permaculture

[<permed@nor.com.au>]

>Bill has said that he hoped that others would create their own systems and
>not just parrot/steal his ideas.  I can imagine that this may be a way to
>stop Permaculture from becoming dogma or institutionalized.
Yes, we were encouraged to develop our course curriculla covering the 
essential subject areas, to develop specialist courses and to develop our 
own ideas - the designers manual is full of systems and ideas invented by 
bills students and their students etc. Now it seems innovative thought is 
met with hostility.
It's only been the past few years where Bill has called the designers 
manual 'THE curriculum' and now its claimed to be the only definition of 
permaculture. To be a registered teacher with the institute you have to 
teach the entire designers manual, apparently it doesn't matter how badly 
you teach it, but if you send in a course outline containing all the 
contents of the designers manual you should be right. This to my mind 
smacks of dogma. If the institute were really concerned about the quality 
of courses there would be a quite different process of assessment. Their 
procedures are right out of step in terms of educational processes, both 
mainstream and alternate.
Were the pc inst a democratic organisation with the school of graduates 
(i.e. diploma holders) controlling and collectively agreeing to 
protocols, core curricula subject areas, peer review etc it would be an 
entirely different matter as there would be discussion and collective 
input with these issues, and in a case like TM there would be 
automatically a collective ownership and clearly defined right of use. 
The instute has never been a demoncratic organisation and is fully 
controlled by Bill & Lisa (I don't know if they've appointed another 3rd 
director to replace Scott Pittman yet). The reality is that Bill will not 
live forever, and I wish him a long life and good health, but he is well 
into his 70's and when he returns to the earth who will be in control 
then?
Robyn