Paper Short Abstract:

Folk education–an education of, for, and by the people– can meet many challenges requiring unwriting in higher education today. Drawing upon our experiences in folk schools, field schools, community environmental initiatives, and craft pedagogies, we engage around radical lessons that embrace popular approaches from non-formal education.

Paper Abstract:

Through the lens of folkloristics, academia serves as an institution of learning where formal and informal customs and traditions emerge, shaping ideas of “knowledge” as something that is always in flux. The materials of our educational traditions are tangible and intangible, and as with all traditions, education creates the future out of the past. Unwriting–as a tool of progress–can aid in creating equitable and resilient learning environments that shift what currently counts as scholarship and research, where what we know emerges.

In this paper, we suggest that drawing upon folk education–an education of, for, and by the people– could meet many challenges that require unwriting in higher education and society-at-large today. Folk pedagogies are non-competitive and participatory–frequently based in oral tradition, song, and material culture. They derive from Danish philosopher Nicholai Grundtvig, whose critiques of higher education inspired the Danish folkhøjskole in the mid-1800s and, in the early 1900s, the North American folk schools. Drawing upon our own participation in folk schools, field schools, community environmental initiatives, and craft pedagogies, we engage around radical lessons from pedagogical practices in higher education that embrace popular approaches borrowed from non-formal education. We consider the following questions: What are the goals of education? How do we create pedagogies of learning and sharing – as opposed to pedagogies of competition and so-called achievement? Why are place and culture important in scholarship and research? Given the scale of the crises we face, it is time to unwrite prevailing pedagogical approaches to sustain our shared futures.