Newsletter June 2013
Newsletter from The DNS Teams
www.dns-tvind.dk
”DNS TVIND”
The Necessary Teacher Training College June 2013 www.dns-tvind.dk
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Newsletter June 2013
WHAT IS NEW IN JUNE? Picture Galleries
Summer Theatre in Tvind, Rūta DNS2009
Enjoy our Picture Gallery about everyday life in Tvind. See more...
In June we enjoyed Summer Theatre. Take a look on the performances. See more...
Every year we organize a big theatre event in Tvind. The idea is to bring many people and enjoy each other's theatre performances…Read more...
Flying Balloon,
Literacy of Disabled People,
Gunars DNS2010
Adriana DNS2012 One very important duty of a teacher in first grade is to teach how to read and write. Reading and writing is an important tool, not only for further education, it em-
Relax! There is peace and quiet, you see a plane far away, you see fields and houses that look like little toys, clouds that are in the reach of your hand. Read more... braces much more. . Read more...
PTG - a Work in Continuous Change, Laura DNS2013 Do you like your work? Every time somebody asks me this question I’m very happy to answer:” YES! I love it!” Read more...
Summer Camp in Tvind 2013 We have the
hereby
pleasure to invite you to join the Summer Camp in Tvind! Read more...
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Newsletter June 2013
PICTURE GALLERY
Life in Tvind
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Newsletter June 2013
PICTURE GALLERY
Summer Theatre 2013
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Newsletter June 2013
Summer Theatre in Tvind, Rūta DNS2009 Every year we organize a big theatre event in Tvind. The idea is to bring many people and enjoy each other's theatre performances. The event takes place over three days, first two days there is a school competition, the third day our schools for adults are playing their performances for each other: volunteers and DNS'ers. But about everything from the beginning… I'm a student from the last, 4th year team and this year my team was in charge of organizing the whole event and to prepare a two-hour theatre play in two weeks. All of us - 13 people - divided our tasks: The Food Group was responsible for food, meaning to make the menu and produce the food for the whole week for 150 people and for 700 people when the event started. Some had to prepare eating places for 500 expected guests, to rent tables, chairs and tents. Others signed up for transforming the sports hall into a theatre hall and also finding and preparing accommodation for all our guests. For the whole week during the days, we were planning and preparing practical tasks for the upcoming event and afternoons rehearsing our theatre play, finding props and costumes.
selves into different groups in order to accomplish all the tasks before the event should start. Each day we were starting with morning meeting, to see how it was going for each group and then we were continuing the preparations. It was amazing to see how we were able to prepare everything in time and to a very good quality. Team work, cooperation and good planning are very important elements in preparing such events. ”The day” started on Friday and around 700 people have gathered in Tvind. Year after year, it is one of the biggest experiences for our students. It is a unique opportunity to perform on a real stage in front of so many people. Personally for me it was nice to see the students I have been working with in my previous teaching practice and they made me feel proud. The event went smooth and I guess all the people who took part in it were enjoying each other company, the theater, and being part of organizing it.
PS. When an event is running smoothly and calmly with some 500 small school students from 20 different schools – all teenagers and former troubled kids, it looks easy. But it is not. As I explained here, hours and hours of work, decisions taken, moving around our surroundings in parks and buildings, making a Theater Hall our of a sport hall…. All of it hapSecond week before the event, we opened the pen in a basic agreement of ambition of high quality preparation camp, where 30 volunteers, preparing to everywhere and high standards of the performances go to work in different projects in Africa and India, among teachers and students together. joined us. During the camp we again distributed our-
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Newsletter June 2013
Flying Balloon, Gunars DNS2010 Relax! There is peace and quiet, you see a plane far away, you see fields and houses that look like little toys, clouds that are in the reach of your hand. You are 1000 meters above the ground, you are flying in a hot air balloon. That was my experience during the flight with one of Denmark´s official hot air balloon teams, which happens to be a part of our school. I guess a small introduction is needed before I continue my story. Denmark`s hot air balloon team is manned by teachers and students from Tvind school center. They are participating in championships around the world and flying with private guests. All the profits, the balloon team makes go to support “TCE” - an antiAids/HIV project. The opportunity came unexpected; we were working together on some practical stuff, when there was a question from our pilotPalle: “Weather is good today, want to go for a flight in the evening???” Of course I said yes, who would let an opportunity like that slide? So in the evening we were setting up the balloon and flying. I was excited about the opportunity, as it turned out this was the first flight of this year. It was a calm experience, nothing like the plane ride that has a lot of noise and moves fast. The balloon follows the wind and it feels like you are hovering in the air calmly observing everything below you. Maybe it is just me, but I found the setup and the knowledge behind it more interesting than the ac-
tual flight itself. It takesaround 40 minutes for4 people to set up a balloon.It was a lot of fun to do. Especially when the balloon is on the ground and you start heating up the air, the thing is that 2 people have to hold it open while the flame heats up the air. So you get a nice mix of “This is so cool” and “I don`t want to burn my face”. After the first flight, I was invited to help the balloon team with one more flight, this time as part of the ground team. The setup took a bit more time since the wind was on the border where we would have to cancel the flight, but it worked out and the guests could fly. The problem with a hot air balloon is that it flies where the wind takes it, so you have no idea where you will land. The ground team is chasing the balloon with the car and trailer trying to stay as close as possible, that often involves navigating small forest roads. It was a lot of fun to find roads that would lead us as close to the balloon path as we could, using mostly visual contact with the balloon as the only indicator which direction to go. The wind changing was an extra challenge, but thanks to a good map it was possible, even if it was my first time as a navigator for the driver. It was a lot of fun, especially when we found a good landing spot on the route and went over to the local house to ask “Can we land in you field?” It is not a question you usually receive at your doorstep. I really enjoyed this opportunity and hope to do more of it in the future…
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Newsletter June 2013
Literacy of Disabled People, Adriana DNS2012 One very important duty of a teacher in first grade is to teach how to read and write. Reading and writing is an important tool, not only for further education, it embraces much more. Illiterate people face many difficulties in getting completely into society. During my saving up job at the Care Home at DRH Holsted, I got a student with mental disabilities. Nobody completely knows his level of thinking. His problems are very various, but one of the things what I realized: he cannot read and write. I remember quite well how I learned how to read and write and I still have books at home with my first lines, my first words. Now when I look at letters they make sense for me. I asked him, if he would like to try to learn to read? He sadly told me that many people before tried to teach him, but without success. He got demotivated by so many failures. Well, so I tried to find out possibilities how to make it happen. I started to think and investigate how kids without mental disabilities are learning to read. It isa very complex and very exciting topic. I started to think how I could teach my student in a way that he would be able to remember the letters and be able to connect them afterwards. I bought marzipan and I tried to motivate him with a little bit of art. I gave him a sketch of the letter and he was supposed to draw it as good as possible. I was very surprised that it worked so well. He likes to work with his hands, so to create something out of tasty marzipan was the work he really enjoyed. The smell of the candy was filling up the room. Afterwards he was supposed to close his eyes and try to associate parts of the letter to different objects. For example: A has two legs, bridge between the legs and one window. It was very important that he would find the right associations himself. Afterwards, I tried to make him to associate the letter with the correct sound. I gave him examples how to pronunciation the letter A with different sounds. Then he drew the object on the paper with the letter (apple for example). The last part was that we associated the letter with a word,a movement and the right position of the mouth. For example he bites imaginary apple and then say the letter and word correctly. We are going on with more and more letters. I am giving him a text where he has to indentify the letters I am telling him. He is very successful. To learn one letter
maybe takes one hour but learning should not be restricted by time. He takes as much time as he needs. One thing that I have to be aware of, is that I am not going to work there for very long time. I will have to find person who would continue with him in this mission. I call it Mission Possible. I was a little bit scared when we started. He did not need another failure. He was frustrated by the fact that he was not able to do it, even with so many people trying to teach him to read. He is getting more confidence now. Bow I am worried about how it will be when we start to connect words. Language is a complex thing, and to learn how to read is in some way similar to learning a new language. A thing like reading, which we take for granted, can change the life of a person. I think that I am learning as well as my student. I am studying a lot about language, about the pronunciation and also about the children with special needs. Many times I am realizing that their thinking is different but still very creative. My work is to teach, but with teaching also comes the responsibility. I think that it is important that ateacher sees beyond her job, and not just pass on knowledge to their students. A quote from W.A. Ward is saying: “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates, but he great teacher inspires.� I think that we should do our best to be the inspiring ones. :)
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Newsletter June 2013
PTG - a Work in Continuous Change, Laura DNS2013 combination between educational and funny activities. During certain periods of the year, we organize common actions to support the fight against HIV in Africa through a movement call TCE – Total Control of the Epidemic. We mainly go to the streets and talk directly to people to ask their support or we bake cakes and sell them or wash cars. In this way everybody can participate and feel useful. Every student is different, and day by day, little by little I’m discovering different aspects about each of them. Some are more silent and close, others are more spontaneous and direct (very direct :) ) and without any filter. That can be funny or can also be very heavy. But isn´t it the challenges which make you grow and develop? I remember when I started, a completely new adventure in front of me, the students didn’t know me, I didn’t know them. In this kind of job there are some pedagogical rules to respect, but finally you have to find your own way to deal with the students and to gain their respect. And that’s the hardest part but also the one that makes you grow and gives you more “pedagogical” and personal satisfaction.
Do you like your work? Every time somebody asks me this question I’m very happy to answer:” YES! I love it!” Actually I cannot define it as a work in the way our society define this word. I prefer to describe it as a discovery, a challenge, a development. Every day is different, because our students are unpredictable and one thing I love is that I never know what will happen among the students next day. Maybe I’ll come for breakfast at 8.00 as usual, drink a cup of coffee and eat a slice of bread with jam; or maybe I’ll open the kitchen door and find a mess on the floor and a strange “conflict atmosphere” in the air (it happened for real!). And that’s another aspect I love about working in PTG: I’m learning to adapt to many different situations, that can be either very nice or very uncomfortable and difficult. We use to organize a lot of activities for and with the students: trips to the beach on Sunday, we go shopping all together, we go swimming, we cook, we clean. It’s like a big family, everybody is essential to keep a good environment. A part from those daily activities, we travel: we went for a Denmark tour during 5 days. It was really interesting, we visited a prison, a concentration camp When I think about my work in PTG, an African near the German border, we enjoyed Phenomenta (an proverb comes to my mind: “Life is like a chameleon interactive museum about science), we slept in a boat. A skin, it changes continuously.”
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Newsletter June 2013
Summer Camp in Tvind, 2013 If you have younger siblings age 12+ who have no particular program in July, you can invite them to Tvind Summer Camp in weeks 29-30. There are great out door facilities in Tvind. Trampolins, Climbing Wall, Bon Fire Place, Beach Volley, Sport Hall and bicycles for rides to the beach and we go on excursions: Canoeing, Horse Riding, Sheltering, Fishing and Swimming. For more information about date, price and practicalities – please contact:
annica@tvind.dk
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Newsletter June 2013
PICTURE GALLERY
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Newsletter June 2013
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