One of my key motivations of doing the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design is to become qualified to teach Permaculture. In the UK, Permaculture Design Courses are overseen by the Permaculture Association. Permaculture Teachers are required to hold a Diploma, and be accredited by other teachers by apprenticing on their courses. On this page I will present my body of work, which will include research, lesson plans, videos and evaluation.
Goals Articulation
Why do I want to be a Permaculture Teacher? What do I seek to gain from it?
What are my goals for the Teacher Pathway?
- I will spread the knowledge and wisdom of Permaculture
- I will make a modest income doing what I love
- I will inspire people and show them how they can make effective, lasting change in their own lives
- I will have lots of fun
- I will meet lots of interesting people
What are my goals for the Teacher Pathway?
- I will become qualified and recognised as a Permaculture Teacher
- I will support established teachers in the delivery of their courses
- I will learn from the best teachers and apply their accumulated wisdom in my own work
- I will integrate teaching with my other areas of work, such as my website and design work
Boundaries
Time - Completed by Aug 2013
Due to the intensive nature of the Diploma Pathway with Richard, my Diploma must be completed and accredited by August 2013. By association, so must my Teaching Pathway.
Money
Whilst courses such as PTLLS are useful and valuable, my budget is constrained at the moment. Money may also limit my capacity to attend courses due to travel costs.
Due to the intensive nature of the Diploma Pathway with Richard, my Diploma must be completed and accredited by August 2013. By association, so must my Teaching Pathway.
Money
Whilst courses such as PTLLS are useful and valuable, my budget is constrained at the moment. Money may also limit my capacity to attend courses due to travel costs.
Resources
The Permaculture Association Website has a document that outlines their preferred Teacher Pathway. They advise the pathway to include aims and objectives; permaculture design; shadowing teachers; producing teaching materials; practical teaching experience; and learning logs. They also advise to take the Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector (PTLLS) qualification.
PTLLS
City and guilds guidance on PTLLS which highlights course content and structure. It is delivered at a local college. The course costs £475.
Past Experience
As a Sergeant in the Air Cadets I was responsible for delivering a wide range of training activities to cadets. These ranged from academic lessons on navigation, aerospace and military strategy; to practical activities such as fieldcraft and drill. My thorough enjoyment of teaching contributes to my desire to become a permaculture teacher.
Apprentice Opportunities
Richard Perkins, my tutor, has kindly offered the opportunity to shadow and teach on one of his courses. This will be of immense value in progressing along my teacher pathway. I will seek other permaculture teachers and explore opportunities to work with them.
My Website
Allows me to collate and showcase my work.
PTLLS
City and guilds guidance on PTLLS which highlights course content and structure. It is delivered at a local college. The course costs £475.
Past Experience
As a Sergeant in the Air Cadets I was responsible for delivering a wide range of training activities to cadets. These ranged from academic lessons on navigation, aerospace and military strategy; to practical activities such as fieldcraft and drill. My thorough enjoyment of teaching contributes to my desire to become a permaculture teacher.
Apprentice Opportunities
Richard Perkins, my tutor, has kindly offered the opportunity to shadow and teach on one of his courses. This will be of immense value in progressing along my teacher pathway. I will seek other permaculture teachers and explore opportunities to work with them.
My Website
Allows me to collate and showcase my work.
Evaluation
Time - in many respects, the fast track nature of my diploma creates an ideal opportunity to get into teaching as soon as possible. In order to make the most of this opportunity though, I must focus on the pace and quality of my outputs. I must also ensure that I can access a number of teaching opportunities in that time. I already have the opportunity with Richard, but I must create a few more opportunities aswell. I should also explore the possibilities of running a couple of Introduction to Permaculture courses. I might even be able to develop a highly condensed "Permaculture in a nutshell" evening session.
PTLLS - I can appreciate why this will be a useful course to take, although due to financial restrictions I don't think it is something I can do at the moment. Maybe in a year or longer I might have the money to be able to take such a course.
Previous teaching experience - I learned a lot about teaching and training when I was in the Cadets. I tried to keep my sessions interesting and engaging, targeting a range of learning styles and encouraging learner participation. For example, when teaching aerodynamics I used a combination of verbal explanation; visual drawing and representation; questions to check understanding; and then a paper aeroplane competition where the cadets could apply their new knowledge in a fun way. I developed the confidence to be able to stand up in front of a room of people and teach a topic for an hour, whilst competently handling any questions and queries along the way. The teaching structures of Permaculture and Cadets are similar, as they include a mixture of theoretical and practical topics. They also have in common the fact that I am passionate to learn and teach both; and I believe that enthusiasm rubs off onto your learners and helps to keep them interested and engaged.
My Website - A large focus of my Diploma design work is to maximise the functional relationships between the different elements. Teaching will fit into this holistic structure. One possibility is to integrate my teaching with my other permaculture blog. I envision a number of functional interconnections between the two:
Apprentice Opportunities - These are going to be invaluable in gaining real life experience of teaching permaculture.
PTLLS - I can appreciate why this will be a useful course to take, although due to financial restrictions I don't think it is something I can do at the moment. Maybe in a year or longer I might have the money to be able to take such a course.
Previous teaching experience - I learned a lot about teaching and training when I was in the Cadets. I tried to keep my sessions interesting and engaging, targeting a range of learning styles and encouraging learner participation. For example, when teaching aerodynamics I used a combination of verbal explanation; visual drawing and representation; questions to check understanding; and then a paper aeroplane competition where the cadets could apply their new knowledge in a fun way. I developed the confidence to be able to stand up in front of a room of people and teach a topic for an hour, whilst competently handling any questions and queries along the way. The teaching structures of Permaculture and Cadets are similar, as they include a mixture of theoretical and practical topics. They also have in common the fact that I am passionate to learn and teach both; and I believe that enthusiasm rubs off onto your learners and helps to keep them interested and engaged.
My Website - A large focus of my Diploma design work is to maximise the functional relationships between the different elements. Teaching will fit into this holistic structure. One possibility is to integrate my teaching with my other permaculture blog. I envision a number of functional interconnections between the two:
- I can host "Resources and Further Reading" sections for each topic that I can direct my students to
- I can upload sections from my courses onto my website, generating quality content that will bring traffic and interest to my website
- My website will eventually play a role in marketing my teaching services to potential students
- Research on topics will develop knowledge that I can distribute through both channels, allowing some good 80:20 results
Apprentice Opportunities - These are going to be invaluable in gaining real life experience of teaching permaculture.
Step it up a level!
Ok so heres a little update of changes in the last month or so. I'm not quite sure how to squeeze it into the framework - so I'm wedging it here for the time being. In my pursuit of living a right livelihood based on my ideals, interests and ambitions - I have managed to secure two jobs! I've written about them elsewhere, but essentially both have an outdoor teaching element to them. This is fantastic, as now I will get paid to build up my teaching experience whilst also learning lots of new things. The jobs are also essentially 0 hour, no obligation contracts - which means I will be able to take time to attend courses and other opportunities. So it is a designed response towards achieving my objectives, although has come prior to my full on design! So I guess maybe it does fit well here.
My vision for teaching is expanding over time. Although I am slightly unsure about revealing the potentials of a future business plan on this public website, I want to explore teaching a combination of bushcraft, permaculture, nature awareness, and conscious life design. There are a few different options for this, and it will probably be best to do as a whole design in and of itself. For the purposes of this design, however, it will benefit me to pursue and develop knowledge and experience in each of these fields. Let the study of these be a "pattern" whilst I over time fill in the "details".
My vision for teaching is expanding over time. Although I am slightly unsure about revealing the potentials of a future business plan on this public website, I want to explore teaching a combination of bushcraft, permaculture, nature awareness, and conscious life design. There are a few different options for this, and it will probably be best to do as a whole design in and of itself. For the purposes of this design, however, it will benefit me to pursue and develop knowledge and experience in each of these fields. Let the study of these be a "pattern" whilst I over time fill in the "details".
Design
Implementation
I am going to include videos, teaching notes and feedback here.
