MICROCOLLEGE PODCAST — Folk School 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…
Dr. Julie Shackelford discusses the origins of the Scandinavian Folk High School movement and its applications to a wide range of issues facing students and educators today.
Julie Tomaro and Nicholas WazeeGale are both instructors at the Driftless Folk School in rural southwestern Wisconsin. Their dialogue this week revolves around the Folk School tradition in America, some of their life experiences leading to their involvement in one, and the important role a Folk school can play in helping to build personal and cultural resilience.
Jonas Søvik joins the podcast and shares his experience as a student at a Danish folk high school, and the impact he think the folk high school model and the Bildung tradition can have around the world.
Linda Conroy is a bioregional herbalist, herbal and traditional food educator and a community organizer. She dedicates her life to connecting with the green world as well as sharing the wisdom of the earth. Her primary mentors are the plants who never cease to instill a sense of awe in her daily life. Linda has a certificate in permaculture design, which she completed through the International Earth Activist Program and has been a student of compassionate nonviolent communication for close to 20 years. She is the creator of the ever popular Wild Eats Community Meals, Moonwise Herbs, LLC and The Midwest Women's Herbal Conference.
Dawn is a fellow with Fielding Graduate University's Marie Fielder Center for Democracy, Leadership and Education and is currently in the final stages of her Ph.D. journey. Dawn's area of focus combines her work as the facilitator of the Folk School Alliance and her study of transformational learning for social justice. The Folk School Alliance began in 2013 and includes over ninety North American Folk Schools. This group began meeting monthly through an online platform in 2018 and continues today engaging in multiple collaborations supporting and promoting folk schooling in North America.
Liz Rog believes in singing together as an ancient technology for belonging, a simple and powerful tool for restoring our connection in community. She sings with all ages, teaching simple songs that can be woven into the seasons of the year and the changes and challenges of our lives in play, at bedsides, at rallies and in rituals. Liz delights in helping folks rediscover their ancestral birthright of group singing to nurture collective joy, courage and healing and supports songleading leadership practices to nurture our collective unfolding. In 2021, with friends and family Liz helped to create the Center for Belonging Folk School where people of all ages are welcomed to share stories, songs, food, handcraft, laughter and tears, all nested in a beautiful gazebo in a pristine wooded hollow near Decorah, Iowa.
Amy Arnold grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and studied ceramics at the University of Minnesota. She enjoys growing and raising food for her family, community organizing, and singing with family and friends.
The Nordic Secret is an important text for anyone seeking hopeful inspiration and practical advice about what could be done with regards to the collapse of civic engagement, social cohesion, and personal sense of meaning in our time in the United States and elsewhere. The book tells the remarkable story of how Denmark and the other Nordic countries made the transition from being among the poorest, most socially stratified, and authoritarian countries in Europe in the early 19th century to being the most wealthy, egalitarian, and democratic counties in the early 20th century. The "secret" in Lene's title turns out to be a revolutionary new model of education for young adults - the Danish folk high schools - grounded in a deeply humanistic conception of the human being and of human development. Lene labels this conception "Bildung," a term with deep roots in the thought and practice of key early modern German thinkers including Herder, Goethe, and Schiller, who in turn inspired the creators of the folk high school movement in Denmark (and also the Transcendentalists in America, including Emerson and Thoreau).
Tune In To Learn More
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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.