Who, What, Where ... ?

 I went on a retreat at the beginning of my senior year at Boston College called Halftime. Usually you go on this retreat at the start of the summer after sophomore year so that you are at the “halftime” of your college career and can reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going. My retreat was only for seniors who had not gone on Halftime before and were getting ready to face what we like to call the real-world. The emphasis was to tell us that we didn't need to figure everything out right away - that we could take experience after experience to make new life decisions - as opposed to missing the only one train that would lead us to our fulfilled life destination. I remember the guest speaker highlighting three questions to help us figure out what to do next: Who, What, and Where? Who do you want to be with, what do you want to be doing and where do you want to be living? You only need to know one. Don’t stress yourself out about knowing all three … just chose one and the others will follow.

I often think about these three questions when I evaluate where I am at and where I am going. This year has been about “where?” for me. I decided to come to Lombardy, Italy because I wanted to be in Italy for the cultural and linguistic exchange. The “what” of teaching followed as a secondary objective and although engaging and rewarding, it’s still really just a means to get “where” I want to be. Lastly, without ties of a romantic relationship at home, this year seemed like the perfect time to again be elsewhere and see "who" might follow. Before I even decided on Italy, I knew that regardless I wanted to be somewhere different; in a new city with a new place to explore and people to meet.

It makes me a little angry when I think of the book and movie Eat, Pray, Love where the main character has a huge group of friends in Italy sitting around the Thanksgiving day table by the end of her stay. She spent four months in Rome and immediately had friends. How? Oh yeah, she had a list of people to contact from friends at home. Even more, she took an English class for foreigners and so met other foreigners living in Rome wanting to learn Italian and Italians wanting to participate in a language exchange to learn English. Right, pick up and move to three different countries out of the blue for a year to find yourself - but only with pre-arranged contacts first.

Like I mentioned in a previous blog, we are attached to what we already know. It's hard to move forward because we know nothing about a brand-new experience. Yet, had I found an unknown city in the United States, I imagine there would be other recent-graduates doing similar work with whom I could connect through family and friends either from high school or college or my job. Either way, some kind of structure be it family, a college network or an office, would be helping me out. You wouldn't think that a culture itself would get in the way of meeting people and establishing relationships, but I've learned differently. Whenever I meet someone for the first time and explain who I am and what I am doing, their immediate response is: but you're so young! You must be the same age as your students! In fact, my students in the last three years of high school range from ages 15 - 22. Yes, I am 22 and I have some 22 year-old students. High school is five years long and usually college is also five years long. At the earliest, an Italian graduates from college at 24; more often than not, they take more time. Their system also doesn’t allow for the four-year liberal arts or general undergraduate degree. If they want to study medicine, they don't spend four years and then four more, they begin in medical right away and take 6 - 8 years to complete the full coursework. Similarly for other professions. The other American in Brescia joked that Italians seem to age from 18 to 35 in a matter of years and it's true! I either find high school-ers or 35 year-olds and everyone in between is living at home and studying without time to make new friends.

Think back to college. Did you have many friends who were not in college that you just met by chance? Absolutely not! You're too busy studying and being at college. At this point, I do have some friends whom I met though Patrick's host family who are currently in university. And yes, I can relate to them and it is nice to have some people at my age compared to my 28, 35, and 43 year-old roommates. Some of them are younger than me and some are older, but I've already graduated and they are still studying. It's really just a cultural difference. If we want to know the age of someone in the US, we might think back to the year they graduated college and that would give us an idea of their age and how long they have been working. An '06, '08 or '10 graduate. When my Italian friends talk about their age differences, they say the year they were born. I'm '84, '86 or '88. I'm really not in the same professional situation as any of them and it's very difficult to understand and explain. It's not that I'm saying the "who" of my year is lacking, because I have met some really wonderful people and learned a lot from our differences. At the same time, it's a challenge to always be surrounded by people so culturally different than me and where I am in my life.

With that being said, I do spend time with the other assistants in Lombardy in person and in conversation online. We all crave for someone who understands what we are doing and can relate to our experiences. I don't really have "peers" in Brescia. So, I really enjoy connecting with other assistants for various trips or activities. It’s just nice to speak to someone who understands why I already have a degree at 22 and actually thinks that it is normal. To speak to someone who can make and understand cultural comparisons because they also experience both sets of customs. As I think of those three questions in reference to my year here so far, I know that the "where" really outweighs the "what" and "who." It's the sacrifice you make for a year knowing that you're getting a lot out of the question on which you do focus. 

Inter Milan v. Chievo Verona Soccer game with other Americans

Old and New: Part 2 Carnevale Style

I continue my discourse on the old and new as I think of the week Lisa and Steph spent with me in Italy after my weekends in Barcelona and Roma. I had two old friends from high school visit me in a very new experience post-college.

Venezia

Since there is not enough to see in Brescia for a whole week, we started with a weekend in Venice, then they went to Florence while I worked in Brescia and mid-week we met up in Verona [after they stopped in Bologna] for a night and morning. We spent some time together in Brescia and a night in Milan before their departure. Coincidentally, Carnevale happened to line up with their trip. What is Carnevale? It's easiest to describe as the Italian equivalent to Mardi Gras, which is actually French for "Fat Tuesday" [martedì grasso in Italian]. The holiday of Carnevale is the series of celebrations before the Christian season of Lent and eventually Easter. In Venice, Carnevale begins three weekends before Fat Tuesday and we arrived in Venice just in time to experience the second weekend of celebrations. All year round, Venice sports its Carnevale traditions, but the sinking city's visitors go all out during the holiday.

Enchanting

The word that comes to my mind to describe Venice is enchanting. When I studied in Parma the first time in the summer after my freshman year, we went to Venice for the weekend with our teacher who had lived in a small town outside of Venice for two years. She gave us an inside tour of the city and I was enchanted. Similarly, by the time the girls and I got to Venice after their arrival in Milan, it was already dark as we ventured through the Venetian alleyways and walked along small canals to find our hotel and a place for dinner. Part of the experience of going to Venice is getting lost and although almost every alleyway directs you to "Piazza San Marco" or "Ponte Rialto" with a single arrow, you will get lost and then suddenly find yourself in a large Piazza with the rest of the city. Our first night we ate around Campo Santa Margherita and the atmosphere reminded us of college on a summer night where everyone is hanging and partying outside. Except in Venice, they were wearing costumes.

Some Traditional Costumes and Masks

Our Traditional Masks

Now the idea of Carnevale is to party and celebrate before Lent. But how exactly? Venice is known for its traditional costumes and masks. Originally, the idea behind the wearing of masks was to allow the full expression of the population since masks hide the identity of social classes. It kind of makes me think of Topsy Turvy day from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame where all social roles are supposed to be turned upside down. Anything goes during the Festival of Fools or Carnevale. The full-decked out costumes in the main square Piazza San Marco are really a sight. People spend thousands on these costumes just to stand in the square and be admired. Granted, part of going to Venice for Carnevale is to stop and admire everyone’s costumes. Other than just enjoying Carnevale activities, we went to the Peggy Guggenheim museum, San Marco's Basilica, Doge's Palace with the Bridge of Sighs and the Rialto Bridge. Venice was a rich city and so one of the greatest treasures is the "Pala d'Oro" behind the altar in the Basilica di San Marco. It shows the wealth of the Byzantine Empire with gold and 2,000 precious stones. Palazzo Ducale or Doge's Palace housed the Ponte Sospiri or Bridge of Sighs connecting the prison with the rest of the palace ... once prisoners were condemned to life in prison they walked across the Bridge of Sighs where they had one last glimpse of the outside world through the window and appropriately would sigh in response to their final glimpse of humanity.

St. Mark's Basilica [part not under scaffolding]

Pala d'Oro up close

Gold and 2,000 Precious Stones

Doge's Palace with dome of St. Mark's Basilica

Lastly, the Ponte Rialto or Rialto stands on the Grand Canal with shops along the way. Here, as in any other bridge in Italy or in the rest of Europe, you can find locks attached to the supports. A modern Italian tradition is for couples to buy a lock, inscribe their initials on it or not, and lock it on a bridge throwing the key over their shoulders into the water so that their hearts are “locked together” forever since the key is forever gone. The first time I heard about it long ago was from a music video by Tiziano Ferro, a famous Italian pop singer. In fact, I just learned that the concept came from a book Tre metri sopra il cielo by Federico Moccia which was made into a movie.   I think it’s really a sweet tradition and it makes me smile to see locks upon locks attached to bridges everywhere. I’ll be picking up that book next. On our final morning in Venice, we stopped by the Campo San Trovaso where we watched gondoliers make and repair gondolas before we stopped and took a ride ourselves. We learned some trivial facts like that Venice is sinking 3 mm every year and you can see where the old front steps along the canals used to be under water. Once we left the gondola ride, we verified with each other that in fact, our gondolier hummed to us “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. I might not call Venice a whole “new” world, but an enchanting world, yes.

Locks!

Gondolas being repaired

Our Gondola ride : )

After the girls explored Florence and Bologna, we made a mid-week stop in Verona and then hung around Brescia; two cities with contrasting archives of time. Since you read about Verona in November when I met up with another assistant, you won’t be surprised to know that Verona is considered a city frozen in time, the time of the Scaglieri dynasty in power during the Renaissance. The city structure and ambiance remains from this time period. On the other hand, if you remember one of my first blogs in Brescia after I visited the castle, you’ll remember that Brescia instead is a city evolved in each era with remains from all periods tucked throughout the city streets. After visiting my favorite Roman ruins of the Capitolium in the old forum of Roman Brixia, we chanced upon the Palazzo Martinengo where excavations led to the unveiling of remains layered by the Iron, Augustan, Flavian, and Medieval ages. Each era layered upon another, constantly evolving and growing. In fact, Brescia is building a subway which when completed, will make it the smallest city in the world to have a subway; except that they have found more and more Roman ruins while excavating and so the construction has been stalled. Although it rained most of our weekend in Venice, we had sun in Brescia as we happened upon a chocolate festival in one of the main squares. Quoting Lisa, “how could you go wrong with a day full of sun, roman ruins and chocolate?”

With La Statua di Giulietta in Verona

At the Roman Gates to Verona

Roman Theater, Brescia

The Capitolium, Brescia

Old Duomo and New Duomo, Brescia

The second weekend of Carnevale I spent in Venice with old friends Lisa and Steph, the third and final weekend before Fat Tuesday, I spent with new friends in Viareggio on the coast between the Italian Riviera and Pisa. Patrick and Abby and I hopped on the train when Lisa and Steph caught their flights home. As Venice is known for its traditional Carnevale celebration, Viareggio is known for its modern Carnevale celebration. We went to the large parade where we saw floats of all shapes and sizes, even hosting political commentaries on Berlusconi and Obama. No more were the traditional costumes and masks. In fact, we felt out of place with only our masks as costumes. Think Halloween, times ten, on crack. We enjoyed the parade, the crazy nighttime block party at the port, sitting at the beach, but mainly the sun. Viareggio was south enough of Lombardy that all the fog, rain and cold weather we were used to was old news. It was just a really lovely trip that gave us a breath of fresh air and a very modern take on one of the traditional celebrations in Italy. 

Burlamacco symbol of Carnevale in Viareggio

View of Parade from Ferris Wheel
Below: Berlusconi becoming a monster
Obama as a magician with Osama bin Laden on his hat

As I’m getting ready to post this blog, we are closer and closer to Easter and so we can all figure out how much I’m behind in my blogging if Carnevale is BEFORE Easter and we are quickly approaching the holiday. I’ll conclude with a final Carnevale celebration that did not occur before Fat Tuesday like the others but the weekend after “Fat Thursday” which is apparently known as the middle of Lent and the one day you can break your Lenten promises. Pat and I took a day trip to Bergamo Alta, on a sunny Sunday a couple of weeks ago. We saw the main squares, the churches, the Botanical Gardens and a mid-Lent Carnevale celebration. We took the funicular up to the upper city [alta] to explore the historical center, but also saw parts of the lower city [Bergamo Bassa] set-up for their parade near the station. 

The View from the walls of Bergamo Alta

Patriotic Costumes for Carnevale, Bergamo Alta

Again, I see that the old and new stick out in different ways. The preserved traditions of Venice’s Carnevale [and stuck-in-time Verona] enchant and attract visitors. Yet, the modern displays and celebrations of Carnevale in Viareggio are absolutely worth a trip. Then Bergamo Alta waits for half of Lent to pass before breaking lose. You just have to appreciate the differences and the varying experiences of it all: old, new, topsy turvy, traditional, modern, early, late … and what is still evolving. 

Viareggio

By the Sea, Viareggio

School Choice

When living in a foreign country, you have to keep an open mind regarding cultural differences. We tend to take our culture and lifestyle for granted and not consider understanding a different way. My work as the native English speaker at a vocational high school in Italy is a cultural difference in itself. It seems that everything about education in Italy is different than in the United States. Little by little, piece by piece, after speaking to various teachers, students at my school and students from different schools with whom I do private lessons, I was able to grasp the education system here. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I taught a lesson to my students on Education in America and had them in turn discuss the education system in Italy and the differences. I'm glad that I waited a while to speak about education because my immediate reactions were mainly of shock and I had to force myself to think about the advantages and disadvantages of both systems.

The first week I was in Brescia, I received my schedule at Golgi as a timetable with blocks filled in with class titles like "3A GRA" and "5B TUR." As I left the general meeting with the Foreign Language teachers, I asked my adviser the obvious question [at least in my mind], who are the teachers for each class and where are their classrooms? She brought me to a large poster board where I saw each "class" had a room. Then I realized, "Each class has one classroom?" My adviser laughed and said, "Oh yes, we move to them. They don't move to us." Once I taught my first couple of weeks, I discovered that the students not only stay in the same classroom all day, but they sit at the same desks next to the same students all day long. All day long, all year long. Most Italian high schools go from Monday until Saturday in the mornings. My school starts at 8 am and ends at 2 pm, except on Saturdays when it ends at 1 pm instead. They don't have a lunch break during school hours but instead just a 10-minute break from 10:53 until 11:53 am where they can go outside in the courtyard to smoke or to the bar to fight for a sandwich or coffee.

At the end of my first month in October, I started doing private conversation lessons with the son of a math teacher at my school. Her son speaks very well in English and has done private lessons with the English Language Assistants before me at Golgi for the past two years. One of his first questions during our introduction lesson was about American high schools because he had just seen the movie High School Musical. He wanted to know whether we really have lockers in the hallways of our schools. I explained that we do have them because we switch classrooms for all of our classes and store our books in our lockers instead of in the one classroom we don't have. I then explained that we have different classmates as well. His response: "but ... how do you make friends?" Throughout the 6 months that I've been here, I've watched my students and how they interact together. They are really close. Not even close, but really affectionate with each other. I don't see many outcasts. In the end, every student knows really well all the other students because they spend every hour of every school day together. Sometimes, when you are stuck with the same group of people for a long period of time, you begin to hate each other. It's too much time together. But after a certain threshold ... you learn to respect the things you might have hated before. In the end, people are the way they are. My gut reaction was the opposite of my private lesson student's: how do you make friends if you don't switch classmates? Well, maybe it's better to not have the chance to choose. They get stuck with a class and they have to get over what they dislike and learn to accept and respect each other.

For one of my lessons in the fall, I asked my students to respond true or false to the statement: "Everybody is basically selfish." The idea was to respond to each others' ideas in a debate. Most of my classes did not end up in a debate because they could not understand well what their classmates said or their responses were too basic to debate. I was about to switch gears during my lesson with one class, when out of the blue one of the students raised his hand and said that he didn't agree. I had about three students start debating their viewpoints and it was fabulous! After the lesson I said to the teacher, except for the fact that not all of the class understand what the few students were saying, "that was exactly what I wanted to happen!" She responded, "Yeah, that was great. Except that none of them are my students." Huh? The students who responded to what each other said were all "new" to the class this year. They transferred to Golgi from other schools. That is when I learned that not only do the students stay in the same classrooms with the same classmates for an entire year, but they stay in the same class with the same classmates for all five years of high school. Usually, the school tries to keep them with the same teachers in a subject like English for at least two or three years. What the teacher I was working with meant then was that she had this exact class last year and the students who spoke and understood the most English were not in the class the year before with her. The numbers for my classes like 3A, 5B refer to the year and section so that 3A next year will be 4A then 5A or 3B to 4B to 5B. When do the classmates change from year to year? When students fail or switch schools [most likely if they switch to Golgi, it means they failed at a better school].

Better school? Do I mean private schools? No, no. There are many different "types" of high schools in Italy and even more, the high schools are specialized. There are high schools [liceo], technical schools [istituto tecnico] and professional/vocational schools [istituto professionale]. The liceo prepares students for college and are specialized into classic, scientific and language high schools. The technical and professional schools prepare students for the workforce in a specific profession. While both schools of this category are lower than liceo, istituto tecnico is a tier higher than istituto professionale. Golgi is an istituto professionale and has sectors in Chemistry, Tourism, and Graphic Design/Advertising to prepare their students to be lab technicians, travel agents or tour guides, and graphic designers. Again, on my schedule the 3A GRA and 5B TUR mean third year, section A of graphic design [grafico] and fifth year, section A of tourism [turistico]. The curriculum at the schools vary greatly. In English, students at liceo learn in one year what students at Golgi learn in three. Grammar and vocabulary. No wonder there are students who stand out much greater than others! My best speakers went to a liceo for one or two years and after failing, they decided to switch to Golgi because it is easier. They are mainly reviewing at Golgi the material they already learned [but failed] at another school.

When I taught my lesson on education, one of the teachers asked me about standardized exams at the end of the year. I explained that our tests vary by state and there are different requirements to graduate depending on the school. She explained that the students at Golgi take exams at the end of the year to "pass" the year. They must pass their exams in all subjects to pass the entire year. If they don't pass one subject, they can take the exam again in September, if they don't pass it again they have to retake the entire year. They have to retake the ENTIRE year. This means that they will be held back and put in a new class coming up from the year before. No wonder my students range from ages 15 - 22!! At liceo, my private students tell me, students only fail in the first year. But at the lowest type of school like Golgi, of course they fail often. I taught them the song "Don't Stop Believing" this week and asked them to comment on their favorite lines. I had a lot of responses saying to not give up on your dreams or goals. Their goals are to pass the year, not one course, but the year.

To explain our public high schools and the curriculum we follow, I highlighted that each student has their own individual schedule because they choose levels of courses and electives. I explained that we have "specific" courses that we take, pass or fail and that depending on the high school, we have different classmates in all of our classes. The idea of the individual schedule was completely new to them because they join the school in their first year and the school sets the curriculum for the five years of a particular program like graphic design or tourism and accordingly, each class has a schedule. Even though we are not "specialized" in the United States, the options of levels and electives means that we can study more intensely subjects for which we have a personal affinity, for example advanced courses in science and math and extra courses as electives if we choose. When I taught this lesson at Golgi, I really felt like I was explaining a better system in America.When I spoke to a private lesson student later, I saw some advantages.

In my lesson plan, I used a worksheet I found on my program's website with questions about my students' classmates. How long have they been studying with the same students? Do they like studying with the same students for so long, does it help them learn well? Later, as I asked these questions to my private lesson student, he asked me the same in return. It was then I realized that by the end of high school, I took most of my classes with the same students. I had already explained to him how in New York State and at my public high school, we had regents, honors and advanced placement [AP] classes. With one or two sections of AP classes depending on the subject, those of us who took all AP when they were offered were in all of our main classes together. Likewise, usually the same students took honors classes over regents. While there were students in my high school with whom I had many classes, there were many with whom I had none. As if we didn't even go to the same school? In the Italian system, instead of choosing your level of courses as in my high school being regents, honors, or AP, the students choose their "level" of school being istituto professionale, istituto tecnico, or liceo. Instead of choosing the individual courses they are more interested in as electives or levels of courses where they might excel, they choose a school which sets the program in their interests like the classics, sciences, or tourism.

I still have to admit that the system still bothers me. These students are locked into a specialized high school for five years with the same students for those five years if they don't fail. It might be easier to switch schools after just completing one year, but the focus of the material covered is so different that they can't switch often or without being held back a year. If I compare the two systems side by side, I see opposite ideologies. The foundation of the American version seems to come from liberty and opportunity whereas the Italian from consistency and practicality. The idea of our public schools allows the flexibility of students to continuously make choices year after year to reach their potential with an equal base of knowledge. Granted, I am not assuming that all public high schools in the US successfully do this, I'm merely using my own experience in a public high school to generalize and compare with what I see in the high schools here. The idea then of Italian high schools comes from the idea that it is more practical to separate and streamline students to either university or the workforce and thus either professional or unprofessional careers. Yes, some of the kids at my school will apply and go to university. But, they will be behind other students in their studies. I don't see this system letting students reach their potential as they grow but instead locking them into a particular role.

At first, I saw only disadvantages of this system. How could this ever possibly sound like a good idea? But, we come from different backgrounds, you can't judge without understanding those cultural differences. Americans theoretically hold the philosophy of social mobility very dear. Liberty and equality come from the founding of our country as opposed to an amendment of a cultural tradition. We have different philosophies on society and these will naturally leak into ideologies on education. I see a greater amount of diversity and the encouraging of diversity with more choice in the American system, likewise in our culture of immigrants. There is not the same emphasis here. Although I feel like some of my students are being shortchanged because of grades and a mindset in middle school that got them to Golgi years ago, you have to respect the advantages that are present. They made a choice and then they stick to it.