Laughing at the nudes

Look, I am a blogging machine! Life felt easy in Maui and it feels hard here. I am still having problems with my principal that I will not foolishly elaborate on this public and anonymous forum. As can be expected, conflict at work makes life way more stressful.

Thankfully Christmas is coming soon. I am definitely looking forward to it. It is bound to be amazing! My brother will be home from Iraq and I am getting Nintendo Wii. Now if only Santa could bring a funny, sporty Christian man and a cure for cancer....

On Thursday I took my class on a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. The field trip only lasted an hour, which was far too short to see much of the museum. It definitely piqued my interest and I would like to go back soon. The kids were broken up into smaller groups and distributed among the docents- fancy word for volunteer guides. I strategically formed a group with some of the kids whom I was afraid would make trouble. Our guide, Blaine (who was curiously an older white man and not a gay black man as my In Living Color experience would dictate), showed us a good time and the kids behaved well. The funniest part to me was the way the kids responded to the nudes. I had joked to another teacher before we left that I was going to wrangle the kids and keep them away from the nudes. Well, the nudes were unavoidable and the kids acted exactly as I had anticipated. They turned red. They giggled and they pointed. It was pretty funny. I told them to act mature but that's pretty difficult to do when you are eight and looking at naked people.

One kid asked me why anyone would want to paint or sculpt naked people. I didn't quite know how to respond. I told him that some people think naked people are beautiful. The kid just looked at me like I was crazy.

This whole incident reminded me of visiting an art gallery in New York. My friend, Lucy's dad was part of an art exhibit along with a few other artists. We went to see his show. We walked around pretending to be part of the snooty art community. One of the other patrons looked very familiar but I couldn't figure out why. Soon, I realized that the woman was the model for a life-like nude painting hanging in that very gallery. I am sure I turned red and I think I giggled. How can I expect my third graders to keep their composure when I couldn't? How could that woman walk around a room full of strangers who knew exactly what she looked like naked? Eek! What a weirdo!