a. Integral PC Academy Design

Difficulties

Big Vision

Next Steps

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Next Page of this Education section > Curriculum

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Origins / History

Setting up a Node of the Permaculture Academy

A new Node of the Permaculture Academy

As described by The Academy Year Book :

Academy = An association of scholars or academics. Also a school of study founded to promote a particular philosophy (e.g. Platonic philosophy). Here, the philosophy or ethics are those of Permaculture; the study and development of sustainable systems for landscapes and settlements.

In July 2003 I attended a PC Diploma Network meeting in England with two other colleagues from Spain.

In August 2003 the first ‘official’ Spanish PC Network meeting at which other PC colleagues attended highlighted education as one of the areas that needed attention.

My intervention focused in bringing together the people involved with the aim of channeling the ideas & enthusiasm generated at these two meetings into useful action.

This slowly evolved into the new PC Academy Node now known as “Nodo Espiral España”.

< Joana and Eric presenting one of their group designs to the class

The Teachers Cooperative

I facilitated the group dialogue (by email) that followed these two meetings.

In Diciember 2003 we set up a “PC teachers’ co-operative” and launched a new node of the PC Academy, later giving our first course in March 2004.

Sara Arnaiz was the most notable other ‘midwife’ in this first and difficult stage (many hoped but few really believed anything worthwhile was going to result).

Of the 6 people who volunteered at the Network meeting in Aug’03 we expanded to 13 by inviting more permaculture colleagues we thought should be in this Education Group and eventually we ended up with a core of 5: those who responded at the ‘email + phone meetings’ we set up.

These were the first teachers the courses that followed.

We had in common a strong interest in making PC quality education available to all, but we were very diverse in other ways, from all over Spain and only a few knew some of the others.

All had done a PDC, two of us had the Diploma and some were starting their diploma process, but Steve Charter (the other diplomat apart from myself) although living and teaching PC in Spain, was not fluent in the language.

< Aprendice Teacher Cris giving her first class (on the PC Principles)

Distance Team-Working

The working method was difficult and clearly selects for people who have internet access and computer literacy more than (necessarily) for teaching or permaculture design abilities.

But it also selects for keen and able group-workers + a passion for permaculture design and continuous learning, and both of these I see as important ‘memes’ to transmit to the next generations of permaculture designers (coming out as we are of what I call a ‘lone wolf’ / pioneering stage and type of PC teacher).

Supporting the dipoma process and preparing a new generation of teachers were included as important objectives for this new Academy project.

< listening to the end of course design presentations

Previous Work

in London, England

I took my first PDC (1) in London in the winter of 1994, whilst at university (2) and left immediately after completing the PDC because I realized that I learned more in two weeks of PC design than in 3yrs of a university design course (in a university famous for it´s design department!).

I wanted to practice what I had learned and set out to do that, which - as a result of further invitations that came from some good 'start with your back door' work, resulted in Green Adventure (3).

One of the observations I'd made was that there were about 2 or 3 permaculture teachers that covered the whole of London, and some didn´t even live in London. However we had quite a few people who had done a PDC + were doing good practical work, and it seemed important to encourage the development of more teachers.

I did so by facilitating a diploma support group (about 6-8 of us met once a month) and then organizing and teaching a PDC collectively with this same team later.

The quality of a course taught by many teachers + the power this had in uniting the network in our region impacted on me a lot and this is why I later thought it important to follow with this pattern in the Nodo Espiral: building the network as well as delivering varied and quality teaching is also important here.

< Antoine & David making clay for a cooker and oven design they devised (on the Action-Learning Programme)

The Lone Wolf Teacher

Or dis-associated, 'star teacher' pattern is what has predominated in permaculture to date, despite the fact that the first edition of The Foundation Year Book of the Permaculture Academy was written in 1993 (describing in some detail a cooperative network of associated teachers, similar to how scientists operate).

The Lone Wolf / pioneer (scattered & isolated) pattern is a typical, understandable & very useful initial pattern for any new movement - with the brave, quirky & sometimes 'prickly' pioneers making headway through old structures and cultures. But as more innovators & people with practical experience (& something to teach others) become available with time, if they don't find a way to associate and cooperate creatively for the benefit of the movement, dispersion and dilution are more likely to happen than fruitful collective intelligence.

(Stef 21Oct17 - article long time in the pot for writing up sometime ... just added last paragraph for now )

NOTES:

(1) Tottenham, with Steve Read & Carl Smith

(2) University of London's Goldsmiths College, degree course was in Education, Design & Technology with Computer Science, I entered as a mature student and did 3yrs of the 4yr course

(3) Green Adventure has an external page here

< theatre-modelling of the destructo-culture in Module 1

Academies & Institutes

In the Foundation Year Book of the Permaculture Academy (updated 2003), Bill Mollison writes:

"I would like, in this Academy, to return to basic values, to the ideal of teachers and students as the body of a university that values those ideals for which our intellectual ancestors lived, and often for which they died, were outcast, or disenfranchised.

It is always necessary to return to the roots of knowledge and the origins of institutions, for the latter drift from their purposes even if many individuals hold true to origins and ideals."

"Academy = An association of scholars or academics. Also a school of study founded to promote a particular philosophy (e.g. Platonic philosophy). Here, the philosophy or ethics are those of Permaculture; the study and development of sustainable systems for landscapes and settlements."

This is what Wikipedia says of the word "Institute", :

.