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55°40′02″N12°37′03″E / 55.66722°N 12.61750°E
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Kofoeds School (Danish : Kofoeds Skole) in Copenhagen, Denmark, is an organization carrying out social work for adults according to the "social pedagogical" principle of personal and vocational empowerment.
The school, founded in 1928, bases its work on Christian and humanitarian principles and among other things, the Danish folk high school movement. It offers education, workshop activities, counseling, accommodation, emergency assistance and relief measures. The aim of the school is to assist people with social problems in improving their social life and relieve them from their underprivileged social situation. The efforts are holistic and the targets tuned to people’s own abilities and qualifications.
Kofoeds School is based on the concept that if people are to be assisted socially, they have to be helped educationally, but the terms education and school are understood in the widest sense, not associated exclusively with narrow vocational qualifications. The concept of education is a cornerstone in the work of the school as a principle of development of human resources.
People using the service at Kofoed's School are called students to emphasize the pedagogical approach to dealing with social problems. The school helps the students to develop their own strength, self-esteem and abilities, and focus is on possibilities and the students’ own interests and wishes. Basically, the school approaches the students as ordinary human beings who experience social difficulties in their life.
Since its foundation Kofoeds School has been involved in a range of social issues such as homelessness, unemployment, urban immigration, integration problems for ethnic groups, alcoholism, substance abuse, and psychiatric problems.
The working method of the school emphasizes the importance of the students themselves being active. The aim is not just to help the students but also to help make them take responsibility for their own efforts. The school works on the belief, that help is an ambiguous blessing. Provided without expecting active interplay by the person seeking assistance, it may pacify people and make them dependent. Given the right way, however, it can activate them, make them feel more optimistic and increase their ability to act themselves.
The concept aims at rebuilding and strengthening the students’ self-esteem while at the same time easing their social problems. On working with the students, the primary focus is on their personal strength and abilities, and the method seeks to move people forward, not just to solve immediate problems.
Kofoeds School was founded by pastor Hans Christian Kofoed (1898-1952) in 1928, at a time of economic depression. His goal was to help young unemployed men to come back to society as active citizens. H.C. Kofoed, made the slogan “hjælp til selvhjælp” (literally: “help to self-help”) the center of his work. He wished to help the unemployed differently compared to usual charities that often placed the unemployed in a role of passive receivers of assistance.
Kofoeds himself had experienced unemployment then he was young, and he had remembered since then that if one is being helped in the wrong way, it is possible to cause more damage than benefit. Therefore he based his work on the principle that an unemployed person may receive food or his wages only after performing an activity. When he receives it this way, it is not humiliating but rather brings satisfaction and a sense of justice. At the time Kofoed’s methods were revolutionary.
Among the first activities of Kofoeds School were a washroom and a laundry, where people could wash and do their laundry for free. And the school opened a workshop where it was possible to repair old garments and shoes. When Kofoed found other collaborators, he opened courses in Danish, English, French, German, counting, humanities, gymnastics and singing. Students could use the services of a legal counselor and a physician.
In the following years, the number of women learning housework increased. There was a joinery shop, in which men could repair used furniture, and there was a garden in which they could grow vegetables for their needs for free. Kofoed bought a farm in 1940 where a school for adolescents was developed, in which young agricultural workers attended an intensive re-socializing course.
The number of students grew rapidly in the first decades after its start, and so did the size of the school and the activities offered. Soon Kofoeds School was a well-known institution throughout Denmark, and Hans Christian Kofoed himself became a renowned, public figure. Both the work of H.C. Kofoed and his school received a lot of goodwill and respect from all layers of society, and when Kofoed died following a car accident in 1952, the country was in shock. More than 2000 people attended his funeral.
Students with yet bigger and cumulative problems started to appear at the school in the 1950s. Often they were unemployed alcoholics, people with psycho-pathological problems and drug addicts. The number of students grew intensively in the 1960s leading to the broadening of the offer of the school by many other activities.
In the following decade, employers and directors of the school entered a conflict about the perception of the school’s mission. Certain practical and ideological changes followed, but in 1979 a return to the original principle of help to self-help recommenced.
At the present day, the school in Copenhagen offers assistance to those students who are in a temporarily difficult life situation as well as to those who are in a much deeper crisis. The basic pedagogical principles of activation are still accentuated in order to let students try to deal with the problems on their own.
From early on after its start in 1928, Kofoeds School acquired facilities outside the main school in Copenhagen to suit the needs of the different kinds of students and their specific problems. However it was not until the turn of the millennium – in 2003 – that an independent working school opened in Denmark, this time in Århus. The School in Århus today serves about 70 students daily.
During the 1990s, Kofoeds School started making more foreign contacts and engaged itself in various international collaborations, but up until 1997 the school in Copenhagen was the only one. However, building on a collaboration between Kofoeds School and Polish social workers begun in the aftermath of World War II and since then progressed, the first sister school opened in Siedlce, Poland in 1997. Since then a string of schools has opened in Central and Eastern Europe and today the organization numbers 15 schools in Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Armenia and Ukraine.
55°40′02″N12°37′03″E / 55.66722°N 12.61750°E
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Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one's life and claiming one's rights. Empowerment as action refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognize and use their resources.
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Pedagogy, most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Both the theory and practice of pedagogy vary greatly as they reflect different social, political, and cultural contexts.
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Pre-school Education in Denmark is voluntary and takes place in different types of schools or day care centres covering the time before children enter compulsory education. Today, preschool is where most children enter the Danish education system.
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Social Circus refers to the growing movement toward the use of circus arts as mediums for social justice and social good. It uses alternative pedagogical tools to work with youth who are marginalized or at social or personal risk.
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Helper theory or the helper therapy principle was first described by Frank Riessman (1965) in an article published in the journal Social Work. The principle suggests that when an individual provides assistance to another person, the helper may benefit. Riessman's model has inspired subsequent research and practice by scholars, clinicians, and indigenous populations to address a variety of social and health-related issues plaguing individuals and communities around the world.
Amagerbro is an area in the northern part of the island Amager and a district in Copenhagen. The area is known as a working class area, and has approximately 20,000 inhabitants. The district has two metro stations, Amagerbro station and Lergravsparken station. Amagerbrogade, a main shopping street, runs through it.
The Pestalozzi-Stiftung Hamburg is a social and charitable organization founded in 1847 in Hamburg, German Confederation. Over a period of more than hundred years, the organisation ran a children's foster home which changed its location several times within Hamburg. Constant adjustments have taken place over the last decades. Recently, the organisation has maintained facilities and projects in many parts of Hamburg and to a lesser extent in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) and Schleswig-Holstein. Its main goal is to provide support and counselling for children, youths and families. It also maintains day care facilities for children and facilities for adults with disabilities and mental illnesses. The organisation's work depends to a large extent on public funds and owns only a limited amount of capital assets which are not used for funding external projects. The Pestalozzi-Stiftung Hamburg appeals to the convictions of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi whose aim in education was "to strengthen the human being" and to move him to a point where he is "able to help himself". The organisation is based on the idea of offering people the means to attain the ability of "help to self-help".
Adult Children of Alcoholics founded circa 1978 is a fellowship of people who desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family. ACA membership has few formal requirements. ACA does not accept any outside contributions and is supported entirely by donations from its members. The organization is not related to any particular religion and has no political affiliation. Tony A. was among its co-founders and is the author of The Laundry List, 12 steps for adult children of alcoholics, The Problem, which are all published in his book, The Laundry List: The ACOA Experience
Indigenous education specifically focuses on teaching Indigenous knowledge, models, methods, and content within formal or non-formal educational systems. The growing recognition and use of Indigenous education methods can be a response to the erosion and loss of Indigenous knowledge through the processes of colonialism, globalization, and modernity. Indigenous education also refers to the teaching of the history, culture, and languages of Indigenous peoples of a region.
Feminist pedagogy is a pedagogical framework grounded in feminist theory. It embraces a set of epistemological theories, teaching strategies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships. Feminist pedagogy, along with other kinds of progressive and critical pedagogy, considers knowledge to be socially constructed.
Greenlandic people in Denmark are residents of Denmark with Greenlandic or Greenlandic Inuit heritage. According to StatBank Greenland, as of 2020, there were 16,780 people born in Greenland living in Denmark, a figure representing almost one third of the population of Greenland. According to a 2007 Danish government report, there were 18,563 Greenlandic people living in Denmark. The exact number is difficult to calculate because of the lack of differentiation between Greenlandic and Danish heritage in Danish government records and also due to the fact that the way in which people identify themselves is not always a reflection of their birthplace. As of 2018, there were 2,507 Greenlanders enrolled in education in Denmark.
