Thankyou for this, I think You raise an excellent point.
I'm not sure I agree with the business model of pay 'what you want' but it certainly is a good principle of permaculture to be 'local" in all your actions.
If you were to do a follow up, I would like to get your thoughts on, online PDCs, (I personally did my PDC with Geoff Lawton on line, many, many years ago, it might have been his first? His dragnetting of the world seems a bit TOO capitalist to be permaculture. (I'm not an anti capitalist except where it starts sliding into the "profit over nature' realm. NB.Though, nature is not damaged in Geoffs regard and everyone is local on the Internet; so the my moral dilemma is perhaps somewhat confused. Your thoughts I'm sure would be interesting on this matter.
Please follow me on Nature Based Solutions, it's free and I'm sure you'll find some of my posts interesting.
I've given some online PDCs. They relied on the presence of onsite tutors who could manage the practical parts of the course, the hands-on bits that help understanding.
For a student an on site course is much much richer than an online one. You are in a group of lik-minded people with diverse skills and experience so there is a lot of horizontal transmission. We encourage this by leaving time for students to propose presentations or practical workshops. On site courses are also much more interactive than online.
So online is better than nothing but like eating a toffee with the wrapper on, on-site are much richer. The ideal maybe would be combine the two. Nowadays there is absolutely no reason to travel from California to France to teach on a course.
I will get tarred with the same brush because I will inevitably be questionned about the Californian flyng in. I don't know what to reply and it undermines the ethical and equitable basis of Permaculture. It also pisses me off that I have to defend the undefensible.
that must be annoying. personally I'd write to the tutors asking them to save the fuel and let more local folk earn their teaching fees. Sounds like the result of a conflict, can't thnk why else there'd be such stupidity. Defo gives PC a bad name.
It’s nowhere near the first time. Sometimes feel like France is being invaded by Perma missionaries! I got no idea why the project up the road from here didn’t contact us first. That said ‘you’re never king/queen in your own country’ as they say here, it’s much sexier to bring in some ‘names’ from abroad.
still worth making a fuss I reckon. Rock the boat. Sexier doesn't cut it. Btw by "write to the tutors" I meant the ones coming from afar. Or maybe the local ones too.... Crazy. I was asked to do a PDC in Nigeria a few yrs ago I said look up Malawi/Kenya - tho they're still far away it's better than Europe for Chrissake
Yeah I got that, they're flagged on the social media posts, I don't have their emails but could dm them I suppose but I don't like doing that.
Same thing has happened to me on several occasions , New Caledonia which is right next to Australia and a really long way from here! I literally had a row with a Kenyan guy who refused to believe that the more local African PmC teachers I recommended were up to the job. It's all bollocks and annoying. The IPC is coming up to and I'm wondering whether or not to write something angsty about that!!
Thankyou for this, I think You raise an excellent point.
I'm not sure I agree with the business model of pay 'what you want' but it certainly is a good principle of permaculture to be 'local" in all your actions.
If you were to do a follow up, I would like to get your thoughts on, online PDCs, (I personally did my PDC with Geoff Lawton on line, many, many years ago, it might have been his first? His dragnetting of the world seems a bit TOO capitalist to be permaculture. (I'm not an anti capitalist except where it starts sliding into the "profit over nature' realm. NB.Though, nature is not damaged in Geoffs regard and everyone is local on the Internet; so the my moral dilemma is perhaps somewhat confused. Your thoughts I'm sure would be interesting on this matter.
Please follow me on Nature Based Solutions, it's free and I'm sure you'll find some of my posts interesting.
I've given some online PDCs. They relied on the presence of onsite tutors who could manage the practical parts of the course, the hands-on bits that help understanding.
For a student an on site course is much much richer than an online one. You are in a group of lik-minded people with diverse skills and experience so there is a lot of horizontal transmission. We encourage this by leaving time for students to propose presentations or practical workshops. On site courses are also much more interactive than online.
So online is better than nothing but like eating a toffee with the wrapper on, on-site are much richer. The ideal maybe would be combine the two. Nowadays there is absolutely no reason to travel from California to France to teach on a course.
I will get tarred with the same brush because I will inevitably be questionned about the Californian flyng in. I don't know what to reply and it undermines the ethical and equitable basis of Permaculture. It also pisses me off that I have to defend the undefensible.
that must be annoying. personally I'd write to the tutors asking them to save the fuel and let more local folk earn their teaching fees. Sounds like the result of a conflict, can't thnk why else there'd be such stupidity. Defo gives PC a bad name.
It’s nowhere near the first time. Sometimes feel like France is being invaded by Perma missionaries! I got no idea why the project up the road from here didn’t contact us first. That said ‘you’re never king/queen in your own country’ as they say here, it’s much sexier to bring in some ‘names’ from abroad.
still worth making a fuss I reckon. Rock the boat. Sexier doesn't cut it. Btw by "write to the tutors" I meant the ones coming from afar. Or maybe the local ones too.... Crazy. I was asked to do a PDC in Nigeria a few yrs ago I said look up Malawi/Kenya - tho they're still far away it's better than Europe for Chrissake
Yeah I got that, they're flagged on the social media posts, I don't have their emails but could dm them I suppose but I don't like doing that.
Same thing has happened to me on several occasions , New Caledonia which is right next to Australia and a really long way from here! I literally had a row with a Kenyan guy who refused to believe that the more local African PmC teachers I recommended were up to the job. It's all bollocks and annoying. The IPC is coming up to and I'm wondering whether or not to write something angsty about that!!
do it