permaculture

[Meg Mullett <meg@kcnet.com>]

Stephanie wrote:
> But getting back to my initial question, I’d really appreciate an insightful
> discussion about the application of Permaculture principles to Permaculture
> education…
> 
> peace
> *Stephanie

Excellent post, Stephanie!  I too have been observing this discussion
with great interest.  Even the angry stuff I have found fascinating as
examples of how we humans communicate and express ourselves.

Getting to your request for discussion of permaculture principles for
permaculture education, here are a few of my thoughts:

One of the basic principles of permaculture is observation and
replication of natural patterns.  As to education, I feel that means we
need to study and mimic the methods humans naturally use to learn and
change.  Luckily, there are all sorts of resources out there on adult
education and methods of instruction.  Here are a few tenets of adult
education I know of that I feel are relevent to the present discussion.

1.  Repetition.  The average adult human has to hear something at least
6 times before it sticks.  The principle of advertising.


2.  The average adult human has to *do* something for at least 6 weeks
before it sticks.  Why most diet or fitness plans fail.  Why most school
terms are at least 6 weeks long. 


3.  There is an "AHA!" moment, also called a "teaching moment" where
people are more willing to be taught, or to change their behavior.  This
moment usually occurs when the human has a problem.   People, like most
animals, are generally resistant to change, and will only do so when the
present system/method/product does not perform as expected.

Okay.  So how does this apply to permaculture education?  

My personal opinion is that we should be seeking out those "AHA" moments
and "infiltrating" at that time.  This thread has shown that several
different people have different target audiences to whom they wish to
bring permaculture education.  Some are aiming for urban poor, others
small farmers, others large agribusiness, still others yuppie
suburbanites.  Each sector is going to have different problems and will
each need different methods of information dispersement.

Here's my personal example.  I am a small farm owner.  My personal
experiments are beginning to show me that goats and vineyards go well
together.  Organic vineyards in the midwest require, because of fungal
disease pressures, a great deal of vineyard cleanup in the fall, which
the goats can do (as well as provide lots of poopy straw and hay for
fertilization and mulching).  Goat owners are finding that most chemical
wormers are becoming less and less effective.  Tannins found in grape
leaves, stems and seeds have anthelmintic properties, though, and I have
found that allowing the goats to have a few good feeds on the grapevines
at certain times of the year is reducing my need to worm them at regular
intervals, while not compromising the vines themselves or reducing the
crop.  It will probably be several more years before I'm ready to
publish any results.  I still have alot of experiments to do first. 

So, I've got two target audiences, goat owners and viticulturalists both
of which are having problems, hence teachable moments.  How to best get
the information out?  The answer to that is the question how do these
people get most of their information already?  The answer to that is
through their extension services, the USDA, and professional
organizations.  All of which are closely tied to their states land grant
universities.  So what this says to me is that I need to present my
findings in such a way as to make the extension services, USDA, etc take
notice.  I need to take enough notes and organize my experiments in a
professional and scientific enough way as to hopefully merit funding for
further study and publication of the results.

THEN, the door to permaculture is opened.  Those goat farmers coming to
visit might also notice that the goats are not our only crop.  That we
use guinea fowl to assist with fly control.  That we rotate goats then
pigs then vegetable crop on various areas.  Grape growers might also see
that guineas keep down the japanese beetles, that we grow our own bamboo
grapestakes using our recycled grey water.  That grapeskins and seeds
make good pig food, compost and mulch.   And even Martha Stewart can
find that chevon chops smoked over grapevines served with a heady local
red wine is a *good thing*.

And THAT'S when the word "permaculture" is said over and over (at least
6 times) and courses are offered (over 6 weeks) and we speak to the
local 4H clubs, and begin to educate in permaculture.  :)

So there's my big plan for permaculture education.  Study your target
group.  Find out their problems and how they usually get information. 
Design a permaculture solution and infiltrate their usual information
network to get the word out.  The door then opens and the "AHA"s start
happening.

Peace
Meg in KS

ps  - As to the whole cup washing story.  Really interesting.   I
believe, though,  that that doesn't really say as much about ownership
and/or responsibility as it does about people not liking change.  People
didn't wash the cups without their name on it because that wasn't what
they were accustomed to doing.  I'm quite sure that given enough time,
they would have either come up with another system (everybody take turns
washing all the cups, for example), or found a sharpie and rewritten the
names and returned to the system they were used to.