Program Reviews

DNS Tvind teachers learn why it is important that the world gets more Teachers dedicated to create Change and Development, Peace and Juistes. ? DNS 4-years program is another kind of education full of practical and theoretical learning that enables each student to be the driver in his/her learning process, put the children in the center and make the global reality relevant for the children. Courage is the most important tool to understand the language of the world today, and you will learn to follow your enthusiasm as the biggest power to win the final fight.

The training include Global experience - from the 4 months travel by bus
The European reality and the studies.
Great that you end up without a study debt and with experiences that makes you capable of teaching, organizing people, cooperation skills and knowledge about many different cultures and countries.
As it is an international college and the campus is an international place - the students get to know many other nationalities and learn about many other countries om their travel.
The students are part of planning their studies anmd the whole programme - in this way they take responsibility for the plans, learn from the mistakes they do and take the concequences - this is a great learning process.

In this Institute learning is a collective process operating in reality.

For instance we travel the world together in an old bus meet people and stay and live with them.

It changed me forever.

After graduating I have been working in the Danish public school system for 19 years.
In 1996 I went to Angola where I worked in a development project.
It was a challenge as I was there during the civil war.
In 2002 I went to India where I have been working for 17 years with building up a teacher training program inspired by DNS DENMARK.
The students go through a task based education system which has lots of practical elements also.

Yes, my experience was unique and brought me toward living a meaningful full life in a big collective of like-minded people. It made me an international person and gave me 100 close friends and allies both in Africa and Europe.
It was very interesting and uplifting to be able to get close to and work with people in Africa.
It made me understand that the main contradiction in the world is that few have too much and many many have too little. It has given me a permanent interest in studying more about history, pedagogy, economy and the world we live in.

If you want to do another kind of education to become a teacher were you learn so many more things then just the accedemic subjects come to DNS.
Working in a team is essencial in this education and in todays society this is not common and needs a lot of effort to get it to work.
You will learn to take responsabilities and people .
You will learn about the world by experience it travelling in a bus and also live in a city and meet people and interact with these people.
Come to one of the events and see for yourself. Next is the Peace and Justice Conference first week of May that is organized by two 4th year students. Imagine that could be you !

After having lived in Tvind for almost a year, I think I can say with confidence that this place is a great place to visit & learn more about. Do I recommend it ? Absolutely. It's a great place to test your boundaries, to push yourself to become the person you want to be, & to be the change you want to see in the world. It's only been a month since I've started the official program, but already, even with just the saving up pre-course ( a pre program where DNS helps you find work in order to gather money to use throughout the travels & the program ), I've already learned & been through more experiences than I have in the last couple years. Heck, they're experience & events I probably would've never had a chance to learn or do on my own, but could only do here, with teammates that support me & with a community that is as excited for the events as me. It's a thing I'm grateful for, & I'm so excited to see what else I can learn or what other experiences I can gain. Not to mention that it's so nice to be able to study in a campus surrounded by nature, to be able to look out the window and see a vast scenery of green <3

Does this program work for everyone ? It depends on you. It's a demanding program where you have to manage your studies & experiences while living as part of a community-- when they say that it's a lifestyle, they mean it. You have to be able to manage your time, & to be flexible, because every day is different & things could change just like that... so there's no doubt that for some people it might be too much. But if you're able to do these things, then there's no doubt in my mind that you'll find this program to be an incomparable experience.

Even if you feel like the program might be too much for you, or you are undecided about whether to join or not, or are simply just looking for chances for the sake of looking for them-- I still very much recommend coming to check the place out. Not only is the campus extremely beautiful, and a very scenic place to visit, but it also holds a lot of historical value. You could come check out the windmill, to surround yourself with nature, while having a chance to talk to us face to face, for no amount of well-written reviews can do this place justice as seeing it in person does.

I've started the program a month ago. Now as we are getting more and more into the studies my excitement just keeps growing. I never before experienced studying together with a team, where we can support and teach each other. Another exciting thing about studies is that we choose how we want to learn. Even today we were brainstorming ideas of what kind of alternative studying methods (documentaries, games, museums) we would like to try besides just doing the written study tasks. For the first time in my life, I approached studying by 'what I want to do' and not by 'what I have to do'

Expectations don't always meet reality... luckily! I had to let go of many aspects I expected about DNS and about myself living in a community. I am facing many more challenges than I thought I would and I am learning on a great variety of levels and directions. For example, I didn't know I could be such a good facilitator among group dynamics and at the same time struggle to open up myself to others. DNS is not only a university of pedagogy, it's a school for Life! The people I live with - who come from a great variety of places and backgrounds - are sincere mirrors of the different shades of me, and recognizing myself is not an easy task. I find that the program I'm building together with the other students and the teachers is a powerful fuel for my soul: I still get amazed by the number of things I get to do in just one week, by the power of community, and by the ways in which I'm developing myself. I'm curious to see who I'm going to be at the end of this four-year program.

I've just graduated from DNS college, and I couldn't feel more grateful and fulfilled for all the experiences and perspectives this journey has brought to me, as an individual, as a teacher and as a citizen.

I find it to be a powerful education that invites the students to undergo very different and intense experiences that one is used to, coming from a conventional education background. The student, as a future teacher, after experiencing and studying such profoundly different models of learning has a much more rich, capable and creative backpack to bring with oneself, as a teacher as a social agent of change and empowerment.
To do so, at DNS we constantly engage with a wide range of necessary dialectics such as: global/local, theory/practice, knowledge/experience, individual/collective, teaching/learning and conception/action.
The interdisciplinary approach of DNS studies, together with the constant dialectics between global and local dynamics, for example, met through active, intellectual and physical investigations, such as by travelling, are one of the many elements that enables us, the students, to have a much more complete, critical and integral study of a certain reality, such as the study of the political dynamics, educational practices, welfare system or agricultural policies of a certain region.
Besides, it's not just the object of study that is aimed to be seen integrally. This Pedagogy aims to design spaces for the students to develop holistically. Meaning that it counter-acts on the supremacy and exclusivity of the development of the rational part of humans. On the other hand, it sheds the light, values and stimulates the learning and development of the student in its various spheres of existence, such as the practical, emotional, social and creative.
And this program-centered education has much more in its sleeve!
Each year's class of students operate as a collective and therefore are named as "teams". Where the teacher takes part as a participant, but mostly as a facilitator of the team's learning processes through out the study program's frames.
In these circles, each and everyone of the students have the space to actively participate in the unfolding of their own education. This freedom sheds the light to its long-living partner: responsibility. This individual and common responsibility to be the driving forces of one's educational journey leads the students to experience a shared ownership over their studying and living. For me, this one of the strongest emancipating forces that makes us see, think and feel on how much of actors of our lives, of our world we CAN be. And how much is necessary we take that responsibility strongly, and stop being mere spectators of the world's unfoldings.

In the end, DNS makes you go through a much revealing revolution, both at the personal and collective level. And leaves profoundly marked on you how much we CAN and MUST do, as humans, teachers and citizens to collective and actively shape our futures into a more just, sustainable, peaceful and liberating world for all.

I have only enrolled a few months ago but I feel that I have already learned so much. Right now I have joined the Saving Up period and I am working with some of my team mates in Tvind Campus's Care Home.

Why did I join DNS? :D
I have a unsaciable hunger for knowledge and a huge appetite of sharing it. I want to share the feeling of getting "mindblown" with everyone, so I might aswell be a teacher. I question what I do in life all the time, like any critical thinker; so when I think "How can I have the best positive impact possible in this world full of crisis?" the best answer so far has been to take part in the urgent need to reform our education system. I know I will have the most amazing 4 years of my life here. I expect to grow a lot as a person and to be prepared to anything life throws at me when I graduate. Wether or not I will be a teacher, this program prepares me for LIFE.