One Year at Boarding School Amounts to Seven Years of Growth

Danish Boarding Schools are heavily inspired by the values of Danish theologian and philosopher, N.F.S Grundtvig. He believed in the importance of educating and including the working class in order to help people become active members of society. The aim was to excite the students about life before he could excite them about information. But this also gave his boarding schools a reputation for schooling troublesome teenagers - either mischievous children or children whose parents were tired of them. Throughout the years, diversity has flourished in the mentality of the schools. Boarding schools have become popular amongst various social classes and are now considered a privilege that many wish to attend. In fact, it has never been more popular to attend boarding schools in Denmark. In the year 2019, there were 30.069 students enrolled in 240 boarding schools. I went to Fjordvang Efterskole on the first day of the school year, to see how the new batch of students would welcome the life of a boarding school stay. A stay that enables teenagers to engage with each other, as the school becomes a world of their own.