They should shed light on basic questions surrounding life of people - both as individuals and members of society.  

To Grundtvig the ideal was to give the students a sense of a common best and focusing on life as it really is. The chief concerns was the common and the general.
Therefore Grundtvig never sat down guidelines for the future schools or a detailed description of how they should run in practice.
He declared that the folk high schools should be arranged and developed according to life as it is and the schools should not hold examinations as the education and enlightenment is a sufficient reward. 
Read more about the rules of the folk high schools at Law of Folk High Schools.

The essential element was and is the life at the schools. A folk high school becomes what it is because of the individuals of which it is made of.
Learning happens across social positions and differences – the teacher learns from the youth and vice versa in a living exchange and mutual teaching.
For Grundtvig dialogue across differences was essential - the ideal was that people must learn to bear with the differences of each other before enlightenment can be realised.

Read more at Citizenship, Democracy and lifelong learning.