DNS Necessary Teacher Training College

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.

Although I've been here for not full 2 years, DNS has already influenced me on so many levels and has been part of some biggest changes in my personality and perspective upon the world and society. It really is another kind of education; where you are treated differently, constantly challenged and taught to think critically and outside of the box. This school is placed in the community, so as such I have an opportunity to live a life where I am not just an individual focused on myself, but whatever I do I contribute to bigger good and others benefit from it as well. It is unexplainable how it feels like to be able to study about the world, learn from it and work together with many people for the same goal. If you are sick and tired of casual schooling system where your voice and opinion don't matter, you want to learn how to become an active citizen and have bigger knowledge about the world, DNS is a place for you!

DNS is a necessary teacher training college for the people, who are interested to learn about the World through traveling, experiencing, investigating. Who believes that there is something better to learn for.
Besides the travel, the amazing experiences, the studies there is the aspect of the community, the team, which you are closely working, studying and living. From my point of view this is one of the uniqueness of this education, where you get together with people who you are going to share 4 years of your life. In the team not just studies, daily life, but also decisions, sometimes struggles are shared, because it is like a body, which moves together and if a part is not functioning then we all have to fix it in order to move forward.

When I started DNS I was 21, with no experience of living in such a community and moreover I never experienced to have a group of people, who I have to get to know closely, to study together and share my everyday life. In the beginning it was difficult to imagine how a TEAM supposed to work, how do we share and take decisions together. For example through the travel of Africa, which route we should take, or before European reality to decide which is the city where we would like to live for 6 months, or even which subject do we want to study and how do we want to do it as a TEAM.
To be honest there were ups and downs, but what I really can say that we learn; every individual matters and that we are going for the same goal, to bring something new to this World. It might sounds abstract, but in the end every one of us makes a difference.

Everyone matters and can make difference, it's up to you!!

In DNS, my whole life literally changed. I came with a big excitement for this opportunity of alternative learning. Meeting the students left me only with a definite, positive decision about joining. They were all so unique, so different and yet they all had the same wish: to change themselves and the world around them.

And so i joined. I had lots of struggles, i felt challenged on all levels: physically, emotionally, and mentally. I had the opportunity to learn by working in all kinds of works, something that i would never expect. It make me a much more confident and capable person in creating things with my hands, feeling deeply with my heart, and producing world changing thoughts and considerations with my mind.

I still have a long way to go(been to Africa already) and i know that day by day i will get more critical, political, empathetic and passionate activist and world citizen. But most important than everything, DNS helped me find my own voice among a crowd of unique, authentic individuals.

I arrived to this diverse community only a month ago, but already had so many possibilities to take part in different activities such as a variety of sports, singing around the bonfire, having late evening chats with a cup of tea, go for jogging or doing yoga by the nearby fishing lake in the precious sunshine, or painting. I not only participated in a welcoming challange-journey with my team, but also organised a big olympic event for students with special needs, which gave light to my purpose of being here, being active and dedicated to this sustainable lifestyle.
You might be wondering how so many different personalities can match their own wishes, thoughts and approches. It is all about wanting to understand. We were not created, or pulled together, we wanted to be together, it is not a forced community, it formed itself naturally by giving credit to former DNS-ers' desires and beliefs.
"Big words. Small gestures. And tiny details.
-What is it about?
- Must be community..."

First I will write in English and then in Romanian. For me this place is an open space and also a good start in life. It is open space because you can take easily initiative to make something fun as sports and people will help you to achieve your initiative. It is for me a good start in life because now days I think in the normal sistem that we have today divides people and here you can be a part of a great comunity. I like the accomodation. The food is great.
What I like is that I can be part of an active community that fights for the world and for the people in it. Also the community is very supportive.

Cum aș putea pune mai bine in cuvinte care este experiența mea in DNS?

Sunt de părere că și român că ce se întâmplă aici poate fi foarte nou pentru noi și că oamenii sunt foarte deschiși. Este foarte nou pentru că stilul de viață este foarte sănătos și sistematizat Intr un fel. Aproape totul este făcut organizat și primești ajutor din partea a multor oameni de aici. Cred că am putea să implementăm în viața noastră ce fac ei aici, mai ales că interacțiunile dintre oameni sunt bazate pe încredere și asta este foarte diferit. Cat timp faci ceea ce spui, ești civilizat și liber iar în același timp îți faci treaba nu ar trebui să ai probleme stand aici. Sper că programul DNS să vă ofere poate o noua perspectivă despre cum ar trebui să fie viața și despre problemele actuale în societate și nu numai.

DNS teacher training college is a unique program. It promots everything what I find important in an education. It gives an opportunity to study in an alternative way about pedagogy. Connect people with the world and at the same time present freedom to be yourself. Here matters who you are and who you want to be.

DNS promotes healthy lifestyle by growing own garden, what later on use for cooking. The other way is the sport. Generally DNS have sport evenings, BUT certain times we organize sport events for example Olimpic games.

Come and be another kind of teacher! ; - )