Tag Archives: Teaching Permaculture Creatively

Have you ever gone to sleep in a class, lecture or meeting? More importantly, have participants in your groups gone to sleep or looked bleary eyed and started yawning? This is a signal, not to go faster and try and get through copious notes more quickly, but to have a break of some kind.  A Variety of Ways to TAKE A BREAK… * The obvious one is to have a tea break. Preferably offering fruit, filtered water, juice and healthy light snacks. Too much sugar and heavy cakes can give a sugar spike to the blood sugar followed by a big drop in energy later on. * Change chairs and visit an open window on the way. Take 3 deep breaths of the fresh air * All stand up and have a big stretch and a yawn by massaging the jaw * Use any ‘Cross-Crawling’ activity. Have a look at …

Magic Happens in ‘Dynamic Groups’ and Learning Happens Easily. Why is that so? It’s been an exciting and rewarding journey for Robin Clayfield since she first began Teaching Permaculture Creatively in 1990. She and Skye (now from Brazil) had taught a 2 week Permaculture Design Course the year before, using lecturing, small group work, demonstrations, hands-on garden and design exercises and other standard educational practises. That’s how they’d been taught through school, Uni and in their Permaculture course as students. The course went very well, people were inspired and learnt lots, though they reported a sense of ‘information overload’. It also didn’t feel right to Skye and Robin that they were teaching Soils to Soil scientists and Building Design to Architects. Many interesting discussions followed and the next course saw ‘Needs Based Learning’  implemented and ‘Creative Facilitation’ of relevant, diverse and empowering activities, many developed especially for the people in …

What is Social Permaculture? As a culture and a movement for positive global change we’re getting better and better at designing our gardens, food systems, buildings and landscapes using Permaculture Principles, common sense ways of sensitively developing systems to sustain ourselves based on how nature and natural systems work. Designing our social systems, groups, communities and our household living using the same principles gives us an interesting exercise in ‘People Care’, a key Ethic of Permaculture. Try taking each of the Permaculture Principles and explore how your favourite group or a course you’ve just done has integrated each of the principles. Imagine how our world would be if all our organisations, groups, learning environments and neighbourhoods embraced these great approaches to life and people. Dive more deeply into exploring this theme by joining Robin and Friends for A SMORGASBOARD of Social Permaculture, Community Development and Valuable Skill Enhancement.  4 workshops …

“Hi RobinRemember we (Ruth and Tommy) did both the Permaculture Design Course and the Facilitators Course with you in …. Oct/Nov 1994 I think it was. Since then my life has gone in perhaps a different direction, as I realised my skills are in working with people rather than with plants.So now I am a holistic counsellor offering various vibrational energy based ways of helping others, plus I run small groups offering similar skills – either self care or practitioner skillsI also taught at Sophia College for a while, teaching people to become holistic counsellors.In all my work I have been significantly influenced by what I learned with you on those courses, especially the facilitators course. So much so, that really I just take your approach ‘for granted’ – take it as normal.All my work that I offer is experiential in nature, actively engaging the people in their own processStaying clear of …

Time to pack the winter woolies in June and head to the cold country  for several courses in Blue Mts, St Albans and Bermagui. Click on the links for a flier and join us, we’ll be on fire for sure with all this great learning and skill building. ‘Dynamic Decision Making’  Leura Blue Mts on 5th June ‘Social Permaculture’  Bandusia Retreat, St Albans via Sydney 8th and 9th June ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’  Bandusia Retreat, St Albans via Sydney 10th to 13th June ‘Dynamic Decision Making’ at The Crossing, Bermagui, Sth Coast NSW 17th June