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N. F. S. Grundtvig
Born
Grundtvig’s ideas helped inspire Denmark’s folk high schools. He imagined education tied to civic and everyday life, open to people outside the usual academic track. The schools that drew on his ideas turned that argument into a place where young adults could live, study, and talk together.
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Myles Horton
Born
Horton and fellow organizers founded the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee in 1932. Early workshops worked with labor organizers, bringing people together to think through situations they faced back home. The same approach later supported civil rights organizers who came to learn from one another.
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Septima Poinsette Clark
Clark helped turn adult literacy classes into Citizenship Schools, working with Esau Jenkins and Bernice Robinson. On Johns Island, reading and writing lessons addressed barriers that prevented Black residents from registering to vote. Training local teachers helped the program spread beyond the original classroom.
More about Septima Poinsette Clark4
Esau Jenkins
Jenkins used rides on his bus to help Johns Island adults practice reading material they might be asked to read when registering to vote. He and his wife Janie helped build the Progressive Club, which hosted the Citizenship School. The bus and the club made education part of places the community already used.
More about Esau Jenkins5
Bernice Robinson
Born
Robinson taught the first Citizenship School class on Johns Island in January 1957. She helped develop the curriculum and later trained teachers with Septima Clark. In the workshop photo, Robinson is standing on the left and Clark on the right.
More about Bernice Robinson6
Paulo Freire
Born
In Angicos, Brazil, adult literacy classes used words drawn from participants’ lives. The organizers documented the local vocabulary and trained people to lead discussions in culture circles. Their records show the planning involved in giving adults familiar subjects to read, write, and talk about.
More about Paulo Freire7
Moses Coady
Born
In Nova Scotia, Coady helped organize local study clubs around problems that adults could tackle together. People used the clubs to learn how credit, cooperatives, and local markets worked. In Coady’s account, studying the problem gave communities a basis for deciding what to build.
More about Moses Coady8
James J. Tompkins
Tompkins promoted a People’s School at St. Francis Xavier College and helped lay the groundwork for the Antigonish Movement. He pressed for adults in nearby communities to have a part in the educational life of the college. Study groups and later extension work gave people ways to do that outside ordinary degree programs.
More about James J. Tompkins9
Frances Mansbridge
Frances and Albert Mansbridge founded the organization that became the Workers’ Educational Association in 1903. The association traces the effort back to their work as Sunday school teachers and to money Frances put toward starting it. Frances is on the right in the photograph.
More about Frances Mansbridge10
Jane Addams
Born
Hull House offered college extension courses in its Chicago neighborhood. Its 1908 account describes a program that began before the city’s university extension movement. Addams helped make the settlement a place where adults could take part in organized study close to home.
More about Jane Addams11
Ellen Gates Starr
Born
At Hull House, Starr treated art and craft as parts of education that belonged in the neighborhood. The settlement’s arts programs gave immigrant neighbors opportunities to work with materials and see art up close. The Hull House museum’s collection preserves objects that show what that looked like in practice.
More about Ellen Gates Starr12
Y. C. James Yen
Born
Yen was among the founders of China’s Mass Education Movement. In Ding Xian, the project brought literacy into rural communities and linked it to other parts of village life. Start with the teaching work to see how a movement built around reading grew into an effort in rural reconstruction.
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Tao Xingzhi
Tao helped found China’s Mass Education Movement. The work followed his decision to devote much of his career to education outside established schools, especially in rural communities. His career gives another way into the movement alongside James Yen’s work in Ding Xian.
More about Tao Xingzhi14
Julius Nyerere
Born
As Tanzania’s president, Nyerere argued that education should continue through adult life and help people take a greater part in their communities. The adult literacy campaign made that goal a national undertaking. Tanzania’s report to UNESCO traces how the policy translated into programs beyond the formal school system.
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