Reflect on Service

Martha McCormick on September 22, 2011

I love service learning. It’s fun to help kids help people, in preschools, retirement communities, parks and gardens. Service learning is a respected way to get kids involved in their own educations.

But it’s not just about doing projects that help communities. For service learning to be valuable to young people as well as to the people they work with, we have to involve them in every step of every project–investigation, planning, action, reflection, demonstration and celebration.

After Global Youth Service Day last spring, Jessica Krough, Melissa Simmermaker of the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, and I talked about innovative ways to reflect on the state-wide day of service. We decided to experiment with Internet based radio to bring kids together from different GYSD projects around the state. About eight kids joined me on my show, “We’re Entrepreneurs–we can help.” Three of my Earth Heroes, and two students from the Hoover High School STARS program came to the studio. Two students from Lamoni Middle School and their facilitator joined us by Skype.

The Earth Heroes talked about the ongoing project they’re doing for Global Youth Service Day. Jessica visited the garden, and helped them read the Governor’s Proclamation. They were still clearing the garden, building their dragon, and planting vegetables.

As Kyla, Terrance, I work with the Earth Heroes at the Des Moines Botanical Center, we talk about

  • What happened?
  • So what?–How did you feel? What did you learn?
  • Now what?–What’s next? How can you use this experience in the future?

Here is some of their wisdom–

  • “When I’m special, I work really hard.”
  • “I didn’t know broccoli grew on a plant.”
  • “Digging is fun!”

The Earth Heroes walk down the hill from Boys and Girls Club at Carver Community School to the Botanical Center, and we form a circle. The kids know the FIRST thing we do is the “Name Wave.” The kids lead the Wave, starting with everyone yelling out their name as loud as they can. Then come “compliments and appreciations,” a chance for everyone to say thank you, and talk about what we like.

It’s September, and the 2nd through 5th graders are harvesting squash, pumpkins, watermelon, beans, tomatoes, okra, onions, potatoes, peppers and sunflower seeds to take home. Any gardener knows fall is time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, what got done, and what didn’t. What was lost? Where did the summer go?

So, they’re taking photos in the gardens, and next week we’ll create a map of each of the 20 ten-foot X 10-foot raised beds, making notes about what grew, crops that worked well together, and what the Heroes learned from experiments with okra, mulching, and fall planting.

Service learning is a powerful way for young people to find relevance in education, dream about the future, and change the world.

Talk About Sex

Martha McCormick on September 20, 2011

Planned Parenthood once told me a woman is lucky if she has only a few unplanned pregnancies during her fertile years. I started menstruating when I was ten, and didn’t stop until I was 55. That gave me 540 opportunities to get pregnant. I wasn’t sexually active all those years, so that cuts it down a lot. Let’s say by two-thirds. Only about 200 chances for pregnancy. Boy, am I lucky to have only one little duck of my own.

Different kinds of birth control have different levels of effectiveness, with even the best being 99%. That looks pretty good, until you realize that even if I do everything right, and plan to have NO children, the odds are I’ll have two babies. I will tell you that, even at 60, these numbers are daunting.

On top of the math, nature has programmed teens to really, really want to have sex. It’s our nature to procreate while we are young. In fact, passing on our genes is our only biological purpose. Just 100 years ago, we could only expect to live 40 years. Lots of babies, and mothers, died in childbirth. No wonder teenagers have sex and babies.

Another issue for me was growing up in a family that didn’t talk about periods, much less s-e-x. I didn’t date in high school, or college really, though I did learn about sex, experientially. Though I prefer hands-on learning, it’s not the best way to learn this particular subject. I do remember a lecture in my sophomore religion class, so we must have had a unit on sex. Sister Mary Alphonse said if you masturbate, you are almost certainly a Lesbian. Though I didn’t know what a Lesbian was, I was sure I didn’t want to be one. I was terrified!

Then, college, the peace movement and “women’s liberation” changed my life. I started working with kids, and suddenly they were asking me questions and confiding in me about sex. So, I learned. I hosted women’s workshops in my tiny house in Cedar Rapids. I taught a very open catechism class for eighth graders. I listened as kids came out to me, and I told them they were ok, and that I still loved them. Even so, I didn’t really understand.

When I came to Des Moines, I began partnering with the adolescent pregnancy prevention coalition. And I began to talk about sex. I began to talk about my own experiences, and eventually I confronted the more painful ones. I talked to kids about their sexuality, and more often I listened. In the process, I became an approachable adult.

Now I’m back in the business of teen sexuality education and pregnancy prevention. I’m working with EyesOpenIowa to develop a peer review process for sex educators. Over the next few months, I’ll share resources for approachable adults. I hope you’ll let me know what you think, and pass the helpful ones on to others. Join me in peeling back our sexy onions.

Ride Like the Wind

Martha McCormick on May 30, 2011

Last week I signed up for the MS 150 in eastern Kansas. It’s a two-day bike ride to raise money for combatting Multiple Sclerosis. I rode 110 of the 150 miles in 2008, and I hope can do the whole thing this year. I’m definitely in better shape, but I’m just getting on my bike now. I’ve started riding to meetings and yoga class, and I’m going to do at least two long rides each week. I’ve already made it up to 29 mph this year. I do love to ride like the wind.

On my 5/26/2011 Internet radio show, “We’re Entrepreneurs: we can help,” my guests and I talked about biking–trails, training, risk, safety & gear. My guests are experts in various aspects of the subject. The discussion was inspiring.

Andrea Chase is Trail Coordinator at the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation. She talked about the huge contribution INHF has made to transforming Iowa into the Trails Capitol of the World. The INHF has secured more than 750 miles of trails, mostly reclaiming old railroad rights-of-way. The latest trail opening got a lot of attention–the High Trestle Trail runs between five towns in four counties–Ankeny, Sheldahl, Slater, Madrid and Woodward.

Dan Koenig owns Ichi Bike in Des Moines’ East Village. I first met him at the KWAKers Community Party at Merrill Middle School. He revamps old bikes, retools broken skate boards into banana seats, and sells the coolest helmets I’ve seen. Dan is all about getting back into the fun of biking.

WEWCH was Jeri Neal’s first gig as Board President of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, a group that formed in 2007 to advocate for cyclists and our right to ride. Jeri shares this for all of us–

I hope I’ll see you out on the trails, or riding to work or school this summer!

Honor Your Mother

Martha McCormick on April 8, 2011

Procrastination? Grandiosity? Too many balls in the air? I had the idea at one point to post on “woman in history” each day last month. Now we are 8 days into April, and I am finishing this post that I started more than 2 weeks ago. Hence, instead of celebrating Women’s History Month (each March), we are preparing to honor our mothers (a weekend in May).

We lost two women who made history last month–Elizabeth Taylor and Geraldine Ferraro. Two women on very different ends of the spectrum. I think their deaths and their lives give a glimpse of the breadth and depth of the contributions of women, even over the last 60 years.

Years ago, we co-sponsored a Women’s History Month contest for people to celebrate a woman important to them. It was pretty cool. I still have the tee shirt. I think my daughter was about 10 years old. Now she IS a woman of history. She is a teacher at Scattergood Friends School, a little known place where women have made Iowa history.

We have good reason to celebrate the heroic mothers and women who have taken charge. So, here are some women to celebrate this month. How about making every month, not just March, Women’s History Month.

Fight Poverty

Martha McCormick on March 28, 2011

The Community Action Poverty Simulation Kit from Missouri Association for Community Action provides a glimpse into the challenges individuals and families in poverty face every day. I purchased a kit in 2011, and am facilitating a simulation in West Des Moines in November. I helped out with poverty simulations in their early years at Iowa State University, and recognized some of their power for changing the way we view those who face each month without sufficient resources to make it through.

This morning I had a flash of realization as I wrote the marketing brochure for the program. This new program does have the capacity for system change. Perhaps we can stop blaming the victims, and take steps to “provide a decent standard of living for all mankind,” in Norman Borlaug‘s words.

I’ve spent a little time in Zambia, where I stayed with a family much poorer than any I know here. Their generosity touched my heart deeply, but they are not my neighbors. There is a limit to how much I can help them.

Here in Iowa, within a few miles of my home, there are thousands of people barely getting by day to day in the richest country in history. Yet, we show little generosity to them. In fact, we often hold them in contempt.

John F. Kennedy said, “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.” Even more than 50 years after his death, we have made little progress toward abolishing poverty. Indeed, we have gone backward.

I offer this post as a resource for connecting with knowledge and research, opportunities to help, and opportunities to advocate. Please help me build it, with links and ideas I may have missed.

 

Be Inspired

Martha McCormick on December 12, 2010

I’m on a news break right now. All the bad news from around the world and around the nation was getting me down. It’s overwhelming when you are just one person, and you don’t see how the little bit you can do will make any difference at all. But then I found Amiya. She is changing the world, one dance step at a time!

When she was ten, Amiya Alexander woke her mother at 1 in the morning–“I need a pink bus!” She already had a business plan and a design for her mobile dance studio. Her single mom found a way to give her that bus for Christmas, and she has been providing affordable dance lessons in it ever since. Her motivation–attacking the obesity epidemic.

This morning’s Des Moines Register ran a story about Joanne Schafer and her trips to Haiti. She has traveled there more than 100 times since 1991. Along with antibiotics and education, she is giving “A Little Piece of [Her] Heart” to the people of Haiti.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Katie Spotz, the young woman who rowed her boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Now she is riding her bike amazing distances. Having her bike stolen didn’t stop her either. She is raising money for clean water in developing countries. Rachel Naomi Remen says, “What if the small things that you can do are exactly what is needed to heal the world?”

If you are inspired to heal the world, here are some possible places to start–

Row Your Boat

Martha McCormick on November 26, 2010

I got my water bill today. For a little over $70 a month, I get clean, safe water delivered to my sink, shower, tub, yard and toilet. I also get my garbage picked up, recycled, composted and dumped, and my sewage disposed of safely. How much do I even think of water? Not so much. But I am in a small minority of the world’s population that doesn’t worry about water.

In 2005, I visited Zambia, a butterfly-shaped country hugged by Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa…We started in Lusaka, the capitol, where my niece and daughter lived in a modern flat. We did laundry in the bathtub and hung it to dry on a clothesline strung across the bedroom, but we had running water. Oh, we boiled or filtered the water before we drank it. Or was that boil AND filter? But we had a flush toilet. We used the old motto–If it’s yellow let it mellow; if it’s brown flush it down. Still, we counted ourselves among the privileged.

We never quite erased the term “bathroom” from our vocabulary, even out in the bush where the “toilet” was a walk behind a bush or even a tall clump of grass!  The term bathroom or restroom evokes a blank stare from most Zambians.  I saw some ingenious solutions for these bodily functions, and learned to feel fairly comfortably without the comforts of home.

At Kabwata Cultural Centre, I visited a very unique toilet; when I asked one of the women where it was, she escorted me to a round, concrete structure behind the restaurant.  It was concrete inside as well, with sink, shower stall and toilet molded of concrete.

The other unusual toilet we saw was built inside a giant Baobab tree at the Kayila Lodge where we stayed on the last night of our canoe safari.  If you’ve been peeing behind a bush for 4 days, it borders on decadent.  Electric lights, running water, a mirror (to be avoided at all costs!) and a little nicknack shelf with feathers and quills in a pot of sand.  Who could ask for anything more?

We visit Monze village, and turn back the clock at least 100 years. This is how most of the world deals with water. Toilet facilities are holes in the ground. When the toilet is full, the family fills it in and digs another nearby. Privacy appears to be valued above other amenities. Outhouses are built in the shape of a backward G so that when you squat, no one can see in from the outside.  Usually there is a slit or a keyhole shaped hole in the floor.

The shower enclosure was ingenious, with a platform made of branches about 1 inch thick, suspended about a foot above the ground. This requires careful balance and planning so your feet don’t go through the space between the branches where the water drains onto the ground. Mr. and Mrs. Victor’s expansive hospitality included a shower to which they fetched water from about 2 kilometers away (about 2.5 miles round trip), and heated over an open fire.

The trip to Zambia was my first experience with the way most of the world gets their water–they carry it. Each day, women across the world spend more than 200 million hours collecting water for cooking and washing. It’s so easy to take for granted the things we receive with so little effort, and often difficult to improve the standards by which the developing world lives. But one young woman is doing something, and she’s been recognized for it. Glamour Magazine named her one of their 2010 Women of the Year. She is the youngest person ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, solo for 70 days in a row boat.

When Katie Spotz was only 22 years old, she set out from Dakar, Senegal to raise money to provide safe drinking water projects for people around the world. She has extreme courage and single mindedness, and explains that the solo row was just something she had to do. She didn’t think about the danger. She is just passionate about completing the journey. Since her row, Katie has turned to biking; I am inspired by following her progress, and I hope you will be too.

Create Safe Spaces

Martha McCormick on November 9, 2010

During the year I taught school in the early 1970s, some of the kids in my 8th grade homeroom became good friends, and often stayed after school to talk. A couple years later one of them, Sammie, joined the 4-H teen programs we were starting–helping with the newsletter and planning programs. We took the kids on campouts, held workshops on everything from drama, the arts, feminism and juvenile justice to the American Indian Movement.

Eventually Sammie came out to me, admitting to be gay. I doubt that I responded appropriately; it was my first experience with such a confidence and I didn’t know where to find resources for handling it. We continued to talk about what was going on for several years and eventually, I had to visit Sammie in the psych ward after a suicide attempt. It broke my heart; unfortunately problems like Sammie’s are still so common today. We have a long way to go.

I’ve worked in the field of sexuality education for a long time; along the way I found out I had to examine my own attitudes before I could help anyone else. I’m very proud of my stepdaughter, Denise Stapley, who is currently the ONLY AASECT Certified Sex Therapist in Iowa. I like to think that the book I conspicuously laid around the house–What’s Happening to Me? back in the 1980’s may have had something to do with her choice of profession!

This post highlights some resources to help us take next steps toward a more supportive, helpful society where teens can trudge the path to healthy adulthood with courage and grace. Love Your Body is an earlier post that has a bunch of links you’ll enjoy.

I’ve developed a number of programs over the years–

  • Creating Safe Spaces, a video that offers helpful ideas for showing kids you’re a safe person. Use the ideas here to communicate your trustworthiness and willingness to listen. The video addresses things to do, posters, arrangement and self-disclosure. It includes several examples of safe spaces as well.
  • Challenge for Healthy Relationships is an adventure-based program I originally created to bring boys and young men into the conversation about sexuality and teen pregnancy prevention. The idea was that if they were involved in physical challenges, it would be easier for them to talk about feelings. We also found many activities that worked well as metaphors for decision making around sex, sexuality and pregnancy.
  • The Pleasure Meter is a way to start discussion; it helps people get to know and can help you learn about your group and how the participants define sexual behavior.
  • This post links to Go Ask Alice which has reliable information for when kids come to us with questions about sex. The site is a a Health Q & A Service of Columbia University.
  • I developed this post in the summer of 2009 when textual harassment was in the news. Bullying is still a big problem not only among kids, but in the media and on the highways. This video about what might happen if you talk to your parents, counselor or boyfriend about “textual harassment” is pretty funny, and a good example of how NOT to listen to kids talk about sex!

This morning I came across Doctor: Teen girls misinformed on body image, sex in USA Today, and it describes some indicators and guidelines for sexual education. As a woman and mother, this is a most baffling issues in raising healthy children. The article makes some great points about realistic expectations for sexual activity, establishing a relationship with a gynecologist, and reviews the book by Dr. Jennifer Ashton, The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You; it sounds like a great resource.

You’ll find a review here in the Comments section as soon as I read it!

Celebrate Service

Martha McCormick on June 26, 2010

I grew up in southern California, and have often been asked what I’m doing in Iowa. But I’m proud to live in a state with such a strong history of  civil rights, fairness and equality. Iowa again blazed this trail through extending the right to marry to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. This controversial Iowa Supreme Court decision follows a pattern established many years ago.

The Fort Des Moines Museum celebrates the heroes who brought gender and racial equality to the United States Army during World War I and World War II. The Museum honors the U.S. Army’s first officer candidate class for African American men in 1917, and the establishment of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC’s) in 1942. Videos show an African American soldier and a WAC (Women’s Army Ausiliary Corps) telling about their training at the Fort and their lives overseas.

The Museum hosts meetings, parties and offers educational programs.