MICROCOLLEGE PODCAST — Folk School Focused Interviews
MICROCOLLEGE is an exploration of the crisis in higher education and the innovative projects and thinkers working to address it, with a special focus on the human-scaled, place-based, meaning-oriented learning communities we call microcolleges.
You can listen the podcast here through RSS, on the website of WDRT 91.9 FM or on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and many other podcast services.
Listen to the following folk school themed podcast interviews…
Melanie Lenehan is the Principal and CEO of Fircroft College, a unique publically supported adult education institution located in the West Midlands in Birmingham, England's second largest city. The college was founded in 1909 by George Cadbury, Jr., a Quaker industrialist and philanthropist, who was one of the pioneers of the art and science of milk chocolate. Cadbury's educational vision was strongly influenced by the Danish folk high school model which emphasizes cultivating the development of a strong sense of personhood and belonging through non-competitive adult education in the context of small residential learning communities with multiple opportunities for formal and informal interactions, ranging from classes, to shared meals and group singing. The students of Fircroft College are most often adults older than traditional college age who have experienced significant setbacks or disruptions in their lives, including addiction, mental health issues, or disadvantages arising from poverty or legal status.
In our conversation, Mel and I spoke about her experiences as a child of Irish immigrants growing up in London who was the first person in her family to attend university, as well as the origins of Fircroft College and its connections to the Danish folk high school movement. Finally, Mel introduced one of her most important sources of inspiration, namely, the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and the approach for working the poor and dispossessed that he articulated as "the Pedagogy of the Oppressed."
Fircroft College -www.fircroft.ac.uk
In this episode of the podcast I spoke with Mette and Lars Højland, a Danish couple with decades of experience in folk high school education who are exploring new ways to take the essence of this transformative pedagogy beyond the walls of formal institutions and beyond the borders of Denmark, including to China and other lands. Mette grew up within the world of free schools and folk high schools inspired by the ideas of N. F. S. Grundtvig, the 19th century Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, and instigator of the folk school concept. Drawing on 22 years of teaching in several folk high schools, Mette has written a short and engaging book entitled What you say, makes me think: Folk high school from within, which uses anecdotes from her own teaching and insights from Grundtvig and other thinkers to explore the sometimes enigmatic core elements of folk high school pedagogy and to propose ways that it might be adapted to other arenas. Lars, on the other hand, is a parish priest in the Danish national church who applies Grundtvigian models to act as what he calls a "spiritual co-walker," i.e. a conversation partner who seeks to help you in the direction the spirit wants to carry you in particular."
Together, Mette and Lars are co-founders of an organization called "Menneske Først – LifeDialogues," which works to promote and teach a kind of "home folk high school," in the form of structured conversation evenings that bring together neighbors and strangers for ice breakers, food, singing, discussion, and, above all, human-to-human encounters in a time when this is all too rare. The name "Menneske Først" can be translated as "Human First!", a ringing maxim from NFS Grundtvig emphasizing our core humanity about sectarian divisions and polarizations of all kinds.
Menneske Først - LifeDialogues - lifedialogues.dk/en
Lamplight is a free three week summer program located in rural northern Alabama where teens practice leadership and service by running the camp themselves and doing projects for their community. Along the way, campers learn real-world skills and how to live together as a community. This unique program is rooted by a strong sense of place and is inspired by the educational ideas of L.L. Nunn, founder of Deep Springs College and the Telluride Association, as well as by the radical folk school model of the Highlander Folk School. In addition to the summer program, Lamplight is part of the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center (SMCEC), which promotes cooperative models of education and economic life. On this episode of podcast, founding camper and current staff member Kayleigh Johnson and returning staff member Julia Machlin give us the scoop.
Lamplight - www.lamplightsummer.org
Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center -www.coopeducation.org
Tune In To Learn More
〰️
Tune In To Learn More 〰️
Tune into WDRT 91.9FM on the 4th Wednesday of every month from 5-6PM for The Folk School Radio Hour, hosted by familiar voices from Viroqua's own Driftless Folk School. We'll be having thoughtful conversation around craft, traditional ways, nutrition, wild spaces and the simple abundance of this beautiful Earth.