Integral PermaCulture Curriculum

The Integral Permaculture Curriculum is the base of the courses offered by the Integral Permaculture Academy.

This new curriculum expands greatly on the

- PeopleCare (Module 1),

- DesignTechniques (Module 2) &

- EcoEconomy (Module 5)

parts of the traditional Permaculture Certificate curriculum*,

and Module 0 - Designing with Internet was added later in order to help students become more fluent with internet tools.

* The traditional Permaculture Certificate curriculum comprises mainly modules 3 & 4 of this new & more complete Integral Permaculture curriculum, with some mentions to the other 3.

We also use systems thinking a lot more explicitly than in the original permaculture teaching & have incorporated the insights of the integral model & other important paradigm-changers to this great holistic & systemic science (especially a lot of great women innovators), which was way ahead of its time in the 1970s when it was created (and most of even the 'alternative' world still hasn't caught up with).

The Integral Permaculture Curriculum is 15 years in the making (by the Integral Permaculture Academy, previously 'NodoEspiral'). It is urgently needed as it is by now quite clear that it is not just our widespread cultural ignorance of ecology & food growing techniques (or bio-construction) that is causing massive destruction of life-supporting systems on the planet, but mainly our lack of collective intelligence (& how to design for that), which includes a great deal of "people-care" design issues which traditional permaculture courses briefly mention but don't go into much depth in teaching useful models about.

This is a constantly updated e-book of the wider systemic science for sustainability: our aim is "if it's needed for creating a permanent culture, it's in here". So if you want to suggest improvements, you are very welcome to join the editing team!

Action Learning Courses

Another important part of 'integral' is that we continuously review IF we are acting with integrity in applying the models that we see as the best ones. And for e.g. we realize that the great permaculture principles of "with nature not against" & "accelerating natural succession", "mini-max", "designing for fertile connections", etc. ... are not being practiced in the area of how we teach permaculture, most of the time.

For this reason, after many years of experimentation with various teaching methods, we opted to offer Action Learning courses with internet support, because we saw - with practice - that they were much more coherent & therefore effective in creating active & creative, flexible permaculture designers, than with our previous shorter onsite theory courses, where any type of 'practical' work tended to mostly 'teach' - despite our best efforts - how to follow recipes (the opposite of designing) and not provide the long-term practical design mentoring & close community support that designers (in our experience) need more than anything.

What is Action Learning?

Action Learning is a form of Autodidacticism, but with a support group & guides at hand in the form of very experienced permaculture designers. It is based on real projects that you are developing, whether it's designing your life, your garden, your business, an event or a small pond.

It is the most suitable form we have found to support each phase of the Transition cycle towards a more sustainable way of living.

Action learning is a more rigorous & supported form of autodidacticism: you are not alone in the process, you do it accompanied by a small community with this purpose (which includes experts of many decades of experience as well as other students, at various levels of knowledge), learning to give & receive good support, and to keep to the high levels of integrity required of this science, which is so important not to dilute right now.

Most importantly we teach using the action-learning model, which means we encourage & support you to pursue your own interests, times, rhythms & vocation while you apply the theory to the practice of your real life - whether it consists of large or small projects: your designs.

There is a basic program which is structured in modules but you can take the classes in the order you prefer, & the content of the course, ultimately, is not so much the classes (which however are important as a base) but the designs that you develop & experiment with throughout the course, in a flexible way.

There is a big gap to cross from learning about permaculture to being able to effectively apply its powerful tools in your own life, and the integral permaculture courses are designed to bridge that gap, as quickly & effectively as possible.

We need you as an effective ally in the Transition!

Isaac Asimov on Education

A person way ahead of his times in many ways

... here predicting the PDC+++ :)