I An admittedly long rant, but I'm trying to organize my thoughts.
I have to agree that permaculture as a design ethic is certainly useful, that it is accessible free or at low cost, and implementable by people at all levels of income (I currently make $1000/month). Certainly it is more readily available and practical to many people than a university education might be. On the other hand I have to agree that advertisements that promise things like “waking up each day with the knowledge that your whole life, including your career, is completely aligned with your deepest passions, desires, principles and values” are definitely appeals to one’s emotions, and that while a permaculture design course may introduce you to a new culture and a new way of thinking about nature, it certainly seems unlikely that it is going to land you a career of any sort, let alone one completely aligned with your deepest passions, other than teaching permaculture. I can speak from experience since I have a permaculture design certificate, as well as a B.S. in conservation biology and, shortly, a M.S. in Environmental Engineering. While permaculture may be lacking in certain “hard science” aspects, my experience has been that permaculture actually does offer specifics. I can’t say the same for all academic research or education, which is often based on generalities and case studies are often reduced to the broadest theories or generic equations, and specifics and actual values removed or considered to be unnecessary details (despite the fact that in a field such as ecological restoration site specifics are incredibly important). With budget cuts and understaffing education is increasingly becoming “we assign the busy work, you figure out how to do it, and we’ll leave the practical stuff for your future job to teach you.” What we lack is real, hands-on practical education, apprenticeship. Blame it on the economy and poor job market if you like, but an education is not enough to get you a job these days, and experience is nearly impossible to come by any other way than through a job (plus a person’s gotta eat). Critical thinking is also woefully undervalued and I have to agree with Robert Jensen (http://www.austinpost.org/university-texas/what-starts-here) and David Orr (Earth in Mind) that universities these days are largely dedicated to maintaining the status quo and churning out more willing workers at the quickest pace possible, well indoctrinated into capitalism, Keynesian economics and corporate personhood, to take their places in the economic machine. At best harnessing their creativity to discover more efficient ways of destroying the environment at the base of all life and economic activity. Reaching the end of my graduate program a professor recently asked me if I thought that the program had been the right choice for me. Well I think the program has its merits I’m not sure that it was the right choice for me. But it’s sort of an unfair question because, after considering graduate school for years I couldn’t find a program anywhere that was really what I wanted. It doesn’t seem to exist. Large scale ecological restoration is what I have always wanted to do. A degree and several internships in natural resources taught me about the wearisome bureaucracy (who considers bull-dozing 30+ years of forest re-growth to scrape out patches of non-native clay in some futile attempt to return the land to “pre-columbian” conditions?) and the depths that ultimately nebulous details can take a person, or project. The work of the likes of John Todd, Paul Stamets, Rufus Chaney, John Liu, Wes Jackson, Janine Benyus, Andy Lipkis and Paul Hawken, and yes, Vandana Shiva, John Mohawk, Masanobu Fukuoka and many others, inspired me beyond words. I wanted a program that could teach me how to use nature’s toolbox to accelerate the healing of landscapes damaged or destroyed by human “culture”, “development”, and “economic activity.” Until we have an interdisciplinary field of knowledge that looks at ecosystem functions and components (species and systems), as well as the hard sciences of chemistry, physics and engineering, with a real investigation of the forces driving the destructive processes, we will be working largely in vain. I have yet to find a program that incorporates all these things with traditional ecological knowledge, and individual and institutional responsibility, not to mention hands-on experience. I like David Orr’s idea that instead of selling off forests and lands in response to budget cuts, universities should be adopting forests, rivers, watersheds and engaging in real, long-term restoration projects where students can truly learn and implement observation, planning, design and technique. While I have certainly had valuable site visits and walking tours during my education, I’ve gotten zero opportunity to do real hands-on restoration work in school (invasive plant removal crews do not count here). Isn’t it crazy that we can be expected to design and write up 80 page design projects and never learn a thing about implementing them? My professor agreed that he knew of no such program, and that it would be valuable. His suggestion: that I get my PhD and then start my own program. Somehow I feel this would be a little pre-mature until I get some actual job experience (anybody hiring or taking on apprentices?) . Unfortunately restoration seems to be a field still left mainly to the guerillas, volunteers, and expensive - technology elite engineering corporations. It seems a field rife with mistakes and failures and one where true specifics remain largely unknown or unexpressed. I also can’t help but feel that school has taken me about as far as it can. There is no knowledge, only experience- as the saying goes. During my graduate education I have learned to keep my own small organic farm/garden, build a greenhouse, fell and split my own wood to heat my house, keep chickens, grow mushrooms and a host of other things. But I taught them all to myself. So come on schools, where’s the experience? While permaculture courses may be an appeal to people’s emotions, it’s a good appeal. I don’t think that science would suffer from the reintroduction of morals or an ethic of caring for the earth and its many residents. “We should be doing FOR each other and the earth, not TO” as Wayne Tyson recently ecolog-ed. Biophilia is an important force, and I know I am not alone in my desire to learn and implement real restoration and change. Case in point, my university lists a course in constructed wetlands and natural treatment systems. It’s the reason some people chose the school. Unfortunately it had never actually been taught. The course was finally offered this term and filled up quickly with overjoyed and expectant students. Mired down with administrative details and an utter lack of organization or real teaching energy, the course kind of fizzled. I don’t think anyone got exactly what they were looking for. However, these types of courses are in demand. The much talked of “paradigm shift” has started in some quadrants, but it’s adherents have met up with the cold, slow-to-change institution of higher education. By the time the required social, political and economics courses have been completed students’ creative drive for change has been stunted, their student debt established, and their motives muddled. I sometimes think trade school would have been a better choice. But then again, as Aldo Leopold said, the problem with an ecological education is that it leaves one alone in a world of wounds. It seems crazy that while studying these things we can still drive our cars, buy our tv’s and our plastic water bottles. I have friends who can’t understand why I don’t shop at Walmart (the endless shelves of completely unnecessary baubles mined from Earth’s resources to be turned into worthless crap or toxic substances always gets me down). And while my family agrees with my ideas in principle they think that implementing them in my lifestyle might be a little unhinged. So, if you are one of the many out there with a lifetime’s worth of ecological experience and wisdom, please share it as much as possible and consider doing it without the cheesy advertisement and $$$$ seminar fee. And if you are one the many out there working in higher education, try to recover some of your early energy and make some changes. ~Kate ________________________________
