Hello friends,

I'm settling back into my pre-Omicron routine -- teaching regularly and in person, and traveling new places on the weekends -- hence my 3-week letter. It's been wonderful to be in motion again but goodness it's tiring. And, what a privileged way to be moving about the world right now, especially in Europe. I'll be sharing some of my reflections on Ukraine in this one.

Three weeks ago, as I'd mentioned, I went to visit another Fulbrighter in Lecce. I am jealous. Lecce is a proper city with universities, stores, lots of young people, and multiple American expat facebook groups. However, it was good perspective on my small town experience. I've had many funny moments in the past few weeks of being recognized around town, which is always fun, and is not part of my friend's Lecce Fulbright experience.

And after Lecce, my dad joined me for a week! We hung out in Mondragone for a few days, and then went to Pompeii and Herculaneum together. I grew up watching Mary Beard lectures with him on youtube, so this trip was lifetime in the making. Watching him see the ruins was more fun than seeing them. Dad also offered to chop and freeze 2 kilos of fresh veggies for me (I hate chopping), and that absolutely deserves a shoutout.

Finally, this week I got back from Bari where I met over half of the entire Fulbright cohort! There are 17 of us total, and we had 11 around one table on Saturday night. It was so reassuring, comforting and simply fun to be not only in a group, but in a group of folks having similar experiences.
 

 

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Natalie said this sign is never here -- I'm happy I got the opportunity to so obviously document my time in Lecce.



This is the duomo in Lecce.



We found GF, DF crepes! I have not had a crepe in at least 10 years. It was glorious. I'm happy that Natalie insisted on documenting this moment.



Saw some Puccini / anarchist graffiti on the side of a church. They left out the V in "lucevan", but I appreciated the reference and had Pavarotti's voice in my head the rest of the day.



I accompanied Natalie to school on Saturday morning. Her school is not in Lecce, but a 10-minute drive outside of Lecce in the countryside. There is a bike path to the school, which I ran back on. The views were gorgeous. The Eastern coast is much greener than the Western coast.

 

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Word Pictures
These are the primary reason why I'm sending this late -- I wrote most of this on the train to Bari, but had just started a new journal, and could not refer back to word pictures while I was writing.

• Walking arm-in-arm around Lecce with my new friend Natalie at midnight while all the university students were out and about.

 

• Night train - our 6-seat car started out with just 2 of us at the first stop, and as the ride went on we kept making knowing eye-contact as we had less and less space to spread out. The part of my brain that never left middle school had the opening line of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" stuck in my head.

 

• One of my classes asks every day if we are going to play Wordle, so naturally we must. I think they are learning a lot about English phonetics.

 

• 2 Kilos of broccoli rabe. Enough said.

 

• The Mondragone bus driver pulling over in the middle of the road so that somebody could make change for a 10 Euro bill inside the nearest bar, because he was not willing to make change.

 

• Watching the final scene of the Irishman with my dad in our Airbnb in Herculaneum while the bed frame was hitting the wall in the room next to us. Trying not to laugh loud enough for them to hear us. Knowing that the final scene of the film will never not make me chuckle.

 

• Going for a walk around Herculaneum on a cold, rainy afternoon -- seeing snowcapped Vesuvius in one direction and sunbathed Capri in the other.

 

• An old man in Pompeii, shouting for names into the ruins with his dog trailing after him. They both seemed very comfortable in the space. I cannot imagine existing every day in an archaeological site, going about my business. I wouldn't want to become accustomed to the historical significance of the site. I wouldn't want it to become something quotidiana.

 

• Standing in line outside the produce stand, having not one but two people I knew stop an chat with me and as they passed by! It's very nice to feel part of the community, finally.

 

• Having my first train (of 3) delayed by 35 minutes and missing both of my subsequent connections. What was supposed to be a 5-hour trip turned into an 8-hour trip. It was only a matter of time before Trenitalia got me.

 

• I've started a unit on storytelling (a la Vassar Voices) with my students. We started by talking generally about stories we like, and the methods we use to tell them (film, podcast, books, social media, newspapers, etc). We also discussed fiction vs nonfiction stories. One student asked if he could tell me a wild story that happened to him last year -- it involved alcohol on top of the mountain, a broken down scooter, a 50th wedding anniversary party. And he did his best to tell it all in English. I was so proud! At the end of his story, all the students applauded. And without being asked, they all shouted "nonfiction!!"

 

• "Have good life" -- with the other Fulbrighters in Bari, we spent a good amount of time swapping stories from the classroom. One ETA in Calabria shared that she has a student who consistently makes the same error, but she hasn't corrected him yet because it makes her happy: Every Monday, her student walks into class and says, in English, "This weekend I went out with my friends. We went downtown and had good life." At the end of the weekend, when we all went home, our parting wish was to "have good life."

   

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Many thanks to my dad for always taking pictures -- I never remember. None of these Pompeii photos would be in here if not for him.



A quiet side street.



Vesuvius was snowcapped when we woke up in the morning! Mostly melted by this point.



This crack in the wall had little pieces of metal holding it together. I'm sure they have a name. I do not know it and Italian Google was not helpful. They reminded me of butterflies, or stitches, or both. (I did take this one.)



Journaling in the amphitheater in Pompeii. Reflecting on the beauty of the grass and flowers that have grown up and filled in this part of the city where people were systemically killed. Reflecting on that video that went viral last week of the Ukranian woman telling the Russian soldier to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so that the national flower might grow up out of his corpse. Reflecting on what it might look like if we had flowers in all the parts of our built environment which contributed to the systemic killing of folks with marginalized identities.



It was downpouring as we traveled from Mondragone to Herculaneum -- and unfortunately we were without cover for a good chunk of that. Most of my clothing got soaked, as did my hair and everything I was wearing.



The aftermath of that situation.



A Herculaneum diptych



A coffee bar selfie, thanks to dad -- I'm on my phone figuring out how to get into our airbnb. "Pizza fritta" is fried pizza, and my students are very divided on whether it's worth trying or not.



We went on an unintentional walk (read: got lost) behind (yes, behind) Herculaneum. This was the dumbest selfie I've ever taken, because I stood in the line of traffic to take it.

 

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Reflections on Ukraine
This was also part of why this is coming so late. I'm gently reminding myself that this likely will not be the last time I share about this, sadly. I also am gently reminding myself that my reflections on my experiences are enough, that I do not need to write an academic essay or perfectly capture anyone else's experience (because that would be impossible).

Russia's attack on Ukraine is a big part of our consciousness right now. I think often about what this time in history, and in our lives, will look like in retrospect. I think about the fact that, until COVID, we didn't talk much about the Spanish Flu pandemic because it's sandwiched between WWI and WWII. I cannot imagine not talking about COVID because it was followed by/overshadowed by a massive global conflict. (Although this is unlikely, because already we are seeing the ways in which COVID and mass movement of people away from armed conflict are interconnected.) And, when recounting this part of my life in the future, I'm grateful to be experiencing it from here in Italy. It adds a little more perspective.

Speaking of that perspective, I've noticed that people here are generally more informed on European politics and European geopolitical history than most Americans I know. They know the names and faces of European diplomats, along with their personalities, political parties, and significant policy decisions. I know names, some faces and some policy decisions, sure, but definitely not personalities. This is mostly a product of geography; however, it was yet another reminder that one pitfall of the American education system is its American-centrism. (I talk so often with my friends about the Euro-centrism of so many disciplines. To see this lack of education on Europe, relative to the even more significant lack of education on the rest of the world, makes it even more stunning). 

Additionally, the narrative here is very focused on refugees. This is, again, likely to do with context: Europe has been navigating (mishandling) a refugee crisis already for years. However, the conversations now are much more actionable. Three Fulbright ETAs in my cohort already have new students in their classes, from Ukraine. Similarly, there are a few Ukranian families here in Mondragone, and the students in my classes have already begun to talk about what it would look like to welcome refugees into the community.

Moving from personal conversations to media, I'm seeing a lot of articles from my American news sources about nuclear war, de-escalation, and NATO. In Italy, these topics are overshadowed by the refugee crisis. Again, this is likely a product of geography. But I think it also speaks to Europe's intimate history with the human and infrastructural costs of war. There is a generational understanding here of what it looks like to have war fought on your own land that we do not have, at least neither as strongly nor as much in the mainstream, in America. Additionally, I'm happy to see that there are criticisms in both American and European media of Europe's warm welcome to white, Ukranian refugees, in contrast with refugees and immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

I've been asked in so many contexts (at school, in social situations, by my host family), what I think America should or will do. I do not feel qualified to comment on this! I could speculate, sure, but I'm not sure that is constructive. I did not study international relations. It's so odd to be seen as an "expert." One of the ETAs compared it to the experience of being tokenized, of being asked to represent the experience of an entire population. I do not agree because being American is not a marginalized identity; speaking to being American is not detrimental to me/my well-being (as it would be for someone experiencing tokenization). And, again, it makes me think of the American education system. Many Americans are not taught about the intricacies of our own nation's military engagements in other countries. We are taught about the impacts on our own population here in America, but not about our actions in other countries -- especially not post-WWII.

Finally, the school did host an assembly, which I mention below. The principal spoke, as did some regional administrators. They denounced the attacks, and expressed solidarity with Ukraine. However, many of the students did not seem interested in understanding the dynamics any further. I wonder how to reach them, how to make this more relevant to their lives than it already is.

 

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The view from my damp and cold run on Saturday morning. Yes, it was actively raining.



Fishing boats on Sunday morning!



The full group! At dinner on Saturday night. The red wine was lovely, and it just felt so good to be part of a group -- especially a group of people having the same experiences of loneliness and high school teacher politics.



This mosaic is in the archaeological caves underneath the Basilica. The entire inscription on the left side of the photo essentially says "Timothea made this mosaic."



Saturday crew minus the Sardegna folks who flew in later in the day. This is in the gardens of the Castello Svevo.



Also in the gardens of Castello Svevo -- the most sunflower-esque succulent I've ever seen. I desperately want one. (Featuring Eva & her beautiful pink pants!)

 

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Field Notes
Disclaimer -- this section is partially my venting about one particular co-teacher who I really, really struggle to have empathy for. Her teaching style is very "Not" (see the Social Discipline Window), and she is very unreceptive to any sort of feedback or conflict. However, I've had moments of context on her personal life, on school politics, etc., which have been so enlightening. 

I'd like to preface this all even further by sharing that this past weekend, with 10 of the other Italian Fulbright ETAs, one central theme of our conversations was how much our individual co-teachers can impact our overall teaching experiences. The ETA position is particular in that we are expected to prepare entire curricula from scratch, but at the end of the day, everything we do in the classroom is at the discretion of another person, who may not share our teaching philosophies. If a teacher objects to the content of a lesson or thinks that a group activity is making too much noise, they can completely shut it down. And then we ETAs are left standing at the front of the room without a backup plan. Many others in the group shared similar dynamics to the one I'm going to elaborate on below.

• On my first day, way back in October, I was introducing myself. I showed them photos of my hometown, Media, Pennsylvania, on Google maps. Naturally, the iconic trolley came up. My co-teacher interrupted me to say that she'd never heard the word "trolley," and therefore, it mustn't exist, and I'd made a mistake. I must have meant streetcar or tram. I replied that they can all be used interchangeably, but she disagreed again. It struck me as an odd comment, but I did not want to correct her, especially not on my first day. So I kept going. But 5 minutes later she came back to it. She said that it must be a new word, because language evolves. I let it fall, lasciare perdere. But it set the tone for our relationship.

• I did a lesson on Colin Huggins, the Washington Square Park pianist, using a Humans of New York story. I broke the story up into 10 sections, and then translated it into Italian. I then wrote these pieces, in both English and Italian, on slips of paper. The activity was for the students to find their pair, and then put the story in order. An interactive activity! Heaven forbid! She demanded that the students do this silently (impossible). So the students froze, and the activity flopped. At the end of the hour, I showed a video of him playing Rachmaninov, in which "this machine kills fascists," written on the side of his piano, is clearly visible. The teacher asked me to stop the video, or to play audio not video (which defeats the purpose of pointing out that he is playing a grand piano outside in a park), because it might be offensive to some of the students in the class.... I would hope that there are not enough fascists in my classroom to be offended by that?!

• Ooof this one is tough. Doing my best to share sparknotes version only: A student asked me a question I'd already answered. I was happy to clarify, but the co-teacher interrupted me to yell at and insult the student. She said that it's a good thing she is pretty because her head is empty, she has nothing but "air in her head." I was shocked, but continued. A few minutes later, though, the teacher returned to the topic. She made the student repeat it back to her: "What is your head full of?" "Air." I felt stuck. I so so so at my core disagreed with what was happening, but this teacher had so much power over the next few months of my life, at work. So as I was collecting classwork from the students, I left a post-it on the desk of this student that said, in Italian, "I don't think your head is empty. You're very intelligent. You ask questions that demonstrate that you are listening and thinking about what we are doing in class. Questions are the most important thing. See you tomorrow." She looked really touched when she read it. And the next day, she asked amazing questions.

• One day, a fourth-year class was extra disengaged. They were either talking over me or in the back row on their phones, not responding even when called by name. As part of the lesson, I asked each student to share out loud something they had written. And their peers were talking over them, too! My co-teacher came in and yelled at them in a way that did not get at the root of the problem. It did not motivate them to listen in the future. It was entirely focused on punishing them for behaving badly, rather than focusing on the harm to their peers and to me, who were not being respected. After being yelled at, I could tell they had all checked out. Nobody wanted to participate -- I did not want to be there, they did not want to be there, and neither did my co-teacher. I tried to have a check-in, a reset. I sat down in one of the desks and asked them the Restorative Questions in Italian, adapted to the situation: what they were thinking during the first part of the lesson; what were they thinking and feeling now; how I can support them in the future when they are facendo casino, making a scene (reflecting their language back to them); and what they would like from my lessons moving forward. Nothing, still no engagement. I think that the other teacher's presence in the room again perpetuated that notion that any sort of engagement would be punished. I was so disappointed -- the modes of conflict resolution that I believe in with all my being were not working, because the dominant culture, embodied by this individual who I already have plenty of qualms with, was overpowering. I ended up sharing some affective statements about how their behavior had made me feel, and explicitly naming that my intentions in sitting us all down was not to continue to shame them, but to talk as equals. They had no concept of that. I hope to have another opportunity to continue to role model this way of responding to conflict. It was disheartening overall, but I'm glad I had the time and space to explore that with them.

• The students were taking a standardized exam on their phones (first, WHAT). It was their equivalent of MAP testing at my high school -- comparing their progress against their past selves, all within the school. The teacher stepped out to go to the bathroom and absolute chaos exploded. The students hate the questions and think many are worded unfairly; they are giving each other answers and running around the room to look at each others' phones; then the second wave of yelling explodes, along with "shhhh"s so that the hall monitor does not come in. There was also a very irreverent "amen" thrown in. When the teacher comes back, everything is silent again, as if nothing had happened. I support this -- I think the students need more engagement in their education. I'd shared an observation in a previous newsletter that most engagement is punished here. This was a good moment of engagement, of caring about how they did on this exam, of thinking critically about the exam.

• When we were writing the pen pal letters, my co-teacher wanted us to collect them, proofread/correct them, and then send them again. My collaborator in America, though, had not proofread or corrected any of the American students' letters written in Italian. They were full of errors! Naturally! Because a huge part of learning a language is making mistakes. My students received their letters first, and then responded. And their first reaction was to make fun of some particularly clunky errors. But I reminded them, with my co-teacher next to me, that A) they make mistakes too, and the goal is to write and express oneself, errors and all, and B) that we can learn from these mistakes because they are representative of English sentence structure and vocabulary words/false cognates. My co-teacher did not seem to approve of this, when I first shared it. But 2 weeks into the project, I overheard her explaining that same idea to another group of students. That was the first time I'd heard her openly support my educational philosophy, without my needing to directly push back on something.

 

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"Jesus knows that you go to Zara" -- spotted in Lecce.



Again, extra shoutout to dad for my homemade frozen veggie mix for the next few weeks.



Regina resting on the roof.



Cats -- not at home but spotted in the ruins at Herculaneum! A different one was veeeery socialized to people.



This was drawn on the board of one of my classrooms when I walked in. The photo is very blurry, but it's stick figures fighting each other. One group says Ukraine and one says Russia. This was within the first few days of the attack.



The school organized an assembly this week, I think in response to the number of students who were undereducated on the situation. Many students made posters, which were displayed outside the school.


"Put flowers in your cannons." Many thanks to a colleague for holding up the poster.



Some John Lennon (it was windy when I took this one).




I watched one of my students draw this. They are so talented. And there are no clubs or classes where they can practice these skills.



I also watched them make this one.



And during this assembly, the classroom that I was in did not have a functional laptop. The audio did not work, so I offered to run (read: sprint, literally sprint) home and back, to get my bluetooth speaker in the middle of the lesson. This was the same class that had drawn on the chalkboard the week before, so I really wanted them to participate in the assembly. I came back, sweaty and wearing my running shoes with my work clothes. Aaaaand the laptop still did not work.



I went up the mountain on Wednesday. No wild boars today, but I did notice what looked like cowpies along the trail. I would have gone all the way to the monastery, but the building looked creepy and I do know my limits of going places alone far away from other people. This is looking to the North, towards Formia and Gaeta.



And this is looking back towards Mondragone. On the crest of the farthest mountain, you can see the castle.

 

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Phew! This one was long.

I appreciate everyone who responded to the immigration section of my most recent newsletter. I'm looking forward to exploring paths to engage with these trends more directly (perhaps an opportunity for some Intergroup Dialogue?). I also noticed after hitting send that I'd left a reminder to myself to proofread a section in my last one. That was a good moment of being reminded of and living out my ground rules!

One final update - the half-marathon that I was scheduled to participate in happened 2 weeks ago. I have been resting my knee and doing PT, and I'm able to run mid-distances again. I am likely going to cap it here, for now. Perhaps long-distance is in my future, perhaps not. It was for the best, I think, that I backed out when I did because four days before the race, I kicked the wall in my room (to say that I stubbed my toe would be a massive understatement). I had a limp for about a week. I cannot imagine how upset I would have been if I'd trained for the half marathon and then ultimately been unable to race for something this silly and avoidable. And I now wear shoes inside my apartment, at all times.

On another fun note: last week was also officially the mid-way point of my grant. I'm ready to lean into warmer weather, even less culture shock, and being boosted.

Con tranquillita` (e un po` d'ansia),
Antonella

 

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Appendix: Ground Rules

1. This is a time for me of reconnecting with a number of practices that have been interrupted by the pandemic; by the 3-part-time-jobs, recent-humanities-grad, gig-economy work routine that I've just left; and by the inevitable ebb and flow of intersecting needs. This is just that -- a practice, a practice of connection, a practice of reflection, a practice of synthesis, a practice of perspective.
2. This is not meant to replace my 1:1 interactions!
3. This should serve me. There is no right or wrong way for me to structure these. Like my bullet journal, if the structure becomes cumbersome, it means my needs are shifting and I need to re-evaluate what I am including and how I am preparing to write.
4. This is not a finished product, ever, by any standard. I will not fret over punctuation, word choice, or syntax. There are many spaces in my life where those things do matter, quite a lot, but they are not a priority here.

In case you missed it!
Here is the link to the archive of my past newsletters.