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San Francisco Teacher Training Course

Among the cohorts of my permaculture community, I sense a growing urgency. There is a distinctive lack of calm which seems to infect us all. And for good reason; there appear to be few safe harbors for us to moor our leaky ships and await the passing of what we may wish was a transitory storm. With evidences of a world in crisis growing around us all each day like gnarly weeds, there are no doubt countless indicators which urge us all into creative action. But what action exactly? This sense of urgency, for us, often begs the question “What does the world need most?” or better “What does the Permaculture world need most?” The answer for so many permaculture people seems to lie in the realm of education, for how can we attempt to heal and evolve a world that is still in the first stages of understanding its crisis and today sits in denial and despair?

And while it should be undisputed that this urgent and creative action is nigh overdue, I argue that we still need more quality educators in order to gain more foot soldiers who will help wage an evolution of consciousness. Our urgency does us no good if we can’t communicate it effectively and clearly, inspiring others to take action in solidarity with us.

The internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) has been producing teachers and designers for nearly 30 years. Its success as a model is betrayed by the growing resurgence of permaculture courses and demonstration sites world-wide; spanning both the over-regulated western world and the rapidly developing world. This growing number of teachers, training centers and practitioners is encouraging, to say the least, but has uncovered a deeper need in the permaculture world for more intensive education, beyond the broad strokes of the PDC. If we are to cycle the energy of this urgency we inspire, it may be imperative that we offer more support to PDC graduates in our communities.

After taking the Permaculture Design Certificate Teacher Training Course (PDCTTC) with Geoff Lawton at the PRI of Australia this past February, Jay Rosenberg and I were inspired to take further action in our community. In our experiences in San Francisco, so many PDC graduates, overwhelmed and inspired, went out into their new permaculture world full of potent questions, desiring something deeper. Our cohort came from backgrounds so estranged from anything related to agriculture that often very basic questions kept them from actively using their design skills; at least not without further education. Our answer to this need is what we’re calling “Deeper Dives”.

We began to design more focused courses in San Francisco (much like those at training centers like the PRI and Djanbung Gardens) that dive deeper into the critical areas touched on during the PDC. Part of our design is to create more teachers. Geoff said to us “A good teacher produces designers, great teachers produce more teachers”. In our pursuit to become great teachers ourselves, we believe that more teachers will lead to more active students and more demonstration sites.

I recently spent 8.5 weeks assisting Geoff in the classroom at the PRI, cutting my teeth on their 3rd 10-week internship program. Now after having the honor of assisting Geoff Lawton on his latest PDCTTC this August I feel that we’re ready to offer a similar course in San Francisco this Autumn. As a part of the course offered by me and Jay Rosenberg, students will given best practice and the confidence to teach both a PDC and beyond. The imperative will be for our students to design courses that they will teach using a new permaculture demonstration site as their backdrop. We can only hope that this will give students a tangible and economically sustainable model to create action (and designers) in their communities.

The San Francisco Urban Permaculture Teacher Training will be offered this November over 4 days at Hayes Valley Farm, San Francisco; Saturdays and Sundays, November 6th, 7th, 13th, & 14th . Come join us for this inspiring course! Sign up here.

For more information click here or email me at david (at) pdsculture.com

3 Comments

  1. Hello:
    Anyone know what plants would be a good plant guild for a macadamia nut, lemon, and avocado tree food-forest in the backyard?
    Thanks,
    Ed

  2. Is that a question relevant to this post? Try the forum ED. Anywho!
    Watch this spot people and look out USA. This is a man on a mission, and he is a bloody good friend of mine. There are plenty of people talking Permaculture, but PDS, Jenkins or The Stock (what ever you call him and keep it clean his mum.. sorry mom may read this) is set to be a big name in the teaching world.
    Rock on PDS.

  3. I agree with Nick, I just spent the last 2 months with Jenkins and I’ve come to the conclusion that he is an inspiring, knowledgeable, down to earth kind of guy who can give you the foundations to become a well rounded permaculturalist. If you have the desire to teach permaculture take this coarse

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