I'm Booooooored!

*UPDATED*
Aw, summer vacation. A time both students and teachers dream of. A time when kids get outdoors more (hopefully), and probably lose about 75% of the knowledge they actually learned during the school year. But who cares, they're experiencing life, man.

Summer vacation. A time when teachers become people again and compose a lengthy and ambitious to-do list, but probably don't actually start tackling it until about a week before school starts up again. But who cares, this is vacation, a time to relax, man.

This morning, as I was lying in bed, enjoying the first morning of my vacation, envisioning all that I will* accomplish this summer, Mr. Art Teacher commented, "I wish I had summers off." My reply, as always, "You should have become a teacher." And his response, as always, "No way." And this is why he earns twice what I do, despite his less superior education, but I digress.

My fear for this summer vacation is that boredom will set in. And set in quickly. It feels as if I haven't had a responsibility-free summer in years. I remember as a kid looking forward to the summer, but quickly running out of things to do. I remember being bored nearly to tears (although I'm sure plenty of tears were involved). I would like a boredom-free summer this year, but I don't anticipate that happening, despite my extensive to-do list (see below). I expect my ever expanding belly and my ever decreasing energy levels will have me lounging around more than I would like during the next eight weeks. I also have a sneaking suspicion that this little one is going to come early. I can't explain why, it's just a feeling I have, and the dreams I've been having lately sure as heck aren't helping. Neither are the hiccups I've been feeling in my vagina. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping she holds out until at least her due date, if not longer. But again, I digress.

In preparation for my long, hopefully non-lazy days of summer, I present to you, my to-do list (in no particular order):

My Summer To-Do List *UPDATED*

•  Travel to NY for a week to see family and friends
• Attend my baby shower 
• Attend a four-hour class (that I get paid for. And gives me re-certification points. Or something like that.)
• Refinish a crib
• Refinish a dresser
• Refinish a piece of furniture that I have no idea what to call it, but it has cubbies and should be really useful in the nursery. 
• Put together the nursery
• Decorate the nursery
• Do some baby shopping
• Clean the house (except the bathrooms. Mr. Art Teacher does those now. Voluntarily, I might add.)
• Update my other blogs
• Go to the farmer's markets. Weekly
• Catch one more live concert. Or two
• See a few movies in the actual theater
• Go out to dinner. A lot
• Read
• Throw some pottery (for any non-art people out there, that means I'll be creating pieces on a potter's wheel, not actually throwing ceramic bowls against a wall or anything. Although there's the potential for that to happen as well)
• Start the baby book
• Tackle some DIY nursery projects
• Nap
• Tour the hospital I'll be delivering in
• Attend a doctor's appointment. Or twenty
• Catch up on TV
• Hang out in the pool (fully equipped with a water gun filled with ice cold water to chase the obnoxious kids away with)
• Eat
• I can't believe I forgot the most important item on my summer to-do list... GIVE BIRTH!!!

What exciting things are on your summer to-do list?

* Because I have ambition, man.** Ambition.
** Apparently summer vacation brings out the dude-speak in me.

And you thought YOU were having a bad day.

I'll never forget it. I was in elementary school, maybe third, maybe fourth grade, and my class had just arrived in the cafeteria. I remember being hungry. So hungry that my stomach hurt and I felt like I was going to vomit. And then I did. I vomited right there on the floor of the cafeteria. I was mortified. The kind of mortification that only comes from knowing you just allowed a typically un-witnessed (except maybe by your parents) bodily function to occur in a crowded public place while in the presence of not only your classmates, but most likely your current crush as well. I was so mortified, in fact, that the details of that moment are permanently etched in my memory.

I thought my day today was pretty rough, not for any particular reason, just the typical last-day-of-art-class routines, couldn't-sleep-the-night-before pregnancy woes, and dealing with students who'd rather be outside in a pool than stuck in a stuffy classroom kind of day. At least I thought my day was pretty rough, until this afternoon that is, when a student (not mine. At least not at the time.) experienced a case of vicious, exploding diarrhea. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY. And it took a good hour for the custodial staff to get the hallway and the bathroom cleaned up. And I think it took just as long to coax the (freshly clothed) student to come out of the bathroom.

I mean, just imagine. Here we are in the last full week of school and some poor, unfortunate student of an undetermined grade level (at least to me) experiences an episode of exploding diarrhea in the 6th grade hallway, not more than ten feet from the bathroom. Could life be any more mortifying at that point? Thankfully for the student the sixth graders were elsewhere at the time, and the hallway was mostly clear of witnesses (aside from a reading teacher and three students testing in the pod who, despite the fact that they were in clear line of sight, saw nothing). But still. I hope for the students' sake word doesn't get out about it. Or at least if it does, he survives the last week of school and can hide away over the summer until the air is cleared, so-to-speak.

Bless the custodian who had to spend the good part of an hour cleaning that mess up. I swear, the custodial staff in our schools don't get nearly as much credit as they should. If you haven't thanked your custodial staff yet for the fabulous job they do during the school year, do it now. The messes they have to clean up would make most of us vomit (seriously guys, the smell in that hallway was gruesome).

Bless the sixth grade teacher who entered the boys' bathroom to check on the student and try to coax him out. Of course, being the only male teacher in that wing of the school, he probably didn't have much of a choice, but that couldn't have been easy either.

And did I mention that the hallway the "accident" occurred in was also the hallway the art rooms are located in? So not only were the teachers in the pod re-routed, but so were three art classes. The students were definitely better sports about it than I was. There's nothing worse than being 30 weeks pregnant and having to walk the entire length of the school (twice) and hike two sets of stairs (twice) to make a trip to the faculty bathroom that should have only required walking half the length of the school (twice) with no stairs.

Of course, the boy hiding away in the student bathroom might disagree with me on that one.

Crafts are for summer camp. I teach art.

Dear, sweet, innocent, substitute teacher, I don't even think you realized what you said today when you said it. There we were, discussing the fact that you're new to the county, you were asking me questions about schools in the area, I was giving you tips on where to apply, all while the Kindergarten class you were assisting with were toiling away on their creations. The conversation was going alright, albeit a little distracting and inappropriately timed, but pleasant nonetheless. And then you said it. Right there, in the middle of my art class, "I never understood how to teach crafty things to little kids. All that glue and stuff." And then, your next question really did it, "How do you manage it?"

I'm sorry, how do I what? How do I teach crafty things to kids? Crafty? Oh honey, I don't think so. I don't teach kids crafts, I teach them art. There's a huge difference. Crafts involve gluing pompoms to Popsicle sticks and sprinkling it with glitter. Art, what I teach, what I went to school for six years to become highly qualified to teach, is about teaching kids how to create, how to paint, how to draw, how to look at the things around them, solve problems through experimentation, investigation and problem solving. How to look at and evaluate a huge challenge and break it down into smaller, more manageable and doable steps. I teach students how to succeed in a situation they may not be familiar nor comfortable with.

On my list of pet peeves, the misconstrued perception individuals outside of art education have about art education ranks high on that list. As art educators, we deal with this ignorance on a daily basis. Take for example a colleague of mine who was engaged in a conversation with a second grade teacher. The second grade teacher couldn't understand why my colleague had a problem with the class missing art when "all they ever do anyways are color sheets." As you can imagine, my colleague was deeply offended and put-out, not to mention a bit angry. We shouldn't have to defend what we do to others, but we often find ourselves in a position in which we do, as my colleague did when she explained that the students receive color sheets after clean-up, at the end of class, as a treat.

I would never question what another teacher does in his or her classroom, nor make light of it. I would never question his or her education, although most elementary teachers I encounter nowadays are less educated than I am, but I would never presume that this means they're less capable of teaching in their subject area than I am. I assume that every teacher I meet has received adequate training and education in their field of choice. Unlike the occasional classroom teachers who are shocked when they learn that art teachers, art teachers need to have a degree to teach. And not only that, but some of us even have Master's degrees. The colleague I previously mentioned has, on more than one occasion, had to explain to other educators that yes, art teachers have to be certified by the state in order to teach, just like regular classroom teachers.

I don't know where the idea that art teachers only do crafts with students came from, but it's insulting. Most of the time I am quite capable of letting these ignorant beliefs roll off my back, and I move along with my day, fully aware of what my job entails, what my qualifications are, and with the full knowledge that what I do, what I teach, matters to students and their educations. Most of the time. But sometimes, sometimes, the ignorance is so in-my-face that it indeed ruffles my feathers, works me up, gets me going. And in that situation I say, dear substitute teacher, don't worry your pretty little head over it. I spent six years in college to become highly trained in the science of teaching kids how to not only open glue bottles, but also how to gently squeeze the bottle in order to get the glue out. So go back to your clean, safe classroom and leave the messy stuff to us crafters, er, I mean, art teachers.

(Small disclaimer: Please don't think I believe all non-art teachers feel the same way as the few teachers I talked about above. I know many regular classroom teachers who understand and support what it is I do in my classroom.)

Please Don't Grope the Art Teacher

As I've written before, elementary students are very hands-on, touchy-feely. I think I've been groped more as an elementary art teacher than I ever was during my high school and college years combined. Seriously. Take for example, the first grader who insists on grabbing my, *ahem*, derriere every time he hugs me, or the third grader who embraces me with a face plant into my, um, bosom. Or the kindergartner who needs my attention, eagerly approaches me with hands raised high and proceeds to pat me repeatedly on my, er, lady bumps. Or any of the students who feel the need to caress my legs, my hair, my arm, my foot... Or the ones who accidentally come into contact with any of my aforementioned body parts. In fact, I've gotten so used to kids innocently touching me in inappropriate places that it barely even phases me when random adults do it in public. Innocently or not. And don't even get me started on the lessons perverts could learn from elementary students and their sneaky upskirt maneuvers. You know, I recall being informed in college about all the sh*t you could get into for inappropriately, both intentionally and unintentionally, touching students, but where was the lesson about the many ways in which students will violate your personal space, on a daily basis?

But I think I have an advantage over the students right now. More specifically, a big belly advantage. Now, whenever Huggy McGrabberson comes up to hug me, his face bounces off my belly and knocks him back long before those grubby hands reach my posterior. And yes, I laugh. Every. Single. Time. This almost 30-week baby bump has become quite the defense tool. Students are learning pretty quickly not to stand too close to Ms. Art Teacher. I think I've inadvertently taken out two first graders and a kindergartner just by quickly turning around, being unaware that they were standing so close to me, and serving them up a face-full of baby belly. In fact, just today I belly-whacked a sixth grader upside the back of the head while trying to get past his table. I think the lesson he learned far outweighed the embarrassment he displayed. When he sees me coming next time, I guarantee he'll scootch his chair in like I requested.

Of course, this growing belly also has its disadvantages. My kindergartners have taken to rubbing it when they pass me at the door on their way into the art room. So have a few of my sixth graders. But hey, better my belly than my buttocks, right?