Martha McCormick, Author at Next Step Adventure

Save the Earth

Martha McCormick on October 11, 2013

It’s not hard to be in the moment when you’re at the beach. This morning we saw a dolphin, a wild one, close enough to be amazed at its size. They are REALLY big! Much bigger than they look on TV. It moved away from us but we continued to see its fin as it swam through the Gulf waters.

It’s easy to be cynical about the damage we’re doing to the earth these days. We seem to forget what a tiny part of the system human kind represents. But it only takes a dandelion poking through a crack in the sidewalk to remind me how resilient nature is.

“Another world is not only possible, she’s on the way and, on a quiet day, if you listen very carefully you can hear her breathe, ” I find this quote from Arundhati Roy really encouraging. When I look at the world this way it’s easier to continue efforts at recycling, limiting travel and other small steps that lower my carbon footprint. Believe me, it’s still bigger than I’d like but it’s all about small steps.

I look to serve the cause of the earth, its flora and fauna. My mind goes right to my garden as I write this, to the creatures who drink from my stream and bird baths, the birds who eat at the feeder and the deer who occasionally nip the rosebuds from my bushes. The word serve is operative here.

Service comes from the spirit rather than the ego. When we serve, it is from a level playing field. We engage friends and neighbors as equals, listen to their ideas and needs and find creative ways to join those needs and ideas with our own.

The earth and Iowa in particular are rich with potential solutions to the crises we face today—clean water and local food in particular. However, the best way to address them is to start in our own homes and communities.

Often we forget the resiliency of the natural world, and take on too much responsibility for her survival. This perspective can lead to cynicism and hopelessness. To turn the trashing of the earth around, we must remain hopeful and courageous.

Do Art

Martha McCormick on September 16, 2013

When we were little, my brothers and sisters and I used to sit on the floor under our big square kitchen table and draw on its underside. Thirty years later when I took my daughter back to see our old house, that art work was still there. Something akin to cave drawings.

Art has been part of my life as long as I can remember. When my brother Leo and I were teenagers, we took oil painting classes together. Since I got back into painting as part of my “year of good health“, I’ve modified two of the paintings I did in that class. That’s a detail of one of them at the top of this post. It’s been fun to reconnect with the 15-year-old artist I was.

The Monks of Meteora

Now art is about to become an even bigger part of my life. I met with Dawn Martinez Oropeza and Vince Lewis to plan for a project with the Whyld Girls and Backyard Boyz at Ritual Café. The installation will celebrate Latino culture and Dia de Los Muertos. We’re talking skeletons, skulls, banners and masks. This is exciting stuff!

I’m also going to be helping out with the Des Moines Art Center Outreach Program. I’m excited to reconnect with my refugee art class at Lutheran Services in Iowa in mid-October. My students are from Bhutan and Burma and have very little English. Most of them never had the chance to go to school in their own countries and they are passionate students now. We’re doing clay, collage, tangle webs, circular weaving and painting, but this time each student will combine most of these media into one “self-portrait”. The Art Center will hang a special show to include these pieces and other work.

Tangle Web

So, why am I so pumped about these developments? Because art is soooo important to spiritual growth, to critical thinking and decision making, to seeing the world as it really is. As I developed Teachers Going Green, I found the Four Keys of Character Education—self study, other study, public performance in a supportive, challenging community. All of these things are such integral parts of the process of creating art.

John Dewey asserted that art is proof that people use materials to expand their lives and communicate their emotional experiences to others. Janet Heinicke shares this view, “Art isn’t about creating something beautiful; it’s about expressing yourself and communicating what’s inside to others.” We ALL need to do that. Starting with those cave drawings on the underside of our kitchen table.

Play Triangle Tag

Martha McCormick on September 8, 2013

Triangle Tag is always fun, but especially when you play in the water. It wears you out too. Wearing people out–the main objective of parenting, puppy raising and camp. Not sure how you’d play Triangle Tag game with a puppy, but I think we could figure it out. On this hot September day it’s appealing to think about.

The Triangle Tag game I remember best was in the pool in Sun City, AZ when my folks lived out there. My brother and I took our kids; Kate and Theo were little and our cousin John was there too. He was the prime candidate for wearing out. He always had soooo much energy. The game only takes four people to play, so Dave and I must have taken turns sitting it out. It may have gotten too intense for Theo too, like the time he got shaving cream in his eyes when we played Bunny Tail Tag. But that’s another story.

To start the game, three people hold hands to make a triangle. One of these is the target. The fourth person is it, on the outside of the triangle. Their job is to tag the target. The two “guards” in the triangle do their best to keep the target from getting tagged. When the target does get tagged, they’re it and the original “it” becomes part of the triangle. I like to play at least long enough for everyone to be it.

When you play in the pool, there’s a lot of splashing and laughing, and it’s harder to move quickly than on dry land. If the target is a small person, they can just kind of pick up their feet and get pulled around by their two guards. This works best in the water; on land it can result in dislocated shoulders and skinned knees.

I’ve used Triangle Tag to divide large crowds groups and make them more manageable. It’s a good mixer if you play People to People first. By the end of People to People, partners usually don’t know each other very well and you can combine pairs and go right into Triangle Tag.

Triangle Tag is a nice warm-up for trust activities. I like to lead into partner games and stretches with it, and then initiatives that require more trust. It will definitely energize a group and get a laugh.

Triangle Tag was a hit in our pool when the kids were little. It’s hard to believe there was ever a 10′ by 30′ pool back there, complete with pond, decks, hammock and swing. Oh, and a hot tub. I believe we used to play Triangle Tag in the hot tub. I don’t recommend that. That’s our pool in the picture at the top of this post, taken the summer of 2007 right before we took it out and turned the back yard into a wildlife refuge. If you want to play Triangle Tag back there now, it will have to be on dry land.

Summer, my favorite!

Martha McCormick on September 1, 2013

I’m sad at the end of summer. No matter how much I’ve crammed into it, there’s always regret for the things I’ve missed. Riding my bike, learning to sail, hiking at the Ledges are on the list this year. Even when I extend the season by starting June 1 and going til the Autumnal Equinox, it’s never long enough.

I spent my best summers on my grandparents’ farm in northeastern Missouri. What made them the best wasn’t their proximity to Hannibal or the Mississippi River. It wasn’t the trip to St. Louis when we got to see “The King and I” at Forest Park. I do remember that as a magical night when my Mom, her sister and my oldest sister actually went out on the town and left us three younger kids at home by ourselves. Something about the Gaslight District. Hmmmmm.

It was the ordinary things we did every day that made those summers so wonderful. Pulling on shorts, tee shirt and sneakers early to go milking with my Grandpa when everyone else was still asleep. Balancing with the whole family on the water wagon. Shoveling corn into the grinder with my cousin Tommy, and the song he made up about my abilities to pitch a bale of hay just like a boy.

Building fantasy neighborhoods under the Silver Maples with Leo and Nancy and sitting through reading lessons with Leo and Mother on the front porch. Dancing in the rain after a long dry spell. Playing “Ghost in the Graveyard;” I only recently learned this name for Hide and Seek in the dark. Such a deliciously scary game.

Starting at Camp Good Health, summer programs for kids affected by the achievement gap has occupied a lot of my adult life. Moving on to career exploration and leadership development on the Mesquakie Settlement, workshops on everything from feminism to drama in the teen program in Cedar Rapids. Then the day camps we did in Des Moines that developed into year-round school at Moulton Extended Learning Center and elsewhere.

Now at the first of September, it’s not too soon to start planning for next summer. This article from the US Department of Education’s EdBlog makes an excellent point for schools and community organizations to work together, not just during the summer but throughout the year. They link to some great examples of summer successes in Pittsburgh, and Chicago.

Kids who start school behind tend to catch up some during the school year, but then fall behind when their summers lack enrichment opportunities that wealthier kids enjoy. Summer programs keep them thinking and learning all year. Anything we can do to narrow that achievement gap is a good thing!

Enjoy a Picture Book

Martha McCormick on July 8, 2013

Picture books. I’ve loved them since before Mom read The Pokey Little Puppy to Leo and me. I just learned it is the best selling picture book ever. When I saw this book in the New York City Library’s exhibit about The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter, I was in for a surprise. I sat down on one of their big green blocks and read it for the first time in years.

I thought The Pokey Little Puppy was about how bad it is to be late. It’s really about having adventures, but coming home in time for dinner. Or maybe it’s about minding your mother. Or treating others the way you want to be treated. Or treating others the way they treat you? Not really about being late or being slow or dawdling though. No, not so much.

In fact the book points out the rewards of dawdling pretty convincingly, at least to me. I really think dawdling gets a bad rap. In this story, the pokey little puppy’s nose to the ground dawdling provides clues to strawberry shortcake and rice pudding for supper! I know my dawdling has gotten me down the path of creativity more than once. But that’s not the only lesson in picture books.

A Bargain for Frances by Russell Hoban is a wonderful story about friendship and trust. Where the Wild Things Are is about unconditional love and again, exploring. In the end Max comes home in time to find his supper still hot. I miss having Maurice Sendak on this earth so much!

And one of the wisest authors I know is Arnold Lobel, who wrote Ming Lo Moves the Mountain and Fables. Both books teach lessons about acceptance, parenthood, and positive attitude. All told with tongue tucked firmly into cheek.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the library or book store? Lying in bed at nap time? On your stomach in the grass? I think there must be 1000 ways to enjoy a picture book!

–Martha McCormick

Work for Equality

Martha McCormick on March 10, 2013

My mom was born in 1915, five years before women got the vote. She was a working mom when it wasn’t so common and I took care of my brothers, loosely speaking. Many a time I was asleep in my Dad’s armchair when mom got home with no idea where the boys were.

But as I got ready for college, I was advised to get a degree in education so I would have something to fall back on if something happened to my husband. But guess what! I graduated in 1972 with no MRS degree and no clear plan for what I wanted to be when I grew up.

That was the year Title IX was signed into law, which greatly changed sports for girls and women. My daughter swam through high school and college. I’m so grateful for the opportunities she had that weren’t available before Title IX.

I was fired from one of my first jobs because I was what would now be called a whistle blower. I worked for Community Court Services, an organization designed to protect the rights of people who were arrested but couldn’t afford to post bond.

My boss asked me to fix the stats on pretrial release recommendations so they aligned better with the Court’s decisions. I refused, resigned, gave an interview to a friend who worked for the television station, and was promptly fired. I was 24 years old.

Anita Hill brought attention to sexual harassment sometime during my career as an educator. It’s still a huge risk for a woman to make an accusation such as she did. I can only tell you I’ve had only a few male bosses that wouldn’t have qualified for harassment charges over the years. I finally took a complaint to the university. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

Women across the world are at various stages of equality. Biology and culture are just two of the things that contribute to uneven rights, pay, and treatment. The work of the women’s movement is far from finished.

We must continue to negotiate for fair pay, for protection from abuse, for the right to work with dignity. I’m so grateful to all the women who came before and to those who will continue the work long after I am gone.

Love Your Life

Martha McCormick on March 4, 2013

I was smiling as this TED Talk ended. Then I struggled with getting Word to open (it’s the FOURTH time that’s really the charm) and listened to some of Amanda Palmer’s music (it’s NOT for everyone). Now I’m more thoughtful than smiling.

Palmer makes some wonderful points in this talk, and I decided it would be a good kick-off to my month of writing about women who make history. March? Women’s History Month? Yah!

I celebrated it for the first time back in the 1990s with a contest, custom printed tee shirts and a gala celebration. Anyhow.

Amanda Palmer talks about connecting. It’s about music, acting, asking for her. For me it’s about listening, with not just my ears but also my eyes and my heart.

Ms. Palmer talks about using Twitter to communicate instantly, to find what she needs. For me, technology is about getting and spreading ideas. For connecting people with those ideas.

At the center of Ms. Palmer’s talk is her split from her record company when they considered 25,000 records sold a failure. That seems to be about right sizing. When I was a girl I wanted to be a famous spy. Little did I know that spies by their nature are among the least famous of people. For the most part, their work is very boring.

Instead I’ve played games and gotten paid for it. I’ve built programs and organizations and even facilities and watched people learn and grow. I love my life!

Remember Evelyn Davis?

Martha McCormick on February 20, 2013

I started working in Des Moines in 1980 when I was fresh out of graduate school. Iowa State University Extension hired two urban 4-H professionals to fill one position. The Polk County Extension Director’s reaction was not warm. “There’s no such thing as a free puppy” was his frequent response to our requests.

Extension negotiated with Evelyn Davis for free rent in exchange for free programming with the families, kids and staff at Tiny Tots, and we moved into an old classroom on the second floor of the old Nash Irving Middle School, then the home of Evelyn Davis’ Tiny Tots Center. It was a cold day in February 1980, and Horticulture Specialist Mohammad Khan took us on a breakneck tour through the “hood” in his tiny Nissan. Things have improved a lot since then. Hofmaster and I learned our way around the city by being lost a good deal of the time.

Evelyn Davis’ work continues through the Evelyn K. Davis Center for Working Families. The Center houses Gateway to College and other programs for individuals and families that struggle to make ends meet, much less get ahead. Ms. Davis was a force of nature that impacted me personally as well as professionally.

I felt my baby’s first kick in the hallway at Tiny Tots waiting out a tornado warning. When I brought Kate to the center a month or so after she was born, Ms. Davis took my crying child from Charlene Owens’ arms and she quieted and settled against that warm caring heart immediately.

Ms. Davis helped our nutrition education programs connect with other organizations in the community, and let us hone our teaching skills on her staff and clients. Our joint efforts brought additional ISU staff to the community to work with parenting skills, nutrition education and advise on home improvement. We turned those three classrooms into a real inner city Extension Office that impacted the community for four years.

Now the site of the old Tiny Tots Center is Evelyn Davis Park where we held our first 4-H Portable Challenge Training. We brought Sam Tower in from Washington State University to spend a week with 12 professionals from Extension, Des Moines Schools and Employee and Family Resources. Those five days began the adventure movement in the Des Moines area. That fall we created a physical education class for kids who were at risk of dropping out of high school because they were failing PE. Soon we added afterschool and summer programs, and finally corporate training and work with adult students.

Ten years later we started the Adventure Learning Center with Living History Farms and Polk County Conservation, still the premier course in Iowa. And that’s where I learned to climb poles. But that’s another story!

Au Courage

Martha McCormick on February 19, 2013

“The thing we tend to overlook about adventures is that the people having them don’t know how they’re going to turn out.” How true! Seven years ago when I was hatching Next Step, I really didn’t know how it would turn out. I still don’t. That’s what makes it an Adventure!.

I’ve come to believe that most things are adventures. And looking at them that way opens up all kinds of possibilities that aren’t there when we think we know how the story will end. I bet Jessica Rowe didn’t have a clue where life would take her when she started at the Blanden Art Museum in Fort Dodge in 1977.

Paris has countless examples of the controversy of great art. From the depths of the catacombs to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I was struck by the courage of the French people. disease from overcrowded cemeteries and the collapse of quarry ceilings inspired the funereal art of the catacombs. Many saw the Eiffel Tower, the most iconic symbol of Paris as an eyesore during its construction and long after.

Anna Gaskell, who originated the quote at the beginning of this post, designed a maze for HyVee Hall. I’ve admired it from above and look forward to the tour this spring that includes it. The public art that Jessica Rowe and other have brought to Des Moines adds a sense of adventure to walking, driving or biking around Des Moines.

Author: Martha McCormick