I first started teaching bits of permaculture informally to people who came to visit the land when I was living at Bocare. I used my natural enthusiasm rather than any specific techniques, but people seemed to be keen to hear what I had to say. I had previously also spent five years working as a Campaigns Officer for N.A.V.S. & so I had plenty of experience of communicating ideas to others. Part of this work involved going into classrooms & halls & informing children & adults about animal experimentation & I enjoyed this part of my work in particular. When I find something that enthuses me, I just want to tell other people about it & permaculture is one such thing.

 When I returned to England I was no less enthusiastic, but despite my year of actually living permaculture, I still felt that there was a lot more for me to learn before I would be ready to teach it. I briefly got enthused by the idea of being able to lead a group of New Deal people in practical work on a project placement, but this just didn't come together.

 Being asked to do a design at Hooke Court School brought teaching permaculture to children to my attention. Part of my design would be to incorporate the classroom elements, but on a national level these were still very much evolving. Plans were being made for a pilot GCSE in permaculture, but I felt a need to get involved in the process of carrying this forward. With this in mind, at the end of August 2000 I put myself forward at the National Convergence for election to the Council of Management of the Permaculture Association. I said that I was keen to bring the school curriculum issues forward & I was duly elected. I also attended the teachers meeting at the Sustainability Centre in order to get a much better idea of what was involved, to meet other teachers & to put myself forward as an apprentice. This proved to be very informative for me & I came away feeling much clearer about certain things. I also co-organised a 'National Curriculum & Permaculture' meeting at the Convergence & I distributed copies afterwards of the meeting summary to those who were involved in the process but absent.

 In February 2001, Simon Shakespeare & I started planning a 72 hour Design Course to be held where I lived at Paddox Farm later in the summer. It was my first attempt at convening a course too, so I did feel a bit daunted. However, I had the convener's guide at the back of the Teacher's Guide to follow & that gave me a framework in which to work. We divided up the tasks that we felt needed doing & I produced among other things this leaflet (& a couple of slightly different versions) & our mailout.

We were looking at keeping the costs down as much as we could & although running it with the WEA came up as a possibility, in the end we went solo! We also looked into I.L.A.s for students to further reduce costs. Had Foot & mouth disease not come along & caused us to cancel a month in advance (our venue is in the heart of a livestock farming area), we may have got those extra couple of people we needed to cover our costs. It was all still good experience though, even without the opportunity to teach.

 Following the recommendations of the previous year's Teachers meeting, I signed up in the Spring for Stage One of the C&G 7307 Adult Education Teaching Certificate. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it started promisingly as everyone seemed fascinated by this new subject called 'permaculture'. The course leader was particularly interested & tried to set up a display in the school followed by a talk, but sadly exams ultimately scuppered that idea. The course itself proved to be very interesting & covered elements that will be useful in my teaching in future. I was able to use elements of the course to develop lesson plans & an overall structure for an introductory weekend; all valuable experience. For my teaching practice I set up an introductory talk to permaculture (of course) with one of the environmental science classes at the college. Despite a difficult element within the class I got some positive feedback both from students & from my tutor. I would thoroughly recommend this course to anyone looking to teach permaculture & will go on to do Stage Two when I have sufficient hours teaching practice (a course requirement).

 In June I attended the week long 'Teaching Permaculture Creatively' course with Rod Everett at 'Middlewood'. This proved to be a great introduction to creative teaching techniques, many of which were new to me. The way the whole course was run & how we as students were treated was so different to conventional educational systems, that our minds were able to focus completely on the learning. Again I met a lot of lovely people & learned a great deal more to add to my repertoire. Later in the week we each taught a session ourselves, creatively of course & mine really helped me with the process of lesson planning & evaluation.... & yes, there were things I would have done differently! 'Middlewood' proved to be a beautiful & relaxing venue, somewhere I hope to return to again soon. In spare moments I also got to have a good look at some more interesting books, including Skye & Robin's 'Manual for Teaching Permaculture Creatively' which I bought soon afterwards. Oh yes! it was also the first time I went inside a yurt....

 At the beginning of 2002 & after the previous year's disappointment, Looby Macnamara approached me with the offer of co-apprenticing on a full Design course nearby. It was being planned for the summer but after some changes (teacher & then venue) it settled down to being taught by George Sobol here at Paddox Farm in the Autumn. This time we did go through the WEA which gave the opportunity to bring costs down a lot, but also meant that we would have to attract at least 10 people to the course by a certain date or it would not run.

 Frustratingly, the need for the WEA to do everything in-house didn't just make things easier for us. Communication breakdowns, forms not filled in by certain people on time & general delays meant that we didn't receive publicity materials until it was really too late. Even then, they weren't as we wanted them to be. This, added to the false starts caused by the changes of teacher & venue earlier on, meant that we ultimately ran out of time before the planned dates, to get the number of people that the WEA needed to run the course. Next time I will be wiser & having attempted to convene a course with & without the WEA's involvement I can see advantages & disadvantages of both....but which will I choose? Well, that might take a little designing.....

 For someone who has done so much preparation (that feels that it merits a supplementary page in my portfolio) it's amazing that I still, after all this time have not yet taught on any kind of permaculture course. That I will at some stage in the future I have no doubt, but for now I am not getting too attached to timescales. When it finally does come around it will be just the right time for me.