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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] "certified permaculture designers"

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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] "certified permaculture designers"
  • Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:25:58 -0700

The ecological restoration industry has the same problems, with considerably more money changing hands (which typically motivates the formation of guilds to protect trademarks). So take your pick... movement or industry.
In my opinion, saying I am a 'permaculture designer' won't land me any jobs, however I have been paid well for doing landscape designs and ecological revegetation, many of which incorporate as much permaculture as the client can stomach, or at least as much of a self designing polyculture as I can muster.

The critical step in a movement however is making everyone into designers -- the path back to stewardship of land -- not trying to design and sell a brand name business model.

Paul Cereghino



Robert Waldrop wrote:

The protocol for the Barking Frogs online Permaculture Design Course, which is included in the preregistration packet linked on this page http://www.barkingfrogspermaculture.org/onlinepdc.htm , and is taught by Dan Hemenway (very distant relation of Toby I think), says that if you take the course for "certification", at the end you are certified as an "entry-level permaculturist". After 2 years of study and work, I am about to submit the permaculture design report for my urban property here in Oklahoma City (which is my design practicum), and if as a result I am certified, I am really clear in my own mind that I am an "apprentice" with much more to learn.

Bob Waldrop, tadpole in training
Oklahoma City

----- Original Message ----- From: "Toby Hemenway" <toby@patternliteracy.com>

A note about the use of terms. Taking a 72-hour design course does not
make you a "certified permaculture designer." The original certificates
from Mollison say, in some cases, that the holder "has successfully
completed a permaculture design course" and other certificates from him
say "is a permaculture design trainee." Somehow in later iterations by
other teachers, usually a few generations removed from Bill, people got
the idea that a PDC made you a professional, certified designer.
Seventy-two hours is the equivalent of two college classes but with no
homework, which is not enough to make anyone a designer. Bill has been
very firm about this, and most of the old-school teachers feel the same
way. I believe it's generally thought that getting a diploma from the
Permaculture Institute after two years of study under a mentor is what
is required to call yourself a certified designer (right, Scott or Robyn
or any of you long-time Pc teachers?). It's unfortunate that this
"resume bloat" has led to so many people thinking the PDC makes them a
certified designer, instead of a design trainee.

I'd be happy to hear anyone's thoughts, pro or con, about this.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com

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