permaculture

["Darren Doherty" <darren@permaculture.biz>]

G'day,
I trust that this greets you all well...

It is perhaps timely to give something from the, or rather 'an' Australian
experience.

We basically have 3 systems at work:

1. The Permaculture Institute or TPI (Australia ie. Bill Mollison's)
"Permaculture Design Certificate Course" or PDCC (copy of current
Permaculture Design Certificate or PDC is at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/permaculture.biz/PermacultureInstituteTeacherRegistration29/photo#5197386852660307586).
Since
2002 this certificate has only been able to be given by Registered Teachers
of TPI (copy of TPI Teacher Registration Certificate is at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/permaculture.biz/PermacultureInstituteTeacherRegistration29/photo#5119561015762903090),
whereas before there was an 'unregulated' system where basically anybody who
had done a PDC could buy PDCC's from TPI and provide them to graduates of
their respective courses. There was some disquiet at the time about this
system being established but now it is there and people choose to be a part
of it or not. The basic process is pretty simple: you submit your syllabus
and any course materials demonstrating that you cover the curriculum:
'Permaculture: A Designers Manual' or PDM....this is a heady task in itself
and we have managed it I'll say just: todays' various creative teaching
methods certainly helps as has going out to 14 days instead of 12 or 13....9
would be tough, if not impossible for many students....

I am in two minds about putting up my syllabus online (alone with just
everything else at Google Documents!) as at once I want to be having these
discussions with my peers but I don't want any prospective students seeing
what is really my script or running sheet....especially when in a course I
change it all of the time due to their requirements or unforeseen time
constraints - I have had negative feedback from some students who have been
inadvertantly given my syllabus prior to the course only to find that I am a
bit more 'flexible' than that, as I believe one needs to be! For the record
we do 'Day to a Subject' in the same order of chapters as in the PDM.

Bill's strategy for making the PDC as 72 hours was that that was equivalent
to one subject of one semester in mainstream tertiary institutions. More
information on the TPI Teacher Registration process and the register of
teachers itself can be found at: http://www.tagari.com/index.php?page_id=18

2. Accredited Permaculture Training or APT which is owned and administered
by Permaculture International Limited or PIL. This was organised by some of
Australia's leading Permaculture Teachers as a means of getting Permaculture
training into mainstream education....It has been successful at doing so and
will continue to be as it is attractive to mainstream institutions,
educators and to businesses who require that their employees have
appropriate trade qualifications. Whilst the PDCC is apparently 'recognised'
(the nature of this recognition is unclear to me) as such by a number of
institutions, the APT does work within the Government accredited process.
More information on APT can be found at:
http://www.permacultureinternational.org/apt

3. Unaccredited/Unregistered system: the 'old' way if you like of people
teaching PDC's and issuing their own certificates from their own institutes
or otherwise according to their own standards and curriculum's, the latter
often aligned with the PDM but then often having a more regional focus and
therefore not covering all of the climate zones or missing earthworks or
whatever...This suits some who don't want to have a relationship with TPI
for whatever reason or who have their own institutions and outlooks on all
of this. This type of course is by far in the minority here in Australia as
many of the more experienced PDC teachers are now in one or the other
aforementioned systems, with a few notable exceptions...some of whom deliver
very high quality courses and outcomes others who don't. To Bill the law of
the jungle applies, as it does to the other modes, "if you are a crap
teacher then you won't get any new students"....

On the latter point I think that the same crude rule of feedback applies to
Professional PC Designer's as well....this places some natural/financial
limits on some, and I would suggest most, who are endeavouring to enter into
the foray of Pro PC Design. Clearly the ratio of students of PDC's:Pro PC
Designer's and PC Teachers for that matter is pretty low....PC practitioners
is another matter though and these folk are the 'grunt' of the movement with
their daily application of the principles of Permaculture, and in the
conversations that they have with their families, neighbours, communities
and by the consumer choices that they make along the way, not least the way
they vote mindful of all this stuff.

All the best,

Darren Doherty




2008/5/7 Keith Morris <earthsurfing@yahoo.com>:

> Hello Friends and Colleagues,
>
> I am so glad to see the topic finally on this list-serve, thanks to those
> who brought it up!  And thanks to everyone who's chimed in.  (I only wish it
> weren't happening during a time of year when I try to (need to) have as
> little to do with the computer as possible!)
>
> When a Texan began advertising 9 day certification courses in New
> Hampshire and Massachusetts on the Northeastern Permaculture webpage- I
> drafted a letter wondering how he could be doing full certification in only
> 9 days.  After doing the math, I realized that, technically, 9 eight-hour
> days is "72 hours", so I didn't send the letter...  but still I wonder about
> the integrity of this course.  My understanding was a 12 day minimum, and
> even really isn't enough time...
>
> If the organizers of this course are on this list- please share your
> perspective!  I certainly don't intend to make assumptions- but am now
> wondering aloud what I had been wondering privately- the topic is certainly
> worthy of discussion...
>
> But at the heart of this, as Tom pointed out, is a great deal of confusion
> about what "Certification" really means.  I think we need to reach some
> consensus, but don't think that this can (or necessarily should) be codified
> or enforced.  Allow me to explain...
>
> When I graduate students, its explained that the "Certificate" means
> they've completed the 'Internationally Recognized Course', not that they are
> "Certified Permaculture Designers".  (Dave Jacke's certificates actually
> state 'Design Trainee'.)  Its asked that any student document at least 2
> years of work designing, implementing, studying with a mentor, etc. before
> they use the word Permaculture in a business (farm, designer, whatever).
>  Its further specified that after the two years, a Teacher Training and/ or
> Teaching Apprenticeship is needed before one can offer the course, and even
> then ideally as part of a more experienced team.
>
> The required building of a portfolio for two years is one of the greatest
> assets of this system.  In my experience, this is how people's own homes,
> youth groups, churches, boy and girls clubs, homeless shelters, and other
> organizations that could use permaculture but aren't looking to hire
> someone, get designs done and planted for their sites.  Its also how
> designers can work in their home communities and helps breaks the cycle of
> permaculture as strictly 'landscaping for the rich'.  It also how a number
> of good designers have built their reputations.
>
> That being said, it all needs to be balanced by two facts:
>
> 1.  Permaculture solutions need to begin to be implemented wherever,
> whenever, and as soon as possible.
>
> 2.  Every person is different!
>
> These both may be obvious, but they are specifically why 'codifying' or
> 'enforcing' may be antithetical to permaculture.  I teach at colleges, where
> the classes are filled mostly with young people trying to figure out what
> they will do with their lives.  In this context, the extended study/ design
> course as spring-board to lifetime of learning and doing is particularly
> important to stress (as well as how to live permaculture even if you don't
> 'own' land).
>
> But, I also teach at a Design Build School where most participants are
> already professionals established in their fields: architects, farmers,
> educators, whatever.  Here, the same 'expectations' are stated, but I
> certainly hope that an architect with her own firm begins to integrate
> permaculture solutions into her work the very day she leaves the course!  I
> also hope the same would be true of the grade school teacher, and don't
> really care whether he calls the educational forest garden he has students
> designing and planting 'permaculture' or not.
>
> I think there are two quotes from the founders of permaculture
> particularly relevant here:
>
> When we had David Holmgren here for a NEPC networking event, he stressed:
> "Permaculture is not a profession."  I'll paraphrase the rest... we need
> permaculture to inform all professions: attorneys, accountants, school
> teachers, etc.
>
> I think we need to escape the mindset of permaculture only espousing
> 'designers' and 'teachers' and let people live it in the millions of ways
> we've yet to see it expressed.  There may not be 'demand' for legions of
> more designers and teachers, but there certainly is demand for everyone to
> start living this!
> Permaculture design and teaching aren't specialized fields, this is a
> CULTURE.  These ideas should be in every grade school: growing plants,
> supplementing classrooms and cafeterias; in the design of every home, town,
> farm, business, city, whatever...
>
> In 1996, Bill Mollison wrote: "...Today, with hundreds of itinerant
> teachers turning up anywhere, the system is beyond restraint.  Safe at last,
> and in a geometric growth stage.  We won.  Permaculture is permanently
> ungovernable."
>
> This is not to say that it isn't our role to have conversations just like
> these to maintain integrity, and continue to build consensus.  I am glad to
> know there are more than one 'Permaculture Institute', shouldn't there be?
>  Why would we want to recognize political boundaries that are held contrary
> to ecological communities and culture groups?
>
> Adam, thank you for your offer of a wiki- there has been a loosely
> organized discussion focused on these issues on the Northeastern
> Permaculture Network Wiki since 2005.  I'd invite anyone to contribute, and
> there are a number of resources valuable to folks from any region.
>
> I also like Steve's idea of publishing people's designs on the web,
> something else we have been playing with the northeastern wiki.  Wiki's are
> one potential model for this collaboration in providing feedback.
>
> Thanks everyone for your ideas, and thanks for letting me babble on the
> topic!
>
> In Solidarity,
> Keith
>
>
>
> Keith Morris
>  Prospect Rock Permaculture
>  earthsurfing@yahoo.com
>  (802) 734.1129
>  PO Box 426
>  Jeffersonville, VT 05464
>
>  "If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable."
>  -Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it
> now.
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> Google command to search archives:
> site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring
>
>
>


-- 
Hooroo,
Darren J. Doherty

www.permaculture.biz
PhotoLog: http://picasaweb.google.com/permaculture.biz

+61 (3) 9010 6220
skype: permaculture.biz

Dalpura Workshop Series May-July 2008
Keyline Design Course
Ferrocement Tank Building
Farm-Based Silviculture
See Ads @
Hi Broadband:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5883954188786786814&hl=en