Re: What Bill says

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

on 7/22/01 9:45 PM, Paul Osmond at P.Osmond@unsw.edu.au wrote:
> I suggest  the two-week PDC was never intended to be more than an introduction
> to this system

I agree wholeheartedly. The courses I help teach are explicitly presented as
a very shallow introduction to a new way of thinking--conscious, ecological
design--and as a "listing" of the tools and resources needed to implement
the concepts. We tell participants that these resources should be studied in
vastly more detail after the course, if they want to actually learn
permaculture. 

> The current debate about trademarking simply highlights the reality that to
> thrive rather than fossilise, PC needs a continual infusion of new ideas,
> tools and techniques.

That gets to the heart of my concern about trademarking the Design Course.
Trademarking seems to mean that approval to teach a a course can only be
obtained by having the course's contents match a list of mandatory items.
The curriculum was drawn up in the early 1980s and lacks many new concepts
and techniques (as Paul listed). It also doesn't speak to learning styles.
If we'd been locked into a single curriculum, the marvelous innovations in
how the material is presented--which to me are at least as significant as
the material itself--might not have evolved. A curriculum checklist could
fossilize permaculture. Much of the ecology taught in Pc courses is already
outmoded, dating from the 1970s: the stability of nature, "everything is
connected to everything else," and much more. It needs to evolve.

I think the system of selecting good teachers works as it is (if it ain't
broke . . .) Occasionally bad courses are taught, but they don't get
repeated, while the good courses get recognition and a big audience.

Toby 
_____________________________________________
For a look at my new book on ecological gardening,
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, visit
http://www.chelseagreen.com/Garden/GaiasGarden.htm