Running into acrylics

Erm… Running into what?? It sounds like I mixed up two topics here… Well as to the second, since it’s the least interesting, the position I wound up subbing for was art. After patting myself on the back for actually arriving a little early for once I ashamedly dragged my tail out the door and over to the school I was supposed to go to. Okay, though that scene has actually happened before, this one wasn’t my fault. Really. You see, many of the specials positions in this district are itinerant, or traveling jobs. That is, the teacher works out of two schools. Having been burned before I meticulously checked, and rechecked both the message (“special instructions”) the teacher left and the online system so I would really know where I was going. Real– okay, enough of that word. Anyway, the message told me all about how there was a student teacher and I would leave the teaching to her… yada yada. Been there, done that. No school mentioned. Check. Over to the online system, looked at the school, check. Go to the school, sign in, drop my lunch off, pass over the store-bought bagels someone brought in, go to the art room, and… another teacher is there who says she has the room Friday mornings. Check in with the office, and sure enough all my careful detective work is shattered when they (now) inform me the teacher I am subbing for works out of a different school on Fridays. Oops… Sign out, collect my lunch, pass over the bagels again, travel to the other school which is fortunately only five minutes away hoping all the while it wasn’t one of those schools that closes their parking lot when the buses start to arrive (seriously), fortunately again find out it is not, check in, put my lunch away, pass over… wait- Panera bagels? Grab bagel, go to art room, carefully verify with student teacher that I am indeed in the correct place this time, then finally take my coat off and plop down with relief. Hey, at least someone brought good bagels over here. 🙂

So, it turned out there were eight classes to teach: four 5th/6th, and four 3rd/4th. Apparently all classes except kindergarten are multiage at this school. Well, the 5th/6th classes were in the middle of a project involving Crayola®-clay animal pots and acrylic paints. Yes, they looked better than that just sounded (most of them…). I of course assured them that yes, the olive green and yellow plaid shirt I was wearing was on purpose because I hate it and don’t care if it got messed up in art. Through all four periods unfortunately it didn’t. I guess with three wins (“fortunatelies?”) I was bound to lose one.

The 3rd/4th grade classes started a new unit on movement. No, this wasn’t PE or performing arts. Movement as portrayed on the canvas. They even got to draw a little, well, er, two of the classes did. Such a crime- art class and some didn’t even get to do art! Well, that’s unit introductions for you.

Okay then, until next post.

Wait, I’m forgetting something aren’t I? Yes, really (didn’t I ban this word earlier?). “Running into” doesn’t actually refer to the movement, as they weren’t allowed to draw people today anyway, only objects. Drawing people and showing their movement is apparently for more advanced students, more advanced than 8-10 years anyway. And besides, I had to have added the church category for this post for some reason.

In this case “running into” refers to me running into someone I actually knew from church. No, not really (that word again!) running into him, adults don’t run in school rooms now, do they? So anyway, It had been a couple of years, and memory for names and faces isn’t exactly one of my strengths, or even neutral features (you know where I’m going with this…). Apparently his memory was only slightly better as I just “looked familiar” like maybe someone from camp. I one upped him and said “church camp?” still not recognizing him. Then he one upped and gave the name of the camp and his name. I of course pretended to recognize him before he said his name (secretly grateful he said it, reall- truly recognizing him only after he said it). As it turned out, he was the one student from my cabin I spent a week with (yes I truly am pathetic…) and never saw again after that summer. There were two like that the following summer, but at least I knew I wouldn’t see them again when they told me that the one was from another church and the other was a friend he invited to come with him. Anyway, since you have suffered through this entire post I will provide an obligatory picture of my cabin from that year, but you will have to just guess which one he is. All I’ll tell you is he isn’t the one on the right (that would have been a really (sigh) big 5th grader). The one on the right was actually my junior counselor (I was the adult counselor). I of course am behind the camera, so no picture of me- sorry! 😛

Note: The thumbnail picture is not so good, so click on it to see it in it’s full glory!