DREAMS & OBSERVATIONS

A Report from the International Folkemøde for Educators

Sep 4, 2025

While the idea of a “microcollege” as modeled by Thoreau College and our peer organizations around North America is a relatively new one for most people, it has its precedents and analogues in other times and places. Prominent among these is the Scandinavian “folk high school” movement, which began in Denmark in the middle of the 19th century. Inspired by the ideas of Danish philosopher and clergyman N.F.S. Grundtvig, the folk high schools began as residential schools where the young adult sons and daughters of the quasi-feudal peasantry learned to become independent thinkers, confident adults, and whole human beings capable of acting as citizens of the emerging Danish social democracy. These “schools for life” laid the foundation stones for some of the most successful societies in the modern world and they are still going strong today, with over 70 active folk high schools in a country with a population similar to that of Wisconsin.

I have been fascinated by this inspiring story for years, and have explored it in several interviews on the Microcollege podcast. This summer, however, I had an opportunity to learn more about the folk high schools first hand when I represented Thoreau College at the International Folkemøde for Educators hosted at the International People’s College, an English-language folk school in Elsinore, just north of Copenhagen. IPC is representative of a wave of later folk high schools established in response to the conflicts and challenges of the 20th century. Founded in 1921 (around the same time as Deep Springs College (1917) and the first Waldorf school (1919)), the International People’s College was established by a visionary Danish educator named Peter Manniche who wanted to build world peace by bringing together young people from many countries, including recent combatants from Britain and Germany.

In the past 100 years, this unique version of the Danish folk high school has had a powerful impact on education and social movements around the world through the lives and works of people who participated in its programs. One of the most notable IPC alumni was Myles Horton, who returned from his time in Denmark to co-found the Highlander Folk School in 1932 in Tennessee. From that time until the present, Highlander (now known as Highlander: The Movement School) has courageously served as a pivotal center for labor organizing in Appalachia, for the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, and for analogous struggles today. Highlander was well represented at the Folkemøde this summer, including by the current Co-Director, Allyn Maxfield-Steele, who gave the keynote address.

Remarkably, the Danish folk high school model continues to directly inspire people around the world seeking to bring about social change and renewal through community-based, whole person education, even in some of the most difficult circumstances. In Elsinore we met educators and organizers working in Germany, Lithuania, China, Egypt, India, Japan, and high in the Himalayan territory of Ladakh. There were schools dedicated to home-based craft and skill sharing in Canada and to community singing in South Korea. There was even a gentleman working on establishing a new folk high school rising from the ruins of war in Syria. Perhaps the most inspiring example came from attendees representing the Vovchok Folk High School, established in Ukraine on territory occupied and then relinquished by Russian invaders during the early months of the Ukraine War in 2022. Today, Vovchok serves as a center for conversations about dreams for post-war Ukraine, as well as a site for practical training in first aid and wartime medical treatment.

Amidst all of this diversity of background and focus, Tom and I were delighted to find that we were profoundly surrounded by kindred spirits and collaborators. These schools and programs often look very different, but their deep respect for young people, human dignity, holistic education, and international cooperation was instantly clear and created a rich sense of shared vision and purpose. And also – we were all united by our shared love of singing, which at the Danish folk high schools as at Thoreau College, always brings people together at the turning points of the day.