Next Step Adventure :: mindful, creative, fun approaches to help people and organizations reach the next level
If you’re ready to take your Next Step with us, give us a shout!
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!
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
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.
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!
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!
“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.
With Martin Luther King Jr. Day coming up in a week, I want to put something out there about service-learning, and how important it is to upcoming generations. This video is taken from my radio show, “We’re Entrepreneurs. We Can Help.” It features Nikola Pavelik and Lucy McCormick. Lucy is teaching humanities at Hershey Montessori School in northeastern Ohio and Nikola is Community Engagement Coordinator for the City of Dubuque.
I find that they are not unusual in their commitment to service and to mentoring young people. During the interview we all remarked at how these young people, then in their mid-20s talked about working with younger kids. Travis Wells was on the same page. He is featured in last month’s video “Kids These Days.”
Watch this spot for more words of wisdom from Generation Y. My research says there are more of them on the planet than Baby Boomers now. I personally hope they can get us out of the mess we’ve made of things. But my daughter’s response to that is “Don’t put that on us!” I think they’ve already started the job; let me know what you think after you watch this.
I just made this short video from my first Internet radio show two years ago, We’re Entrepreneurs. We Can Help. Because my daughter was home for the holidays, it was a great opportunity to have a conversation with some 20-somethings. Listening to it further reinforces my opinion that Generation Y has some really great qualities. Travis Wells identifies his childhood with the cold war, and he and Lucy McCormick both talk about how important community is to them and for solving the big problems we all face.
Bruce Lehnertz and I were totally overwhelmed by the technical aspect of the studio, the microphones and cameras staring us in the face, and all the dials and slides. We ended up with only one or two camera angles, but luckily the audio worked fine.
This bit is Travis Wells, aka Madison Ray, a rising young musician here in Des Moines. My daughter, Lucy McCormick talks at the end of the clip about Scattergood Friends School where she was teaching at the time. Both of them are passionate about guiding the next generation.
Older generations have been ragging on younger ones since at least Aristotle’s time. I certainly was a rebellious youngster in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. We were serious when we said we didn’t trust anyone over 30. Now I’m twice 30, and count among my blessings the number of 20 & 30-somethings I call friends.
Take a look at the video, let me know what you think, and watch this space for more of the conversation in coming weeks.
I got a taste of farm life in Kyla’s backyard the other day, even though it’s in the heart of Des Moines. The ducks waddling around remind me of my parents’ tenure on our family farm in Missouri in the late 1970s. Their ducks made great pets until the snapping turtles in the pond rendered them extinct.
Ducks are natural comedians. The way they walk. QUAck quackquackquack quACK. The way they make mudcakes and splash in their baby pool. Jefe (Boss) and Guapito (Little Handsome) stick out their chests and vie for dominance of the females and the yard. Jefe has an ongoing competition with the dog next door, and I wasn’t so sure my Tater cat could take him on.
Roosters can be really fierce too. After her sophomore year of college my daughter worked on an organic vegetable farm in Colorado. She cared for the chickens, and one night a rooster kept her captive in the barn for about 45 minutes. Though she professes not to like chickens, they’ve played prominent roles in several of Lucy’s jobs. At Scattergood Friends School her chore team took care of the poultry and egg operation. At her new position at Hershey Montessori School outside Cleveland, Ohio, she is developing a science unit about chickens to present next spring. That got me all excited about hatching chicks.
When I was about seven my Dad built an incubator for my oldest sister’s science fair project. I bugged Alice mercilessly as she dissected eggs at various stages and illustrated each stage of chicken development. A couple of the eggs hatched and grew into hens. Daddy insisted they were delicious, but none of us ate a bite.
Though she doesn’t plan to butcher her ducks or chickens, Kyla is an urban farmer. In addition to the four ducks, she has nine laying hens. The five older hens bully the four chicks she added to her flock earlier in the summer, so she has to separate them. This process takes place in a pen about the size of a small bedroom.
Farming in such a small space has added to the challenge of a difficult summer. When Kyla started digging up her front yard, the neighbors had a fit, but it was the only place in their yard sunny enough to grow much. Now it is a beautiful tapestry of strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, dill, blueberries, squash, beans and pumpkins. You can barely resist exploring more closely.
Kyla and I are hosting an Edible Urban Garden Tour to spread the word about the rewards you can reap in a small space in the city. Kyla’s garden will be one of five gardens we’ll visit on Saturday, September 29, 2012 between 11 am & 2 pm. We want to spark a conversation about growing your own tomatoes and herbs, or starting a backyard farm like Kyla’s. It’s a fundraiser for Des Moines Public Schools gardens, an we can handle a limited number of people, so sign up early!
“Scratch a woman; find rage” a counselor once told me. Scores of reasons can excite feminine rage, but the one scratching at me now is the social conservative labeling women who need birth control sluts and whores. The same party that screams “Second Amendment” when asked to control automatic weapons, legislates to limit abortion rights.
What’s going on?
My theory is that men, on some subconscious level, are reacting to women’s economic and political gains over the last 45 years. Remember that women didn’t have the right to vote in the US until 1920. My mom was five years old then. Women haven’t even had the vote for four full generations yet.
I was alive and awake for the women’s movement in the late 60s and early 70s. I didn’t burn any bras, but I sure don’t miss the other restrictions I grew up with. I was an honor student in high school, but it was very clear that my career choices were nursing, teaching, motherhood, and office work. I went to college expecting to find a husband and get a teaching certificate to “fall back on.” What a rude awakening when no husband showed up, and I hated teaching. Looking back, though, thank goodness. Otherwise, I’d never have learned to fly.
My anger is directed at men of the Baby Boom generation, who have benefited from the sexual freedom women felt when the pill became available. Mine is the first generation with a reliable means of birth control, able to enjoy sex without always worrying about unwanted pregnancies. Some of the same men who would make a woman pay for her own birth control, have exercised sexual freedom without recrimination for years, and famously. The only way I can make sense of it is to look at the bigger picture–the rising majority of educated women and people of color coming over the horizon in the next few decades.
China and India are nipping at western heels. Chancellor Angela Merkel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor have blasted through the glass ceiling. We have a Black President. Fight or flight provides the natural choice when we are threatened. But where’s a white man to go? Now don’t get me wrong. I have sympathy for some confusion when it comes to gender roles. What I will not tolerate is the scapegoating of women and other oppressed groups.
What’s a woman to do?
My approach, after a little ranting, is to ask, “How do we move forward?” I have some ideas, and here are a couple to start–
o REALLY listen to people. There’s a guy in my art class that’s always spouting off political views I find absurd. I’ve reacted angrily before, but now I find something amusing if I can’t find a kernel of truth. I’ve asked him to help open my paint tubes, and I work at seeing his good–he loves his granddaughters, and he practices yoga.
o Read history. I’m looking forward to reading Catherine the Great, and finding out how many of the legends about her life are really true. She and Cleopatra, another powerful woman, have been rumored as ultra-sexual beings. Maybe their lives provide some clues to our current dilemma.
How about you? How will you move forward?
