permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

I've been enjoying the many thoughtful comments on this thread. The one
strand I'm in disagreement with is the notion that charging money for Pc
teaching or consulting is unethical. So, as someone who has taught
permaculture, I'd like to address this question. What I'm asking for here
is for us to question and assess our assumptions.
  Part of the problem is that we alternative types equate money with
something evil. Most of us need a certain amount of money to survive. I'll
take that as a given, and sidestep the whole huge issue of the ethics of
money. So the question is, why are we willing to pay a doctor or mechanic,
yet balk when someone wants to charge for teaching permaculture? Is it
because most of us on this listserv are trained in permaculture, and resent
someone from our community charging for knowledge that we could gain with a
little effort? This doesn't seem logical; I can grow my own food, but I
willingly pay a farmer to buy what I don't grow myself.
 I want to dismiss the idea that teachers earn a high hourly wage. You may
say, hey, 10  students for a day at $35 is $350, that's a lot. No, it
isn't. To prepare one of my two-hour workshops took reading 4 textbooks,
countless hours on the internet and out observing, and in teaching it 6
times, 4  were for free.  I've earned $80 for the workshop, or about $1.50
an hour. If I teach it 15 more times I'll earn the US minimum wage. That's
typical.
  Others resent Pc teachers charging for info that is available in books
and elsewhere. Teachers are reaching people with a particular learning
style. Some people learn by reading, others by solo trial and error. That's
great! But some-the audience for courses-learn best by being with someone
with experience. (I might add that you can gain wisdom from a good teacher
that a book or internet will never teach you. Knowledge isn't wisdom)
   Or it may be that there is a glut of teachers and designers trying to
reach too small an audience: a hothouse effect. The glut, I think, is
because most of us in Pc (in the US, at least) are from middle- and
upper-middle class backgrounds and thus want intellectual work. For most of
us, farming, though a noble profession, isn't a real option. That leaves
design, teaching, land development, and planning. Development takes money,
and planning means dealing with bureaucracy. Ergo, we teach and design.
  Are teachers and designers trying to, as has been suggested, restrict the
flow of information and thus charge for it? My own experience is that
teachers love to share knowledge: that's why we do it. All the Pc teachers
and designers I know spend far more time working for free than for pay. But
we are trying to make a living that combines our love of Pc with our love
of teaching. I can't agree with the person who found fault with designers
who offer free "generic" Pc advice, but beyond that, want to charge for a
site visit. Once you're past the generic point, a site visit is essential,
or you risk improper advice. Would you trust a doctor who never saw a
patient? Again, that viewpoint assumes that it's unethical to charge for
permaculture design work. Why is Pc design different from, say, carpentry
or teaching English? How much work should someone do with no compensation?
  Perhaps the problem is because much of Pc knowledge is intuitive and
homespun, almost obvious in a sense, and comes largely from observation.
Anyone can do it. So we may resent paying someone for telling us something
that, in hindsight, seems obvious.The problem here is the incestuous nature
of Pc. Teachers and designers have got to expand to an audience that hasn't
taken a Pc course, and we're not doing that.
   Maybe as Holmgren suggests, we don't need professional permaculturists,
just architects, teachers, farmers, etc. with a Pc perspective. But in this
very young field, the niches are still in flux, and I believe that for the
time being, there's a real value-even one worth money-in promoting
permaculture by teaching and design.

Toby



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