Folk School Alliance

International Summit 2019:  The 175th Anniversary
Of The First Danish Højskole

Doing Folk Education
"Inspiration, Pedagogy, and Art"

Marine Mills Folk School

 
The website home page for Marine Mills Folk School begins with these words: “The folk school tradition traces its origins to Scandinavian countries, with NFS Grundtvig of Denmark coining the term ‘schools for life’ as part of his philosophy of education, and of his vision for strengthening and empowering communities.”

I talked to a group of Marine Mills’ founders – Robin Brooksbank, Emily Anderson and Nanc MacLeslie – who bubble with the enthusiasm that has contributed to the fast growth of their school. Their description easily matches essential elements of Grundtvigian folk education:

• A school for life, for “living a life of passion, confidence, and joy,”
• Nurturing a space for strengthening community through everyone learning together. “We create “transactional collaborative experiences,” 
• Experiencing the art of being “creators” through hands on – and reflective - skill building. We “put our brain in our hands” to become more aware of how we learn.
• Immersing ourselves in a learning environment of natural rural beauty in a nationally protected river valley that includes Native American settlements.

It’s clear that this inspired group brought much experience and knowledge before learning about Grundtvig. They speak about “going from the gut” in steering the birth of their school in response to whatever comes up. There is a commitment to listening to everyone in the community: participants, teachers, staff, and board members.
 
Whether from this “gut,” or from Grundtvig, or from the collective experience of creating, they put at the heart of their work “becoming more aware of how we learn” – and going deeper, “how do we open to our own inner creator?” Such learning is a clear contrast to the typical more competitive community education programs.
 
Their vision statement gives us an entry into this “creator” concept: “People will honor and appreciate fellow artists and craftspeople of similar and differing cultural heritage as well as those from other times, experience the joy of creating and the restorative power of our natural environment.”
 
A phrase that came up in our conversations - “art as life” – for me puts their ideas “on the ground.” It includes nurturing qualities like self-sufficiency, competence, and confidence. But it recognizes the crucial link to others through a sense of care-taking and stewardship for the greater community, both natural and human. It demonstrates the deep pedagogical concept of how individual and collective development and growth are an essential symbiotic relationship.
 
A key challenge, in fact a central purpose to their school, is responding to the run-away, technological overdrive of fast-paced life that increasingly falls short of meeting human life and health. Marine Mills is a school for developing a life of passion, confidence, and joy – and a key way to do that is to “unplug” from the busy and tech-driven world that is our 21st century way of life. In fact, that learning goal is a direct response to how they phrase the challenge of today’s society: “We don’t know how to take care of ourselves and our world anymore.”
 
Doing folk education at Marine Mills connects inner development, through community engagement, to practical change on the outside. I’ve discussed the inner creator. The school also focuses attention on supporting both teachers and students to creating a livelihood from their “products.” This broad intention also supports greater economic development in the local community.
 
And the circle extends beyond to life more globally.  Even though this idea was offered humbly, as a “secret agenda,” it seemed a natural extension of a school for life: “through fostering connections, we aim to create world peace!”  

Chris Spicer

New Folk Schools

Life.School.House Folk School

Jennifer DeCoste, Founder of the Life.School.House folkschool network in Nova Scotia Canada sat down with us during the International Folk High School Summit in Denmark in September 2019 to share the story of this barter-based, community development project that is inspiring nimble, cost-free folkschool start ups in Canada.

"Seventy-five years ago my grandfather started CJFX - a community owned radio station in a small town in rural Nova Scotia.  His dream at the time was to use the brand new technology of radio to connect farmers and coal miners and shop keepers with the economic and social benefits of education. In 2018, I read an autobiography about his work and was inspired to start a pilot project called LifeSchoolHouse Cooperative where we are leading a resurgence of folkschools in Nova Scotia. Using old “technology” of kitchen tables we are hosting learning opportunities in communities across Nova Scotia. During the pilot year we offered our own home as a community hub, providing free space to 50+ non-professional facilitators who came to share their expertise on a broad range of subjects from Indian cooking classes to carpentry, soap making to canning, gardening and more. From inception, LifeSchoolHouse has been a barter community. This means our space is always offered for free and the facilitators are compensated only by way of bartered items brought by the class attendees, reducing the financial barrier to participation – all are welcome. The barter system and the use of casual and inviting venues has made it possible to offer cross-cultural and multi-generational learning in an organic way.”

During the Summit, Jennifer shared a link to a model of barter-based folkschooling that LifeSchoolHouse has created. Her goal is to support others across North America to use the platform of folkschool education to reduce the impact of social isolation, and to build greater connections between neighbours in communities.

"Within the first year our model required expansion because the classes we were offering in our home were filling within minutes and we had thousands of followers. Our scaling plan was never designed to offer more classes in one home, despite the demand. Instead we wanted to use this model to develop a greater skill for participatory citizenship in communities. To that end we have launched a network of support for individuals in communities who are interested in offering their own folkschools. We have built this network as a platform to develop leaders in community who know how to create safe learning spaces using the folkschool model. Our current network has grown in 10 months to include 12 regionally based hosts who use LifeSchoolHouse as a banner under which to act as community convenors, connectors and hosts.”

If you would like to know more about the LifeSchoolHouse model, visit them at www.lifeschoolhouse.com.  Their model is free to download at https://www.lifeschoolhouse.com/start-a-folkschool. Anyone interested in applying this model is encouraged to reach out - the network is a supportive community ready to partner across North America!
Photo above:  Tarah Gibbon, a folk school host, at her farm in West Hants, Nova Scotia.
Photo below: Jennifer DeCoste addressing a session at the Summit in Denmark.

Journal of a Folk School Founding
Happiness Hills Folk School

This chapter in the development of our folk school could be called “hurry up and wait.” But sometimes while you wait for something bigger, good and necessary things happen. We’re in a holding pattern at the farm as far as additional facilities go, but we have been told that our request for a business permit from our county government has been approved and our license is forthcoming. While we wait for the license and for the process of requesting permits to build two additional log cabins, we have installed two adorable storage sheds, small enough that we don’t have to ask permission to set up. We intend to finish those out in the next few weeks and use them as tiny bunk houses for trans-America cyclists and… you guessed it… Folk School participants!
 
The process of getting the sheds delivered is always fun. Around here, a guy named Noah is the best delivery person. Noah brought both of our little sheds on the same day, before dawn. He left one in the front field while he navigated around the campfire and the entrance fence with the other one on his trailer, setting it down perfectly where we had put stakes in the lawn. He then spent the next hour making it perfectly level, lifting one side and then the other with the controls on his amazing truck, and placing cinderblocks in solid pillars underneath at regular intervals.  It was quite a process – our farm is called Happiness Hills for a reason! When at last he was satisfied, he went and got the other shed and started the process again. Before he started leveling the second shed, we shared a cup of coffee on a bench by the campfire. I like Noah – he’s a kind man who knows his trade and doesn’t mind taking the time to do things right. He has delivered a few other sheds for my family and me, and it is always nice to see him.
 
By the time both sheds had been set up and our little barn (which we call the BarneBarn – Danish for grandchild) was moved aside to make room for them, the temperature had climbed to nearly 90 degrees and it was time for lunch. Noah left for another job, hopefully in a shaded place, and another piece of our dream for the farm had been put in place.
 
Next, insulation, electric lines, interior walls and built-in bunks – a fun autumn project for our farm family!
 
Jennifer Rose Escobar
Happiness Hills Folk School

Olympia Folk School Brings Evergreen Learning Philosophy to Community

Stacey Waterman-Hoey had just returned home to Olympia from a trip to the Port Townsend Fiddle Tunes Festival inspired to harness the energy around the revival of American folk traditions to fight climate change.

“I was blown away because over the course of the week there were 10,000 people that came up there to learn traditional American fiddle tunes,” said Waterman-Hoey.

It was 2012 and as one of Washington’s top experts on climate change — she’d spent nearly two decades trying to influence the public’s understanding of it through data. But it didn’t seem to be working.

“I discovered that all the data and information in the world is not enough to change people’s minds,” said Waterman-Hoey.

She returned to Olympia, quit her job and went about founding the state capital’s first folk school.
 

New 11-Book Series
on Folk High School Education

 

Board News and Notes

• Jerry Jackson recently attended the American Craft Council conference in Philadelphia October 10-12.  The theme of the conference was “The Present Tense 2019.” 
• Chris Spicer and Mary Cattani are working on a new introduction to the 10th anniversary republication of Chris’s book, Lifted by the Heart.
• Jennifer Escobar’s planned folk school "Happiness Hills" has recently gotten a boost from the addition of some new buildings - storage and potential dorm space (see article).
• In September 2019, all four FEAA officers of the board were fortunate to be able to attend the Danish Folk High School Summit in Denmark to help celebrate the 175th anniversary of the first folk high school (see lead article). 
• Former board member Jason Gold, founder of the "Michigan Folk School," announced its recent Grand Opening at Staebler County Farm Park, on October 12, 2019.  The farm is part of Washtenaw County Park near Ann Arbor. 
• Marilyn Jackson is organizing a conference at WISR in Berkeley, "Transforming Ourselves and the World," October 24-26. 

To see a working list of folk schools in North America, visit the Folk School Alliance's website at http://folkschoolalliance.org/.