permaculture

[EFMonaco <EFMonaco@compuserve.com>]

Scott & company,
I thought I'd dodge this thread because it comes around every couple of
quarters or so, and the responses are always the same.  I agree with Scott
but there's more to say.  I too got more out of a two-week design course
than I had gotten from any other prior experience.  It's an
awareness-raising process and the price is worth whatever you have to pay. 
When one is ready for the experience one will find a way to attend.  As for
starving teachers.... its true, there's no money in permaculture education.
  While others have admirably survived at the poverty level, personally, I
quit trying to teach formal courses due to my personal needs not being met.
 Now I do gorilla teaching.  Pernmaculture has many forms, and can be
practiced in a number of ways over a wide variety of disciplines and areas
of influence.  The notion that its just for farmers is just the first
phase.  Permaculture is for everybody.  Bill always said that the bad
teachers weed themselves out becuase they won't attract enough students to
survive.  If we're all starving, it might be time to question the format. 
This too has been debated; some feeling the 2-week format is inadequate and
we should be doing the old 3-week format.  Its kinda like planting
something that doesn't grow well in an area.  Does it make sense to sit
there and complain about structural problems, and poor soil conditions, and
how farmers just can't make it anymore?  I'm here to tell you that even 3
weeks isn't enough.  It takes the rest of one's life.  So how much is
enough? and how much should it cost?  Lets keep experimenting, but lets not
get discouraged by measuring our success with yesterday's yardstick.  Can
you find a way to make a difference?  Have you learned something new today?
 These are the measures of success.
My two-rants worth,
Gene Monaco
Knoxville, TN

Message text written by Scott Pittman
>This letter is starting to feel like a ramble when what I really wanted to
say was I have known only a couple of teachers of permaculture who weren't
worth ten times what they were paid, expecially when you see the final
results as expressed by their students and their students students and
their... etc.

 


<