permaculture

[ChildrensPeaceGuild <childrenspeaceguild@yahoo.com>]

I am an active member of our local Montessori school here in Silver City,
NM. Our school has a wonderful interactive gardening program for the
children and both the garden director and the school director have great
interest in utilizing our facility for an educational facility for school
gardening and interactive childrens gardening and Permaculture classes. 

This is very exciting to hear. Charlie Headington wrote about Teaching 
Permaculture in a Montessori 
school in Permaculture Activist #53 (Fall '04)

(No,we are not going to make them dig swales or mosh in the Cob pit, that's 
just
not right.) 

Yes, but if they ever voluntarily join in mixing they might not ever 
relinquish their turn on the tarp! I've found that there is little else 
children love more than "mushin' da cob." My friend, who has taught natural 
building workshops for years, says that children make the best cobbers. This 
mirrors Masanobu Fukuoka who said that children are the best at distributing 
seedballs

I have just completed my second Design Certification through the
Permaculture Institute here in New Mexico and, being the father of two
younger children, have noticed a lack of courses across the board which
benefit both the parents (current caregivers of the earth and people) and
their children (future caregivers).

As I understand it, more teachers are helping to arrange weekend courses or 
set-up rotating child care among participants in order to help families 
attend.

I believe that it is not beneficial to make children "Designers", but rather
to give them the experience they need to absorb the practices, ethics, and
principles of Permaculture; leaving the option for them to carry it on
through their lives or just let it rest in their minds. We cannot force
children to be who we want them to be; however, the more doors which have
been opened for them while they are young give them more options for
positive passage through the future.

I couldn't agree with you more! We can not force children to be anything, we 
can only show them positive examples and offer constructive encouragement for 
what they choose to do in life. 




-Roman
Children's PEACE Guild
www.childrenspeaceguild.webs.com




________________________________
From: John Thomas Naisbitt <johntnaisbitt@gmail.com>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:52:39 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] PC Design Course plus Naturalist Immersion for 
Children at Camp Epworth


      
>From keithdj@mindspring.com  Thu Aug 13 10:35:43 2009
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Subject: [permaculture] A steady-state economy council resolution
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Bloomington City Council member Dave Rollo sent me this resolution soon 
to be addressed (and hopefully signed and adopted) by the Council.

Position of the City of Bloomington Environmental Commission
on Economic Growth in the United States
(Adapted from the Position of the United States Society for Ecological 
Economics on Economic Growth in the United States and
adopted on May 22, 2008 in a 4-2-0 vote following two years of discussion.)
Whereas:
1) Economic growth, as understood by most professional economists, 
policy officials and private citizens, is an increase in the
production and consumption of goods and services, and;
2) Economic growth occurs when there is an increase in the multiplied 
product of population and per capita consumption, and;
3) Economic growth has long been a primary policy goal of U.S. society 
and government because of the belief that it leads to an
enhanced quality of life, and;
4) Economic growth is usually measured by increasing gross domestic 
product (GDP), although this is an incomplete indicator of
quality of life that excludes the equity of income distribution, other 
social factors such as physical health and level of crime, and
ecological health, and;
5) The U.S. economy grows as an integrated whole consisting of 
agricultural, extractive, manufacturing, and services sectors (and the
supporting infrastructure) that requires physical inputs of 
non-renewable resources, land and water, and that produces wastes, and;
6) Economic growth occurs in a finite and depletable biophysical 
context, and;
7) Continuing non-renewable resource-intensive economic growth is having 
unintended damaging consequences for ecosystems and
human societies…
Therefore, the Bloomington Environmental Commission takes the position 
that based on the above
evidence:
1) There is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and ecosystem 
health (in such areas as biodiversity conservation, clean
air and water, and atmospheric stability) and the ecosystem services 
deriving from healthy ecosystems that underpin the human
economy (for example, regeneration of renewable resources, decomposition 
and recycling of wastes, pollination of crops and other
vegetation, and climate regulation), and;
2) Although technological progress and unregulated markets have had many 
positive effects they cannot be depended upon to fully
reconcile the conflict between economic growth and the long-term 
ecological and social welfare of the U.S. and the world, and;
3) A sustainable economy (that is, an economy with a relatively stable, 
mildly fluctuating product of population and per capita
consumption) is a viable alternative to a growing economy and has become 
a more appropriate goal for the U.S. and other large,
wealthy economies, and;
4) A long-run sustainable economy requires its establishment at a size 
small enough to avoid the breaching of ecological and
economic capacity (especially during supply shocks such as droughts and 
energy shortages) to promote the efficient use of energy,
materials and water, and enable an accelerated shift toward the use of 
renewable energy sources, and;
5) A sustainable economy supports economic development, an increase in 
human welfare through strategic changes in the relative
prominence of economic sectors and techniques (e.g. renewable vs. 
non-renewable energy) that maintains the human economy within
the regenerative and assimilative capacity of the larger earth system, and;
6) While establishing a sustainable economy, it would be advisable for 
the U.S. to assist other nations in moving from the goal of
economic growth to the goal of a sustainable economy, beginning with 
those nations currently enjoying adequate per capita
consumption, and;
7) For many nations with widespread poverty, increasing per capita 
consumption through economic growth and often via more
equitable distributions of wealth remains an appropriate goal.
-- 

Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
(812) 335-0383
- Permaculture Activist <http://www.permacultureactivist.net/>
- Permaculture Trading Post <http://www.permaculturetradingpost.com/>
- Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting 
<http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html>
- Permaculture & Regenerative Design News Blog 
<http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/>
- APPLE (Alliance for Post-Petroleum Local Economics) It's a small world 
after oil. <http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington>

- Transition Indiana <http://transitionindiana.blogspot.com/> - Blog 
<http://transitionindiana.blogspot.com/>

- Transition Bloomington <http://transitionbloomingtonind.ning.com/>
- Association for Regenerative Culture <http://www.arculture.org/>
- The Gardeners' World Blog <http://theecosystem.blogspot.com/>
- Renaissance Farm and Permaculture Center 
<http://bloomingtongrowers.locallygrown.net/growers/show/212>
- Bloomington Permaculture Growers Cooperative 
<http://bloomingtongrowers.locallygrown.net/>
- Bloomington Permaculture Guild Blog 
<http://bloomingtonpermacultureguild.blogspot.com/> - Calendar 
<http://my.calendars.net/bloomingtonpccal/>
- Continental Bioregional Congress Blog 
<http://bioregional-congress.blogspot.com/>
- Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way 
<http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower>