Welcome to the Bardic Youth Course, the first of three grades in the Grove of Dana: Online College of Druidism. To begin the course, make sure to read the instructions below carefully.

Below you will find the links you need for downloading the course material. The course is not like other college or high school courses you may have taken. It approaches education from a contemplative perspective, and forces you not only to look at the material, but how that material affects you. 

You are free to go as fast or slow as you like, and are not required to wait for our feedback before going on to the next assignment within the same lesson block. However, because of the extended assignment, the course will take you one year, so you might consider pacing yourself with the lessons to compensate for this. If you finish the material before you finish the extended assignment, you will still have to wait. 

HOW TO GET STARTED?

Download the zip file from the link above to your computer. Unzip the file, so you can access the documents inside. 

The first file you should read is the README.pdf document. This document contains important information that you need to know before you start the course. Most importantly, you may need parental approval to join the course, depending on the local law of your country and your age (most commonly in many countries, if you are younger than 13 years old). In the first lesson block below, you will find instructions on how to send in a parental approval slip if needed, before you proceed with the course lessons.

The PDF document "Bardic Youth Course" contains the course handbook, which you need to start reading. Start at lesson 1, completing the assignments given, and work your way down. When you are ready to begin your first assignment(s), you can upload them below in the lesson block of the same name as the chapter you've been working on. You will be assigned a mentor, who will grade your assignments and give feedback where and if needed; you will need to wait until the mentor has graded you until you can continue to the next lesson block. You can find the name of your mentor by clicking "My Mentor" in the Main Menu (side column).

Although you are free to go as fast or slow as you like, we encourage you to take at least a week with each assignment. This will allow you to spend some time with the content of the lessons, contemplating and engaging them intellectually as well. For this reason there is a minimum time limit of one year on this course. Assignments are graded on a 100-point scale and a cumulative value of 70% is required to complete each program.

There are three ways in which you can submit your assignment:

1. You can write your assignment in a text document and upload it in the relevant lesson below. Please use regular formats such as .txt, .rtf or .doc. The program Microsoft Word is most commonly used.
2. You can use the online text editor found in each lesson after clicking "add submission". When ready, click "save changes" and your assignment will automatically be submitted to that particular lesson.
3. You can use our "Online Text Editor" (see "Main Menu" on the side), which will load in your browser window. This editor will only let you create NEW documents, not load and change existing ones. You will then need to save the document to your computer, and upload it to the relevant lesson block.

COURSE DISCUSSION AND SUPPORT

The Student Forum (see Main Menu on the side) can be used to discuss the course and assignments with other students in this course. The forum is not intended to get technical support for the college or the website in general.

If you are in need of technical support in regards to the college, please only use the "Support Helpdesk". We can't guarantuee you will receive a response if you try to contact us with technical questions in other channels (email, forums, private message, activity wall, ...).

JOURNAL: FINAL PROJECT

At some point in the course (chapter 2.6), you will be asked to work in a Final Project which will take a year to complete. To help you with this project, you can make use of a journay which you can update regularly. The journal will not be displayed within the lesson blocks, but right below here instead. Whatever you write in there may be read by the mentor, but will not be graded. The Final Project assignment will be uploaded at the end of the course in chapter 7.

This course is mainly intended for young students of age 18 and below, but age is not a requirement to join this course. Before you begin the course, keep in mind that depending on the local law of your country and your age, you may need parental approval to join this course (most commonly in many countries, if you are younger than 13 years old). If that appears to be the case, please have your parent(s) or guardian(s) fill out the parental approval slip for this course.

Keep in mind that you are responsible for complying to local law, and the New Order of Druids or the Grove of Dana cannot be held responsible for neglected requirements.

You can find the parental approval slip in the Bardic Youth Course Package download, or you can download it below as

PDF DOCUMENT   or  WORD DOCUMENT

(Note: Right Click and select “save as” to download to your computer)

If a parental approval slip is needed, you can upload the filled out document below using the "Upload Parental Approval Slip" link. If you don't legally require parental approval because of your age or the local laws of your country, you do not need to upload or send us anything.

If you can't scan the approval slip after it has been filled out, you can also send it by fax to +32 311 50 16.
If you have issues finding a way to send us the approval slip and the above options are not possible for you, please send an email to college@druidcircle.net so we can provide another solution for you.

After you have uploaded the parental approval slip, click the "Complete parental requirements" link to finish this section and start with the course.

If you don't need parental approval, you also need to click the "Complete parental requirements" link, and select option 1: "I am 13 years old or older, or am considered old enough to take this course without parental approval according to the law of my country" in order to begin the course.

REMINDER: FINAL PROJECT JOURNAL

For the Final Project it is recommended that you go out in nature about once a week, if you can, or at least twice a month to have a good idea of how nature around you develops. Try to spend some time each week in the same spot (preferably at least an hour or longer), even if it is just a visit to a nearby park or lake.

This you can write down in your Journal on the College each time, so you can later put it all together in one written assignment. The Journal can be found on the main page of the Bardic Youth Course, right below the main information and just above the "Parental Approval" lesson block.

Your mentor read by the journal entry, and offer some feedback but will not be graded.

REMINDER: FINAL PROJECT JOURNAL

For the Final Project it is recommended that you go out in nature about once a week, if you can, or at least twice a month to have a good idea of how nature around you develops. Try to spend some time each week in the same spot (preferably at least an hour or longer), even if it is just a visit to a nearby park or lake.

This you can write down in your Journal on the College each time, so you can later put it all together in one written assignment. The Journal can be found on the main page of the Bardic Youth Course, right below the main information and just above the "Parental Approval" lesson block.

Your mentor read by the journal entry, and offer some feedback but will not be graded.

REMINDER: FINAL PROJECT JOURNAL

For the Final Project it is recommended that you go out in nature about once a week, if you can, or at least twice a month to have a good idea of how nature around you develops. Try to spend some time each week in the same spot (preferably at least an hour or longer), even if it is just a visit to a nearby park or lake.

This you can write down in your Journal on the College each time, so you can later put it all together in one written assignment. The Journal can be found on the main page of the Bardic Youth Course, right below the main information and just above the "Parental Approval" lesson block.

Your mentor read by the journal entry, and offer some feedback but will not be graded.