by Nenya Milne
The Permaculture Association bulletin
advertising funded places at European training courses came just at the right time. I
was feeling increasingly stuck for impetus to pursue the many
permaculture projects I had ambitiously hatched in my head. I knew I
needed to improve on my skills to engage with different audiences,
and to gain confidence in the more democratic forms of education
compared to the university framework I was used to.
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| Nenya and family |
Somehow I had
never seriously considered a teachers’ training course – perhaps
because the scale of investment, both in terms of time and money, was
completely out my reach.
Having already made plans to pack my
two-year old off to granny’s for most of October, the opportunity
to apply for funding for the October Permaculture Educators’ Course
in Denmark was too good to miss. With only a few meaningful questions
to answer, my application was soon on its way. Incredibly, I got the
answer in just three days – and I was going to Friland!
I arrived in Denmark feeling slightly
intimidated yet excited about the course, but both emotions soon gave
way to an almost palpable sense of being just where I needed to be. I
made friends with some of our group even before leaving Copenhagen on
a 4 hour bus journey to Friland, which lies about an hour’s drive
north-east of Aarhus. I met the rest during the charming candlelit
dinner at our course venue – a spacious eco-building called The
Raven (Ravnen). Our accommodation was partly in
Friland’s equally amazing and varied family homes, made from wood,
straw bale, or cob, and partly in the ‘normal’ Danish village of
Feldballe across the road from Friland.
Friland is an unusual intentional
community in that it was set up NOT to become a parallel alternative
community, but to demonstrate that you could lead a green, low-impact
life while staying fully integrated with the rest of society.
Friland’s children attend the local school in Feldballe, and the
preconditions for getting a plot to build your own house in Friland
were not being in debt, and having your own (not necessarily
land-based) business. There were also limits imposed on how much you
could sell your house for, to deter anyone with the ambitions of a
would-be developer, and attract people with a long-term commitment to
the community. Many of the houses in Friland were still being built
(and from what I heard the strain of self-build proved too much for a
couple of families), and it was in no way a postcard picture of an
ideal village – though it did not stop people from wanting to
visit, get involved, or seek to replicate Friland’s experiences
elsewhere. And for good reason, everything that succeeded had
withstood the tests of both time and usefulness, and Friland is a
well-functioning as well as a deeply inspirational place.
In addition to getting insider
perspectives on Friland, staying in family homes meant that we got
the chance of a decent rest during the night (unless paired up with a
snoring roommate…), as well as a daily change of scene and some
space of our own. I even had the benefit of a cat’s company which
was wonderful for relaxation! We were also very well looked after at
the course venue: we were spared cooking and other house work by our
incredibly efficient hosts Jo and Lars and their kitchen helpers
Nicolas and Alison, who also provided wholesome and delicious food
and freshly baked bread, and yes, “Mmmm, garlic..!”
There was
also time for fun and games, mushrooming in the local woods, gentle
warm-ups to energise us in the mornings, and plenty of socialising in
the evenings. All of this was important given how
intensive the course proved to be, and it was amazing to see how it
was carefully designed to enable maximum learning and retention of
useful information – packed and interactive sessions alternated
with time set aside for reflection and opportunities to practice
teaching in a safe and supportive environment.
We gained useful
insights about how we learn (the process and the different learning
styles), the importance of thorough preparation and timing, of a good
learning environment, and of tailoring the methods and content to
specific learning outcomes. We practised teaching in pairs and giving
feedback to each other, while each of us received useful feedback
from our tutors Andy Goldring and Cat Dolleris, as well as an insight
about how to improve our body language and ‘presence’ from a
fellow trainee Armand, a dance teacher with a keen interest in bodily
awareness.
Although we all had different starting points in terms of
confidence and experience in teaching permaculture, I can safely say
that the course was useful to everyone, but especially the beginners,
and it will continue to bear fruit for many years to come! For
myself, things that seemed insurmountable before suddenly appeared
doable and far less intimidating, and as the ten days of training
progressed, I felt increasingly empowered – as well as grateful and
incredibly moved by the emerging friendships, wisdom, and mutual
support.
Our stay in Friland was not without
incident: a couple of days before the course ended, one of the huge
straw piles not far from the venue went up in flames. Speculation
abounded as to whether the moisture that penetrated the bales had led
to such high levels of microbial activity that the straw ignited in
the generated heat (much like an overly hot compost pile), or whether
our group or the bus tour of pensioners that happened to visit
Friland on that day harboured an unconfessed pyromaniac… One thing
was definite according to the firefighters: our quickly improvised
bucket chain helped save the nearby building from catching fire as
well.
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Discussing the first micro-teach
while on a DIY tour of Friland (Photo by Cat Dolleris) |
Now, almost 6 month later, I still feel
a very strong sense of connection to all my course folk, and I am
looking forward to meeting at least some of them at the September
IPCUK in London. I also feel their support in all I am doing to put
my newly honed skills into practice: since returning from Friland, I
have enrolled in Diploma; ran my first Permaculture Introduction
course, a homemade cosmetics course, and started shadowing an
established teacher’s PDC; helped teach a permaculture practical on
Edinburgh University’s 3rd year biology course; organised a
collective design exercise for a local park; started a project to
create a forest garden in the local school grounds and am now working
on a Forest Gardening course to accompany the project in the autumn.
About the author:
Nenya Milne lives in
Edinburgh with her husband Richard and their son Lawrence. She is a
self-employed gardener and permaculture designer and teacher, enjoys
botanising, gets ridiculously excited about plants (especially
unusual edibles), and is working on involving her local community in
the Inch into food-growing projects.
