Illinois' first Folk School coming to Allerton Park

MONTICELLO, Ill. (WAND) — A Folk School is an untraditional form of schooling, usually for adults.

It gives adults the opportunity to learn a new skill or craft outside of the traditional classroom. But at Allerton, they're doing things differently.

"It is an alternative form of education that is multi-generational for anywhere youth to adults. In the future, we will be tying our youth programs into the Folk School as well,” said Senior Program Coordinator, Olivia Bunting.

This Folk School will focus on community. Bunting said Allerton polled residents to discover which topics they'd like to learn about.

“We sent out a community survey to help us come up with some ideas and gather interests of various classes that we could offer. It’s led by community members and if anyone in our community has a passion or a skill in a craft and wants to share that with others, they are more than welcome to apply to be an instructor for the folk's school,” said Bunting.

The idea came from Denmark in the mid 1800s. They used Folk Schools to uplift communities and promote personal growth with no major exams or mandatory classes.

“A philosopher and an educator really saw the poorer community of his nation not really getting the opportunities to rise up through the systems and they couldn’t afford traditional education, and they needed a space to learn these skills in order to progress in their own environment, in their own community,” said Bunting.

Registration for Fall classes are set to begin in July.