Dear students, family and friends. Welcome to Elverum Folkehøgskole for the 2024–25 school year.

Welcome students, from all over Norway and from several parts of the world. You all have your own story that is different from each other, you have different experiences from different cultures, you are different and unique as people and have different talents, but you have one thing in common. You are all new here and everyone's stomach is tingling. For those who work here and those who come back as students for another year, it also tingles in the stomach. We have butterflies in our stomachs as they say, but there is no problem, as long as they fly in the same direction as, someone has said. 

Something important this year. We will be together, develop together, but starting from who you are now. You - and we - get an opportunity for a new beginning or start. As Maria Robinson has said:

No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and have a new ending.

 We will now. A school year that starts now and ends in May 2025, but the year and what you experience here will be with you for the rest of your life.

You are waiting to get started with line subjects; snowboarding, art, aid, languages, extreme sports, sports, music, photography and carpentry, but unlike life in the cloud and on social media of which you are a part, we shall live here and now. We must plan, try, fail, experience, evaluate and learn. This also applies to social life at school.

The method of learning here is what we call experiential learning, we try and fail and learn from it. I think you will also learn through engagement. The employees here are committed and I hope we can get you involved. Engagement is perhaps the most important method of learning and action.

Simen Tveitereid has said something about this:

For those who have a glow, they don't need much else. He can eat simply, travel rarely, buy little. He who is doing something that occupies him, who is filled with excitement, does not think about what he will do tonight or how much money is in the account, maybe he does not even think about the fact that he is going to die.

Welcome to a school where the teachers and staff are here during the day, in the evening and sometimes also at night. A school where we experience and learn together. Here you can experience getting an employee as a substitute mother or uncle or perhaps grandfather. Anyway, the most important thing is that you get staff who care about you even after school hours. You will probably eventually experience the same from fellow students, they will care.

There are many of you, 113 people. Not everyone can become close friends with everyone, but you have the opportunity to get to know many people, and an opportunity to make one or a few friends for life! It depends somewhat on the others, but is perhaps mostly up to you!

To make a friend or friends, we have to talk together, give each other good looks, nod, smile and, if nothing else, say hello. All togetherness is primarily about seeing each other, and perhaps listening more than we ourselves speak. It is even possible to spend time together without talking. 

To carry out a project, a trip, play in a band together or play football together, we should talk together. We should communicate - where everyone in the group should listen and express themselves. 

Bernard Shaw said;

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we switch, we still only have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we trade, both will have to ideas! 

Being with many people, sharing a bathroom, living with many people at the boarding school etc. is very social and pleasant, but it can be tiring to deal with so many people. We will practice this.

That we disagree and think that the roommate makes a bit too much noise or has different habits to yourself, you will experience that. There will probably be some discussions - and that's normal, we just have to practice tolerating differences. It is part of real life.

Through the conversations and discussions that must come, we have dialogue. It is important because it gives us the opportunity to explain, ask, praise, be critical, give feedback, to be supportive and comforting, etc. It is when we stop talking together that dialogue ceases and conflicts arise. We see that all too clearly around society and the world now.

We will practice solving challenges here at school and what you will later encounter in life through dialogue, where we must try to understand and be tolerant and listen.

As previously mentioned, you come from different places in the world and represent different cultures, which creates diversity. The fact that we have diversity in our school and in our society means that we have a richer life. Diversity strengthens and develops us.

Regarding this, the poet Nils Aslak Valkpa says:

But I cannot believe in peace in the world as long as there are people who are not allowed to live their own way, with their own goals, and their own country.

I can't believe there are so many people, different people, different thoughts - without purpose!

Apart from the academic and social aspects, the overall goal is education - personal development. Education can be becoming a better version of yourself and perhaps developing aspects of yourself that make you have a richer life and become a more engaged person in work and leisure and not least can take part in democratic processes that our society is built on on and controlled accordingly. It will be important to focus on this.

What kind of world do you young people want? What can you do to get the one you want? You will especially encounter questions like this in the joint subjects and our training programme. Here we will try to give you some answers, but not the conclusion for your life, you have to choose that yourself.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks the hare

Which way should I go, Alice asked.
Where are you going?, answered the hare.
I don't know, said Alice.
Then it doesn't really matter where you go, answered the hare.

An invitation! Dear parents and friends; Let the young people who are to be students be left alone. Now they have to practice how to fend for themselves and become more adults. Until now, you have been like a support wheel on a bicycle. Now we have to take them off. 

Dear new students. Now you must leave them alone at home. Do not call home if something is difficult at the boarding school or other small challenges arise in everyday life. Talk to the people concerned, talk to one of the employees and we will solve it here.

A piece of advice from Per Fugelli at the end

Be yourself, remember that every person is a fairy tale that has not been written before. Become your own adventure! You and I are congenitally defective. That's good enough! Love yourself like faulty goods!