Teaching+Strategies+Discussion

This webpage is a wiki which means that you-yes you!- can edit it. To do so click on "edit this page" and start typing, then hit save. Don't worry about formatting if this is your first time. I can make it look pretty later. The important thing is your ideas. Try it now:

//Hey I did it- cool!//

If something goes wrong, not to worry, I can fix it. And if doing anything more than email makes you break out in hives, just send your text to me via email and I'll add it in. keiramc at gmail.com

Oliver Kellhammer and Liz Richardson co-teach permaculture courses together. They bring different but complementary urban and rural perspectives to their teaching. Their teaching style has evolved over time to a more facilitative model where the focus is on contributions from the whole class and less on them as the experts.

Here are some of the principals that inform their teaching:
 * The focus and practice in their classes is observation.
 * Permaculture principals are central to the curriculum
 * Beware Guru’s! There is no TRUTH in permaculture, there are only tendencies
 * Pc is a living breathing evolving thing.
 * Strive to set up a situation where //learning// and //application// can happen at the same time.

The discussion on certification touched on these themes:
 * Currently permaculturists in North America operate mostly in a reputation economy. The only way to get certified is very centralized (and very far away!)
 * Pc is a kind of compilation of Old Knowledge. But Bill Mollison is a great compiler. He did not, however, invent these techniques. The letters beside your name can be very useful to opening doors and having people recognize that your knowledge is valid.
 * Do we like certification as it is?
 * Do we need our own kind of peer reviews? Perhaps we need to create a guild to help support good grounded projects and unify the curriculum.
 * Like a form of witness. Beware of guru’s while respecting people for their experience.
 * Are we at the point in the movement where we need those sorts of mechanisms?
 * Anyone could compile a report and send that in to the certification body
 * (liz) impetus comes from new students who want to refer back to their teachers.
 * Can act as a way to source people out (i.e. Linnaea Grads)
 * We NEED more teachers: Mentorship program?
 * Making a decent livelihood is important. how can we translate this into right livelihood?
 * LETTERS=FUNDING
 * Need a variety of course models: ie. 9 week night class for 240.00/person. Allows instructor to diversify income
 * Human nature seems to value things that we pay for. It represents an investment and encourages students to pay attention. (it’s not necessarily bad to charge for Pc courses!)
 * The term Pc can be alienating