Someone who "gets" it...

(A fourth and fifth grade project we did where you blow black paint through a straw to make tree limbs and trunks.)

WOW! Just got back from a meeting with the Middle School Art teacher and it was the best meeting EVER! We met with two ladies from a company called First Artworks where they set up an Art show for your school and the school gets 20% profit from the framed artwork they sale at the show. Every child has something in the show in a frame--at no cost to the school. We just do the artwork with the kids and they handle the rest. Check out the website for more info. It's pretty KICK ASS. Rhonda from the Middle School and I have been emailing for a year and a half now, but never met. Her husband and I had teacher orientation together four years ago. We decided we wanted to do a joint Art show so that we'd get a better turnout because of my Elem. kids having older brothers and sisters in the Middle School and vice versa. Meeting with her and these other artsy ladies was so wonderful because they "get" it. They get what it is like to be an Art teacher.

I work with some pretty great people and some relatively awful acting people, but regardless of the great ones and the awful ones, unless you do the same thing someone else does, you just don't ever get it. I won't ever fully feel the impact of their burdens and they won't ever feel mine. You can totally empathize with someone and converse with them about something, but there's never that sense of you KNOW that they know how you feel and what it means to do what you do. Classroom, aka regular teachers, aka "real" teachers (depending on whom you are talking to) all have each other to bounce ideas off of and complain to, empathize with, feel sympathetic towards etc...but I often feel out their on my own. They usually don't want to hear about anything going on in the Art room because they have so many of their own problems and issues to deal with. I'm going to be honest and say that because of how busy some people REALLY are and how busy some people PRETEND to be, I probably could grow two heads and it would go unnoticed for days. I'm not trying to give a "feel sorry for me" spill, but it's just a fact.

So, when we were all sitting there talking and planning a date for the Art show, we (meaning Rhonda and I) immediately said it HAD to be after the CRCT was over and we probably wouldn't dare even speak of the Art show until it was over and done with. So, that sparked a conversation about how you weren't even allowed to show joy or sorrow for the months leading up to the CRCT because it doesn't matter what WE have going on...because it's just Art and doesn't involve preparing children to pass the test. All of us there "got" that and understood completely and it made me feel so renewed to be understood and to be conversing with someone who deals on a daily basis with practically the same things I get tired of or even excited about that no one else experiences the same way. The demands for decorations, poster contests...all of those things we saw eye to eye on and that was WAY cool.

It would be nice to be able to have that connection in the same building and be able to compare stories like everyone else.
We all feel a stronger connection with people who are in the "same boat" in any kind of situation. Some people are fortunate enough to be able to make those connections on a daily basis and some have to enjoy it when they get it. This is another lesson in thinking about trying to be happy with what you do have and not worrying so much about what you don't have.
I left feeling excited and with a new reminder that people who get where I'm coming from and think what I have to say is important, do exist.