Revisiting Grundtvig - the pedagogy of a Danish children’s folk high school.

With a starting point in an ethnographic fieldwork carried out at a children’s folk high school in Aarhus, Denmark, this presentation seeks to highlight how classic folk high school philosophy and pedagogy rooted within the works of Danish philosopher and theologian N. F. S. Grundtvig, comes alive as an underlying and somewhat subtle theme in the pedagogical practices of the volunteers at the leisure time/after school folk high school.
Through readings of the philosophy of Grundtvig who fathered the folk high school movement 176 years ago and the theoretical perspectives of pedagogical tact found in Max van Manen, this presentation seeks to answer the following research questions:
How is folk high school pedagogy addressed in a children’s setting, and how do the works of Grundtvig inspire a pedagogical praxis?
The main methodological inspirations behind the project are inductive and explorative and with a foundation in educational anthropology, the basis for this project is an ethnographic fieldwork consisting of 45 hours of participant observation of the different courses offered at the folk high school as well as four one-hour semi- structured interviews with volunteers and course leaders at the place (Andersen, 2019: 36, 333).
”We make the world larger for the younger”, the folk high school’s tagline sounds, and draws indirectly on the foundation of Grundtvigianism and Grundtvigianist movements and their involvement in the enlightenment and education of the people (Hjordt-Vetlesen, 1980). Throughout analyses of the pedagogical practices of the place, their community gatherings, community singing, the joint dinner sessions and their focus on democratic conversations and dialogues, the connotations to a Grundtvigianist educational philosophy becomes clearer, with its empathy on Grundtvig’s philosophy of the mouth and its perspectives on how people are enlightened, made aware and educated through dialogue and active interaction with the mouth and the tongue as the moulder of the word of the spirit (Rømer, 2019: s. 80-81).
References: Andersen, I. (2019). Den skinbarlige virkelighed (6. udg). Samfundslitteratur Hjordt-Vetlesen, I. (1980). Fra familie til individ. Forlaget Medusa
Rømer, T. A. (2019). Grundtvig og pædagogik – vexelvirkningen. I: A. v. Oettingen. Pædagogiske tænkere: bidrag til empirisk dannelsesforskning. Hans Reitzel.