Farewell – and thanks for all the words! A greeting to Morten
After two years of service as a teacher in journalism, Morten Gliemann and his family now moves further down the stream, more precisely 15 km south to Tønder. Løgumkloster Højskole, Morten – and Tønder – will never be the same again. And then, life still goes on like it always did – Morten is still the same funny guy with an interesting global perspective, and Løgumkloster Højskole is still the world’s best højskole. But Morten, we will miss you, your words, and your jokes (of changing quality…)!
Morten in thinking position. Probably considering important aspects of portuguese language, and how it influences the brazilian people.
The Times they are a-changin’
Teachers come and teachers go. “One cannot bathe in the same river twice,” Heraclit once said; and in Ecclesiastes 1:9 it says: “there is nothing new under the sun.” The sentences seems contradictory but are nevertheless both true. They are true for both Løgumkloster Højskole and for Morten, Dida and Eva. Moving to Tønder, beginning in a new job there teaching people from all the world danish, taking up his career as a journalist again; these are big decisions, and tr@f and LK wishes Morten, Dida and Eva a good beginning in Tønder, and we hope they have made the best decision for the family.
Himself a master of words, a man who’s writing has brought his table bread, a man with the sharpest eye for wordplays – how to write an article doing him justice? It seems to me, the best way is to use his own words. Therefore TR@F met Morten for a “Walk & Talk” one beautiful august noon to ask him, what he will take with him, what he learned from his time on the folkhighschool, and what his expectations for the future are…
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Influences in the anarchy of open space
What will you take with you in your further life?
“I’ll take,” Morten explains, “the walking and the talking as a method. Folkhighschool is a lot about teaching and learning on a levelled, equal basis. So the idea of “students rule”, open university, is predominant, and it has a spirit attached to it – the house is alive. It doesn’t belong to the headmaster, the board or the teachers. Those who are here at any time, I believe, are the folkhighschool. You can make people come together through singing, music, art, and learning.”
Morten has certainly contributed to some school changes. During his time at LK, we have seen an increasing activity on the internet. Facebook, videos and a lot of pictures are some of the things, Morten developed at LK. His work on climate questions has also caught attention: A major capacity behind “COme2gether”, and parallel to his journalism classes, he also teached about climate, both the technical stuff and the political issues concerning climate. Tr@f has the impression, that Morten also learned from his time at LK. On the question, “did You learn anything here?”, he answered, “Oh yes, I did! I learned, that it is a difficult task to have people produce news. Within a very free structure, a space for learning, it is not very easy to have people producing as if it were a newspaper.” So that was Morten’s didactical experience, but he also has some philosophical thoughts, “I have learned, that getting closer to people is sometimes more important than being well informed.”
Morten’s eye for the words and how to combine them are perfectly illustrated in the following episode, which took place on the second family course this July. Morten and I where taking care of the teenagers. Each was presenting her- or himself, as one told he played the guitar and did weightlifting. And Morten said: “I have to ask, is it heavy?” Well, only a few teenagers understood the comment. Teenagers shouldn’t be the standard by which we measure understandability, but anyway – Morten’s commentaries sometimes need to do a couple of turns in the mind before one realizes the point.
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And what about the future…
“It is hard to predict – especially about the future.” These are the words of the danish comedian, Storm P., and they are certainly true. So tr@f didn’t ask Morten to predict his future, but to tell about his hopes.
What are your hopes for the future?
“I would like to continue enjoying, contributing to this place and to this kind of very open learning-space. I’ll be teaching danish for foreigners, but as we are speaking, I don’t know for how many hours per day or per week. So maybe when we restart the courses in January, I will find the time to teach either journalism in danish for the danes or in english for the international students.”
Are you planing to write again?
“Yes,” Morten says, “I have been working for the Christian Daily in Denmark for a long period of time, 12-15 years, writing now and then about things that happen in portuguese speaking countries like Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, and from time to time things happen. We are having presidential elections coming up in October in Brazil. I’ll be going there and I’ll pile up a lot of articles and photos and try to sell them to different buyers. It keeps me alive as a journalist, and a person who likes to travel.”
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Farewell Morten, – and thanks for all the words!
Tr@f wishes Morten a good beginning in Tønder. We hope, your hopes will come true, and we are looking forward to read your articles about the elections in Brazil. We thank Morten for everything he did for the school and it’s surroundings – it has been a pleasure to work with you!
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Words: Martin Bonde Christensen
