• 09Apr

    To “app” or not to “app”. . .

    I have a confession to make.  Despite a 20-plus-year career as a park professional, I continue to be a failure at one of the great traditions of park programming.  For years and years during certain popular programs, I simply pretended to know what was going on.  I pointed as if I saw. I ‘oohed’ and I ‘ahhed.’  But … it was fake.  Other than the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt – which most three-year-olds can spot – I simply cannot distinguish any of the constellations from the sea of stars above my head. 

    A couple of months back I wrote about another great park tradition: the campfire program (http://interpnet.com/naiblog/2012/01/31/fireside-chat). It never seems to fail that at campfires someone invariably asks about the stars. And each time I have been fortunate that someone in the audience can spot a few constellations, just enough to satisfy the short-term curiosity before the campfire conversation moves on to something else.

    All of this is a long-way ‘round to what I really wanted to write about this week, which is the use of Apps during programming. I have discovered Google Sky Map, one of several constellation finder apps (like the free apps PlaneteriaX, SkEye, or the for-pay Mobile Observatory Pro).  With a free download and the press of an icon, I have the entire night sky before me … and the constellations neatly labeled!

    Now, as much as I personally find this liberating, use of apps can be both a blessing and a curse:  when, due to your wonderful interpretive program your audience goes home with a new-found interest in astronomy (a blessing), Google Sky Map is a wonderful tool to recommend to your audience; but, wait until after your talk to tell them about the app – you really don’t want them holding their cellphones up finding their own star maps during your presentation. And these apps don’t tell stories, sing songs or help you build your s’more.

    Other apps can be similarly problematic. As an example, I am even worse at spotting birds then I am constellations.  So I appreciate the many ornithology apps that can teach me how to recognize bird songs and calls and therefore help me spot a bird.

    Beny Wilson Altamiranda

    My friend Beny Wilson, a birder par excellance, expressed his concerns about these apps almost 18 months ago and sure enough, in today’s U.K. Daily Mail, there is an article about just what Beny was talking about:

    “The recordings are designed to help twitchers identify the calls and songs of birds they hear out in the field.  But so realistic is the birdsong, that even the birds are fooled. While it may seem innocent enough for birdwatchers to lure birds for the perfect photograph by playing birdsong on their mobile phones, there’s a rather alarming twist.

    “Nature wardens say that mating birds think the birdsong featured on the applications, or ‘apps’  on smart phones, are actually the sound of rival male birds invading their territory. As a result, the birds are leaving chicks unattended in their nests, vulnerable to attack from predators and without food, to see off the apparent threat.” (Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1386344/iPhone-apps-putting-chicks-peril-Twitchers-immitation-ringtones-blamed-confusing-birds.html#ixzz1rYptLnev)

    And of course there are the ubiquitous GPS units found in our phones and  cars that are more likely than not helping people lose the ability to tell north from south or forget or never learn how to read a map.  GPS is a wonderful amenity to our search-and-rescue pack and yes, ok, helpful when renting a car in a new city.  But orienteering skills are a foundational part of many park and outdoor education programs and I’ve read several stories recently about car accidents caused by drivers following the instructions from their GPS units instead of using common sense and looking at the road.

    Old school orienteering device

    Determining when and how to use the high tech should be done thoughtfully.  Certainly, all of the technology available to us should enhance our programs and increase the learning and the skillset of our audiences. From a programmatic perspective these apps are like any other tool or trick in our interpretive toolbox.  As an accessory and an enhancement. I hope they never replace knowledgeable interpreters who can provide information because they KNOW it and they can teach others to know it too.   And interpreters always get a signal and never run out of batteries!

    Please write in and let me know about the apps you use and how you use them.

    Amy Lethbridge, NAI President

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  • 06Apr

    Interview with an Entrepreneur, Betty Brennan of Taylor Studios

    Betty Brennan is the dedicated entrepreneur behind Taylor Studios and this week she took a few moments to answer my questions about how her ideas and interests have grown into a very effective business that works in the field of interpretation. Taylor Studios is an interpretive planning, design and fabrication business in Rantoul, Illinois, doing $4 million in projects each year with a talented and growing staff of 38.

    The staff at Taylor Studios work in two buildings. One office building is home to all project management, project design, and interpretive planning. The other is a former Wal-Mart store that is now devoted to the fabrication of exhibits and models of anything you might imagine for a nature center, museum or interpretive center.

    I asked Betty questions and she gave very thoughtful, direct answers:

    Tim: How did you get started in business?

    Betty: I grew up in a business – my family’s farm. I was my Dad’s helper, so I was outside all the time, and loved nature. Finding artifacts outdoors led me to fall in love with archaeology and history.

    During college at Southern Illinois University, I excelled in business and marketing. I knew early on I was an entrepreneur. At 19, I set a goal to be on the INC 500 list and achieved that goal after 10 years in business. I have been on the INC 5,000 list as well.

    Joe Taylor was my partner in the early years. He was the artist and I was the business person. Joe worked for a taxidermist and that led to making trees for a nature center. Then we discovered this was an industry, making museum exhibits for a living. How cool is that?! I went off to grad school to get an MBA. Joe went to work with Chase Studios. Later we did contract work for Brees Studios. We are friendly competitors with Gary Brees now.

    It wasn’t easy in the early years. We built the business from the ground up, starting Taylor Studios in our small town home’s garage, barn loft, and renovated chicken coop. Joe left to pursue other business interests, and I stayed on with Taylor Studios and expanded it.

    Tim: Why did you get into interpretive projects?

    Betty: We almost immediately were asked by fabrication clients to do design work because many of the designs we got from others were “floating in air”— not functional or something that could realistically be built.

    Designer Matt Wiley, working on a project.

    A children’s museum in Decatur introduced us to interpretation in 1996, while doing a project about health for kids. I started doing drawings, and we have been working on interpretive projects ever since. We wrote copy to tell Mark Twain’s story at the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal. We knew you had to engage the visitor with writing; you couldn’t just hit them with a lot of facts. Interpretation is the best way to do that.

    Around eleven years ago, one of our interpretive planners, Pete Salmon, started getting involved with NAI and took the interpretive planning course. Pete went on to earn the CHI and CIP credentials, and Katie VanMetre earned the CIP in 2009.

    Tim: What interpretive projects have you done recently?

    Betty: Right now, we have several really exciting projects because the clients are allowing some risk-taking in design. Linn County, Iowa, is expanding their nature center. We did their original exhibits 10 years ago. The nature center is getting a whimsical, kid-friendly twist, using a custom children’s storybook to tell the story. It’s a non-traditional approach in teaching children about nature. We have often told the wetlands and woodlands story, but this is a very exciting new way to tell it.

    Artist Shawn Hensley, sculpting a figure for an exhibit.

    We are also working with the Lincoln Heritage Museum in Lincoln, Illinois to tell Abraham Lincoln’s story in a different way. Here in Illinois, there are so many exhibits about Lincoln – Taylor Studios is taking a theatrical approach, telling the story through Lincoln’s remarkable values. In the exhibit, Lincoln reflects on his life in very creative ways and we use video, lighting and varied media. We want people to reflect on their own lives throughout this exhibit.

    Our Prairie Grove exhibits in Arkansas won a Region 6 NAI award and we will submit it for a national award. Other projects are going on with Turkey Run State Park in Indiana, Rend Lake Visitor Center in Illinois, the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, North Dakota,  and the Nevada State Railroad Museum. We keep about twenty projects going at any one time.

    Tim: How has certification with NAI played a role in your staff’s professional development and Taylor’s business development?

    Betty: I think our certification of staff members as CIPs give us credibility, a common language and a support system. I think it helps differentiate us from competitors. We try to be first to market on this kind of thing.

    Tim: What trends to you see in the business?

    Betty: We’re happy to see more open-mindedness in design. The industry is getting more open to creative design approaches. They know they have to compete with lots of other leisure time media. They need a compelling way to tell their stories.

    Planning seems to be a new trend instead of just jumping in with exhibits. When you ask what’s your story, why do you want to do this, they see a reason to plan it first. If we can help a client spend their dollars better and more sustainably, that’s good.

    Tim: Thanks, Betty. I appreciate your time in sharing your business story with us. All the best with your projects.

    - Tim Merriman

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  • 02Apr

    Interpretation as a personal mission

    The following is excerpted from that speech I gave at the NAI National Workshop in Las Vegas in 2010:

    I love interpreters. I do. They are funny and smart and cool people to hang out with. They work in great places and have wonderful stories. But that’s not the biggest reason I love them. I love them because both individually and collectively they are committed to the greater good – because they are filled with passion and they are filled with purpose. Whether ensuring that the definition of a good childhood continues to include climbing trees and jumping in puddles or preserving and protecting our global heritage, or whether bringing history to life or illustrating the natural systems from which people have become so disconnected, interpreters do this noble work because they care.

    We are not interpreters because we get paid a great salary. In fact, most of us could probably get paid more in another job. Our parents probably didn’t say to us when we were young:  “When you grow up, I hope you are an interpreter.”

    And yet here we are. We are proud to be interpreters. We are, by the act of being members of NAI, supporting ourselves, each other and the profession of interpretation. We have something inside that makes us do this job despite the lack of traditional motivators like salary level and job security.

    Some time ago, researchers asked a cross section of people over the age of 65, “If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?” Three main themes were drawn from their replies: They would (1) be more reflective, (2) be more courageous and (3) be clear—earlier—about my purpose.

    We are lucky. Effective interpretation of our natural and cultural resources demand that we be reflective in our approach, courageous in our delivery and very, very clear about our purpose.  When I look back on my life I know I will have no regrets about choosing this field, about my small little contribution to preserving our heritage.

    The NAI definition of interpretation begins: “Interpretation is a mission-based communication process…” This is important. The emphasis is on the fact that we do interpretation to support the larger vision and goals of the agency we work for, that interpretation is more than just entertainment or information; it is in fact a critical and necessary part of the management of our sites and protection of our resources. Mission is the anchor to which our programs are tied.

    But what happens if you are an interpreter who works for an organization that doesn’t have a “greater good”-related mission… or you’re a freelance interpreter… or you work for a private company that simply wants visitor satisfaction because it leads to profits? The paradigm of an agency – be it government or nonprofit – does not apply to some interpreters who are responsible for making intellectual and emotional connections at some of the world’s biological and cultural hot spots—places preserved and given designation and status on paper but have little support or infrastructure on the ground; places with no “Rules” signs, no interpretive displays, no enforcement personnel, but with increased tourism and a lot of responsibility on the backs of interpretive guides. I have had the great honor of training guides in this very situation, using NAI’s certification program.

    The way this issue is framed in NAI’s Certified Interpretive Guide course is that Interpretation is “purposeful.” In working with US government or nonprofit agencies the “mission” in mission-based communication is a direct link. But it isn’t necessarily for a freelance guide. A couple of years ago my good friend and co-trainer Rick Morales and I began talking to our students about personal mission. We ask interpreters to go even deeper than we do with agency mission, which obviously is a predetermined one that we sign on to when we join an agency or organization. We ask these students to think about the resources they interpret as well as the inner set of goals and principles that drive what they do; set the lines they will not cross, support the manner in which they choose to communicate. Personal mission comes from the part of us that chose a profession where we give back, where we want to change the world, where that ‘a-ha! moment’ with visitors is worth more than extra zeroes on a paycheck.

    Steven Covey in First Things First talks about “the profound satisfaction with connecting to your own unique purpose and the profound satisfaction that comes from fulfilling it.”

    For freelance interpreters this allows them to think about what they really care about and how that impacts their guiding practices. How it will help them take a stand when visitors ask to do something inappropriate and waive money in their face to be allowed to do so. As an example I want to share with you some of the personal mission statements written by students in a CIG class in Panama:

    Franco Fong is a freelance guide who wrote: “My personal mission is to help educate and inspire others about neo-tropical environments through interpretation. To find personal fulfillment and profit from this activity in an economically and sustainable way.”

    Charlotte Elton, from the Panama Visitor Center Association shared: “My personal mission is to improve the quality of life of people in Panama by promoting greater understanding and awareness of Panama’s cultural and natural heritage.”

    Beth King, who coordinates all the interpretive programs at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, writes, “My personal mission is to inspire love and understanding of nature by making connections across boundaries.”

    And mine, which is “I will work to preserve and protect our global heritage and the participation and ownership of local peoples of their own stories, by training, researching and coaching best practices of interpretation and community development. I will do so with passion and giving the best of myself.”

    ***

    Personal mission statements should be developed with real thoughtfulness and in a way that reflects one’s own style. I’d love you to post your own here.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Amy Lethbridge, NAI President

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  • 30Mar

    Brain Rules – Understanding How We Learn and Work

    I encourage you to watch the video above. John Medina tells his own story well. He makes some points we need to think about. He points out that our learning and work environments are likely the worst possible choices for learning well and working productively.

    John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and consultant, wrote Brain Rules in 2009 to help people understand what we know about the human brain. It all applies to interpretation in a major way.

    The rules are fascinating:

    #1 Exercise boosts brain power.

    #2 The human brain evolved, too.

    #3 Every brain is wired differently.

    #4 We don’t pay attention to boring things.

    #5 Repeat to remember.

    #6 Remember to repeat.

    #7 Sleep well, think well.

    #8 Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.

    #9 Stimulate more of the senses.

    #10 Vision trumps all other senses.

    #11 Male and female brains are different.

    #12 We are powerful and natural explorers.

    When asked about holding an audience’s attention, Medina answered, This is what you have to do in 10 minutes. You have to pulse what I just said – the meaning before detail – into it. I call it a hook. At nine minutes and 59 seconds, you’ve got to give your audience a break from what it is that you’ve been saying and pulse to them once again the meaning of what you’re saying. This reinforces our approaches to teaching thematic personal interpretation.

    Medina’s book is wonderful to read. He interprets research about the brain and the practical applications of that research. Some of what you read in Brain Rules will sound very much like what you have heard or read of Sam Ham’s work at University of Idaho. As a cognitive psychologist, Ham uses much of the same body of knowledge from which Medina draws his rules.

    Medina writes quite a lot about how the brain evolved. The symbolic reasoning ability of humans was of key importance in survival. We had to be creative to live in nature with big predators. Our database (left brain) stores key information we need to use over and over again. Our brain components work together to protect us.

    He also explains how the brain continually adapts and neurons change. This continuous reinvention of one of our most important body parts affect how we work and learn at all ages. Medina has also written a Brain Rules book just about babies for parents wanting to understand the implications of brain research and how that affects developmental stages.

    One of the more common questions I hear in training is whether human attention spans are changing due to social media or television. Our brains do not evolve so quickly and much of how we function has taken millions of years to get the way it is. We adapt and change behaviorally due to external stimulation. TV and social media certainly have evolved over the years. But our brain is still our brain. It changes in predictable ways to the extent we understand it. John Medina provides an interesting look at how it all works based on current research. Check out Brain Rules and see what you think about it.

     

    - Tim Merriman

     

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  • 27Mar

    The Rights of a Child

    I’d like to start this post with a shout out to my classmates at Lagunitas Elementary School in the San Geronimo Valley. 

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how lucky we were as kids. Remember the pure freedom of cruising around on our banana-seat bikes (mine had large purple flowers on the seat)? The adventure of exploring the creek that ran between Woodacre and San Geronimo (not to mention the culvert that ran underneath the golf course)?  The tree fort behind our house was in a constant state of additional construction and as soon as the grass got long enough, we schlepped cardboard boxes up the hill to slide down on them again and again and again.  We caught crayfish and climbed trees, hiked the hills and camped out by the old water tank, fished Bon Tempe and Lagunitas Lakes and the Nicasio Reservoir and learned to backpack in 7th grade at Point Reyes National Seashore. Formative experiences all and totally taken for granted. But for many children today, this kind of freedom and adventure in nature is out of reach.

    In the current issue of Legacy magazine my article “Little Kids with Big Sticks” is about the power of nature play.

    Back in 2004 the California Roundtable on Recreation, Parks and Tourism developed the California Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights (COBR), the first of its kind in the country, to encourage California’s children to participate in outdoor recreational activities and discover their heritage. This was a full-year before Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods was released, adding  “nature-deficit disorder” to the vernacular of our profession and starting a massive children and nature network.

    The roundtable’s goals were to identify basic experiences in the outdoors that every Californian child should have before they turn 14. This week the roundtable unveiled an updated list, which I share with you below.  For some children our park sites are the place where they will have the chance to have these experiences, and our programs the way they will be able to do so.

    Every child should have the opportunity to:

    1. Play in a safe place

    2. Explore nature

    3. Learn to swim

    4. Go fishing

    5. Follow a trail

    6. Camp under the stars

    7. Ride a bike

    8. Go boating

    9. Connect with the past

    10 Plant a seed

    Since 2004 more than a dozen states have passed similar measures. If you are in a state that has done so, help them advertise them, plan your programs around them and most importantly help a young person experience them. If you are not, then what are you waiting for?

    Amy Lethbridge,  NAI President

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  • 23Mar

    Remembering Howdy Weaver

    Dr. Doug Knudsen (left) and Dr. Howdy Weaver reminisce about AIN's early years.

    Dr. Howard “Howdy” Weaver called me about three weeks ago to chat. He explained he had only days or weeks at the most to live, but he wanted his most cherished professional papers in the NAI archives. He had already shipped them but wanted me to know they were on the way. I assured him we would make them part of the NAI Heritage Library Archives. On March 15, 2012, Howdy passed away at 88 years of age. Susan Schwandt, Howdy’s daughter, and I spoke this past week and she told me of how important it was in his last days to organize these materials to share with the profession. He was that kind of man, that kind of professional.

     

    Reminiscing with Howdy about the profession, NAI and AIN (Association of Interpretive Naturalists), was always a rich experience. Howdy, Doug Knudsen and I sat down together to chat at the Region 4 Workshop at Bradford Woods in 2004, the 50th Anniversary of the association. We talked at length about the many people involved in the early years of AIN and where they were so many years later. I knew some of those mentioned, but Howdy had the deepest history with these pioneers in our association.

     

    Howdy was involved in the earliest years when naturalists from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois were getting together informally at Great Lakes Park Training Institute at Pokagon State Park in northern Indiana. By 1954 they were discussing the need for a separate group for interpretive naturalists as they met annually at Bradford Woods. In 1958 Bob Kelly of Dupage County Forest Preserves in Illinois suggested they organize formally and AIN was born. Howdy was the first President and would later file the 501(c)3 tax application for AIN in 1965 while he taught at University of Illinois.

     

    The details of Howdy’s contributions to communities, parks, universities and the profession are numerous and better documented in his published obituary in Michigan or his memorial page at interpnet.com. Those who knew him will remember his great sense of humor and love for music. His daughter explained that when asked to play the accordion at a weekend event, he would say, “Let me check my schedule. Carnegie Hall hasn’t called, so I guess I’m free this weekend.”

     

    While working on a Ph.D. in nature and science education in the 1960s, Howdy took a 21,000-mile camping trip through parks and forests with his wife and daughter. Susan tells of learning whitewater canoeing before learning to ride a bike. She also relates a story of her father swooping her to safety at Yellowstone National Park when she saw a black bear approaching and yelled, “Teddy Bear,” in hopes of giving it a hug. She explained, “. . . my first memory of my dad was as a protector.”

     

    For 75 years Howdy was involved in scouting from becoming an Eagle Scout as a youngster to being awarded the Silver Beaver by the Tall Pine Council in 2010. NAI gave Howdy the Distinguished Retired Interpreter Award in 2004 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the National Workshop.

     

    A memorial service for Howdy will be held at 2 p.m., March 31, at First Congregational United Church of Christ, ?6494 Belsay Road in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. Memorial donations can be made to the church, to the American Heart Association, Genesee County Parks designated to Crossroads Village, Friends of the Carousel, or to the Tall Pine Council Boy Scouts of America.

     

    If you wish to leave your thoughts or memories of Howdy on his memorial page with NAI, please click here. We will remember Howdy. He left deep footprints in our professional trail.

     

    - Tim Merriman

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  • 19Mar

    An Inspiration of Interpreters

    One of the tools in my interpretive toolbox is James Lipton’s AN EXALTATION OF LARKS (Ultimate Edition) in which “The Actors Studio” host celebrates what he likes to call “terms of venery,” more generally called “nouns of multitude.”

    Most of us know the commonplace ones, like plague of locusts, pride of lions, or litter of pups. Imagine, though, hearing these expressions for the very first time. Lipton invites us to “sharpen our senses by restoring the magic to the mundane.”  His collection includes terms that date back as far as THE BOOK OF ST. ALBANS, first published in 1486, as well as some that are of his own creation.

    What a really fun, interactive challenge for program participants!

    First, Lipton identifies six sources of inspiration for these terms, calling them “Families,” and provides examples:

    1. Onomatopoeia:  a murmuration of starlings, a gaggle of geese, a cackle of hyena.

    A Gaggle of Geese

    2. Characteristic (by far the largest source, or “Family”): a leap of leopards, a skulk of foxes.

    3. Appearance: a knot of toads, a parliament of owls.

    A Parliment of Owls

    4. Habitat: a shoal of bass, a nest of rabbits, a bed of oysters.

    A Nest of Rabbits

    5. Comment (pro or con depending on viewpoint): a richness of martens, a cowardice of curs.

    6. Error (in transcription or printing; sometimes preserved for centuries): i.e., “school” of fish was originally intended to be “shoal.”

    Lipton believes that the success of any newly derived term hinges on whether it has identified the “quintessential part” of a group that allows it to represent the whole in a universal sense, in whether or not we ‘get it’:  a blur of impressionists, a brood of hens, or a quiver of arrows (Lipton’s research on this last item revealed that, as early as 1300, some poetic soul rejected the available words “case” and “scabbard” and instead turned “quiver,” which the arrows were wont to do after striking a target, into a noun). More than half of the book lists terms in 25 different categories, such as Professions (an aroma of bakers), Daily Life (a belch of smokestacks), and Academe (a discord of experts).

    Some usages can even change depending on the context of the group. For example, a brace of ducks is used when they are in the air, but a paddling of ducks is used when they are on the water. Most of us know that it’s a gaggle of geese, but did you know that it is only to be used for geese on the ground?  When flying they are a skein of geese. Herbivorous dinosaurs are a herd, while carnivorous ones are a pack (herd of sheep, pack of wolves). There are some animals that do not as yet have a term of venery, including koalas, pandas, opossums, and even the platypus (a frieze of opossums? a pastiche of platypus?)  I’d love to hear your suggestions.

    Some really fun terms of venery come about when applied to people and/or professions, such as a swarm of salesmen, a plague of epidemiologists, a cell of biologists, or an arrangement of florists.

    To these terms I humbly add, thinking about the whole of us: an inspiration of interpreters.

    An Inspiration of Interpreters!

    – Amy Lethbridge, NAI President

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  • 16Mar

    Flag Raising at Omaha Beach – Time to Remember

    While training at a small building once used for visitor contacts at Normandy American Cemetery, I saw about 35 American soldiers in camouflage fatigues and desert boots marching toward the cemetery grounds. I grabbed a camera and followed them down the path.

     

    The troops, who were on their way home from Afghanistan, would be raising the American flag in the cemetery at 9 AM. I watched quietly from a respectful distance. I saw the soldiers pull to attention as the large American flag was carefully unfolded by some of the men and attached to the rope to be hoisted. As the flag went up they saluted.

     

    I could feel my throat swell and eyes fill with tears unexpectedly. These men are experienced troops returned from a war zone paying respect to those who gave their lives in WWII. As the flag went up it lifted into the wind and unfurled.

     

    Andy Anderson (right) takes the flag from the young people from California who took down the flag.

    Dwight “Andy” Anderson, Director of Visitor Experience at the Normandy American Cemetery (overlooking Omaha Beach), is a retired Master Sargent who served in the Army and traveled in more than 90 countries. He speaks English, French, and German fluently, and a smattering of several other languages. His knowledge of personal stories of the soldiers under his care in the cemetery is extensive. He shares them with pride and much emotion as he guides family members, other visitors, and dignitaries around the site.

     

    President Obama, along with many other Allied leaders such as President Sarkhozy, visited on June 6, 2009. The guides at the cemetery have been hosts to many world leaders over the years in serving the mission of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

     

    As they tell you of 44 pairs of brothers in the cemetery, the fathers and sons, and the story of the Niland brothers (Saving Private Ryan’s story), the utter despair created by the losses suffered during a war settles on you and in you. The victory of the Allies in WWII was won at a great price to soldiers and civilians, especially the French in villages that were occupied by German soldiers.

     

    Andy surprised us Thursday afternoon by inviting us and the other non-ABMC members in our class to lower and fold the flag at 4 PM. The sound of taps in background was chilling. I remembered playing taps on Memorial Day as a trumpet player in high school with little understanding of the solemnity and deep meaning for veterans standing quietly next to the graves of fallen comrades.

     

    French students from high schools learn about the wall that holds the names of those still Missing In Action.

    Andy also invited a family visiting from California to assist in the flag ceremony. He knows from experience the power of allowing visitors to share this daily act of raising and lowering the flag. Afterward he asked the children in the family to take a pledge – to study hard, eat their vegetables and obey their parents. They smiled and agreed.

     

    Helping people make emotional and intellectual connections with this unique site is enhanced by sharing the personal stories of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, the flag raising and lowering ceremonies each day and the simple playing of taps in background at the end of the day. Our week in the planning course at Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach was shared with participants from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, and Greece. The experience touched us all differently based on our own backgrounds, bringing home the point that thoughtful interpretation at these American Cemeteries in Europe and north Africa will help new generations understand the tragic costs of war.

     

    The next morning at 9 AM we took a break from the planning class presentations and hoisted two American flags over the cemetery at Omaha Beach. Mike Yasenchak, a Cemetery Superintendent, and veteran, led the singing of the Star Spangled Banner and all joined in. He has sung at the White House at times in his career and his strong voice carried above all others. The light fog that surrounded the cemetery at this hour of the morning kept our focus only on the radiating lines of crosses and Stars of David that mark the graves. This place, its stories and the respect of the caretakers for the men and women who gave their lives will bring those who visit to a deeper understanding of the competency, courage and sacrifice of American soldiers and nurses during a unique and difficult time in history.

     

    -Tim Merriman

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  • 13Mar

    This is about history and about the past – - two different things.

    I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Museum of the American Indian, the most recent addition to the superb complex of 19 museums that make up the Smithsonian Institute on the Mall in Washington D.C.  It was an extraordinary experience. I loved being given the opportunity to “meet” a community leader from the featured tribe at the entrance of each exhibit.  It emphasized an important message for me:  that the tribes are living, vibrant communities of 2012; it also underlined the collaborative and inclusive nature with which tribal people were included in every aspect of the museum planning and design experience.  I don’t know what measurable objectives were written in by the designers to determine whether my experience was to be successful one, but here are some indicators:

    1.  I spent hours and hours reading and looking at every panel.  I did not want to leave and only stopped when my feet were killing me. . . and when I was hungry.
    2. Going to the cafeteria, I found not your typical mass-produced museum food venue, but a restaurant with an intriguing, well-prepared menu representing traditional fare from native cultures throughout the Americas.  So many wonderful choices! The experience added to the overall museum experience—just as, I’m sure, it was supposed to. 
    3. I spent a small fortune in the gift shop.
    4. I plan to go back. . . again and again and again
    5. Most importantly, the entire experience made me think and it made me feel.

    One exhibit in particular provided the food for thought I’m chewing on a week later.  Paul Chatt Smith (Comanche), Associate Curator at the museum, asks us to think about history. Unfortunately, the entire text is too long for this blog, but this portion was extremely thought-provoking:

     This is about history and about the past – - two different things.

    “This is about history and about the past – two different things.

    The exhibit that surrounds you now examines the alchemy that changes the past into stories – the histories we tell about it.

    The past never changes.  But the way we understand it, learn about it, and know about it changes all the time.

    What was “gospel” then is often in disrepute now. Yesterday’s truth becomes false or ill-informed or offensive today. And vice versa.

    Long-accepted histories about the sophistication of the cultures in the Americas before 1492, the size of the Native population, and the role disease played in decimating that population have been turned upside down.

    And over time, the way others see us has changed as well.

    We’re viewed as saviors of the environments, barbarians and noble savages.  The “lowest form of humanity.”  Sometimes, all at once.  Rarely are we seen as human beings.

    It’s a dizzying spectrum of impressions deeply imbedded, fiercely held, hard to dislodge.  They’ve been fixed in our minds by histories taught in classrooms, generation after generation

    Hollywood has offered its own image of us – a powerful one forged and reinforced by movies seen by countless viewers.

    Jay Silverheels as Tonto

    George Catlin’s portraits of Native Americans surround you now. . . Catlin not only drew, he declared himself an authority on his subjects.  In a time of slow communications, his ideas about them were profoundly influential.

    George Catlin painting of a chief of the Blood Tribe of the Kainai Blackfoot.

    The camera, even more documentary than Catlin’s paintings, captured the faces, dress, and lives of many Indians. The images it produced fed a hunger to know about these people.

    Museums, in their collections, exhibits, and displays, have been significant in defining who we are. Most of the objects in this museum are here because George Gustav Heye had the wealth, the wherewithal, and the desire to gather them.

    George Heye, his wife and a Zuni delegation.

    These are persistent streams of information that have shaped the impressions of Native People.  Repetition over decades has solidified them.

    And while disparate, most of these sources share this: they were NOT created by Native Americans – not the paintings, not the photos, not the movies, not the exhibits and collections, and, especially, not the histories.

    Certainly some of these efforts were well-intentioned. It is true that without them, much that is preserved would have disappeared.

    But there’s another truth:  the subjects here – us – have been portrayed from the outside, our stories told by others to explain or justify their own agendas.

    Or, we’ve been considered people without a history.

    The truth is we care passionately and have fought at great cost to reclaim knowledge of the past.

    We are left, then, with this paradox: for all our visibility we have been rendered invisible and silent. A history loving people stripped of their own history.

    This museum rests on a foundation of “consultation, collaboration, and co-operation with natives.” It has shared the power museums usually keep.

    The place you stand in is the end product of that sharing, a process of giving voice.

    This gallery is making history and. Like all other makers of history, it has a point of view, an agenda.

    What’s found here is our way of looking at the Native American experience.

    What is said – - and what you may see – may fly in the face of much of what you’ve learned.

    We offer self-told stories of selected Native communities. Other communities, other perspectives would have produced different results. We present evidence to support our belief that our survival, the original people of this hemisphere, is one of the most extraordinary stories in human history.”

    Here we have done as others have done –turned events into history.  So view what is offered with respect, but also skepticism.

    Explore this gallery.

    Encounter it.

    Reflect on it.

    Argue with it.

    Any of us involved in historic or cultural interpretation should heed this call for the collaboration and inclusion of the people we interpret and when at all possible  to make space for people to use their own voice to tell their own story.  If you haven’t had the opportunity yet, I hope that you someday get the chance to experience this masterful interpretive experience.

    –Amy Lethbridge, NAI President

    Permalink Filed under: Cultural Interpretation, From the President, NAI blog Tags: , , , , , , No Comments
  • 09Mar

    Pointe du Hoc – Sharing an Important Story from D-Day

    On June 6, 1944, Companies C, D, and F, about 200 men, of the Second Ranger Battalion assaulted the bluffs of Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, a point of land between Omaha and Utah Beaches. Under the command of a native Texan, Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, they achieved their mission but more than 40% of their brave comrades. Their mission was to take this high ground and secure the coastal road while silencing six 8-inch guns in the area. Unbeknownst to the Rangers, there were actually only three big guns and they had already been moved a mile or more inland. Still Rudder and his men secured the area in two and a half days and united with their comrades from the beach landings to move further inland and to secure the port of Cherbourg.

    Visitors at Pointe du Hoc look out of the observation ports used by German soldiers when the D-Day landing began.

    This important part of the D-Day Landing story is less well known than that of Omaha Beach, but very accessible in some ways because the landscape is still there as evidence of all that occurred. The German gun emplacements, underground bunkers, bomb craters and observation ports are open and available to the public. The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) has the job of telling this story while also managing the 24 American Cemeteries in Europe and North Africa. Only one of the rangers who fought so well at Pointe du Hoc is living and he is in his 90s, so the ABMC’s job at Pointe du Hoc has become even more important.

    Members of the planning class work on their visitor experience design for Pointe du Hoc.

    We are in Port de Bessin, France, teaching an interpretive planning class this week for eighteen participants from four countries. ABMC is our host at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Most of our participants manage other World War I and II cemeteries and battlefield sites.

    The American Cemetery Superintendents are responsible not only for the physical management of these significant sites, but also the interpretation of the thousands of stories that come with them for millions of visitors every year.

    Our planning class at Normandy American Cemetery.

    There was a time when the role of ABMC guides was more one of helping people find deceased family members and loved ones in the cemeteries. But WWII was over in 1945, 67 years ago. Those who remember first-hand the battles, challenges and outcomes are elderly and fewer in number each year. The stories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice are now in the hands of ABMC as interpreters and planning is an important part of the process to keep those stories alive.

    The Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach gets more than 1.5 million visitors each year. About 15% are Americans and about 60% of the guests are French. The other 25% come from every other nation in the world. The new Visitor Center at Omaha Beach provides a very emotional experience with the individual stories of many of the soldiers. In one corridor you can hear the reading of the names of all those buried at the cemetery. It takes 15 hours or more to read more than 9,300 names.

    Though many young people in America may not know what events turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies, many French people remember and teach their children by adopting the graves and stories of individual soldiers. They pass on their knowledge of the individuals who gave their lives in defense of freedom to the next generation.

    As ABMC identified their needs to become better at interpretation as keepers of these sites and stories over the past decade, they have invested in training and partnerships. National Park Service staff have provided training and ABMC staff have spent time at U.S. parks and historic sites to gain insights into strategies used in high visitation battlefield settings.  They have sent many of their staff to NAI courses in the U.S. and attended NAI’s international conferences. This is the first interpretive planning course with ABMC in Europe and it includes the hands-on work of planning the visitor experience at Pointe du Hoc.

    ABMC wins the hearts and minds of  thousands of visitors each week with their interpretation of America’s soldiers and their roles in WWI and WWII. Pointe du Hoc will soon get many improvements to better tell its important and powerful story to all who visit there. As we stood out on the point in extraordinarily high winds and looked left to Utah Beach and right to Omaha Beach, we listened to the ABMC staff recount the stories of the men who scaled the cliffs. As a class project, the Pointe du Hoc offers the challenge of conveying the competency, courage and sacrifice of the soldiers who gave all of us a chance to live in freedom. As an American, I am proud to play even a small part in telling that story and prouder still of the good work that the ABMC does on the behalf of the brave men and women whose histories are now in their hands.

    -Tim Merriman

    Permalink Filed under: Communication, Cultural Interpretation, From the Executive Director, Interpretive Planning, NAI blog, Professional Development Tags: , , , 2 Comments
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