Weeks 5 and 6, 30-11-21

Hello again, friends!

This week's update is special (and late) because I've had not one but two guests here in Mondragone with me! Shoutout to Julian, my brother, and Emlyn, a good friend from Vassar, for making the trek to Mondragone and spending over a week in close quarters with only one house key and very unreliable WiFi.

Since last time, I've been hiking -- we've climbed Vesuvius and the Petrine Mountain. Unfortunately, I've also been sick -- not COVID, thank goodness for widely-available antigen tests! And I'm finally getting to write about the structure of Italian public high schools (as promised). I have many reflections on my teaching experience so far, but I'm going to push that to next week. I'm also going to skip "from the desk" this week.
 

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I've been told that I should send more pictures of Mondragone that are not lungomare -- so these are snapshots from both of my commutes!

Mondragone from the top of Monte Petrino.

A snapshot of those lovely lovely antigen tests in action, alongside a slice of GF cake that we got for free at the new all-GF store that opened last week in Mondragone. The GF bread (not pictured) and the antigen tests are indeed both "bene."
 

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Word Pictures

• Eating grapes on my walk to school fresh from the vine that hangs over the garden wall. One of my co-teachers lives in the same direction as me, and we sometimes walk together. She showed me which ones are the uva fragola -- grape strawberries. They do taste a little like strawberries!

• Our bus broke down halfway up Mount Vesuvius while "Manic Monday" was playing on the radio.

• This video speaks for itself (again, very brief, please do watch!).

• My students pull an entire pizza out of their backpack for snack time. I'm now desensitized to it, but I've been told it's worth mentioning in this newsletter.

• Translating "social conditioning" for Lisa, my host mom. During a quick passing conversation in my doorway, she mentioned that she has too much to do and continued to say that women always take on too much and put others first. It turned into a much deeper (but still very brief) conversation about gender, and we were translating theory from each of our native languages.

• Finally finding avocado AND coconut milk for the first time since I arrived. I've never been more excited to pay too much for an avocado.

• A tiny dog bouncing around in someone's arms while they gesticola -- We stayed at an airbnb in Napoli with the most wonderful hosts. Flavio is a journalist and filmmaker (we had a wonderful conversation about local news in Italy)! He and Giorgia have a sweet little terrier who likes to be held. Giorgia was holding the dog in her arms while she talked with her hands. I've never seen a happier pup.

• Responding "Chissa`!?" ("Who knows!?") to the question "Are you Italian" -- Often in Italy people will stand outside restaurants and invite you to eat there, especially earlier in the evening. Emlyn and I were walking down the street in Napoli, someone outside a restaurant said "Buonasera," and we did not answer. Then he said "Hello," and I replied "No, grazie." He then said "Oh, sieti Italiani?" trying to figure out which language to address us in. But we'd continued walking, so I turned back and said "Chissa`!?" over my shoulder. He looked very confused.

• Sitting 4 across the backseat of a Fiat 500 with a group of strangers -- We did not realize until after we arrived at the train station on Sunday evening, and also after sprinting from the platform to the parking lot, that the shuttle between Mondragone and the station does not run on Sunday. (You may have noticed that we had a rough go of it with the shuttle.) The parking lot was emptying quickly, and it was dark. We approached two people who were roughly our age and asked if they were going towards Mondragone, and if they would be willing to drive us. (SORRY MOM). We all squeezed in, and talked the whole way into town. The parents who were driving worked with someone in my host family, and one of the people in the car had my co-teacher for English in high school. Small town vibes!

• "Bad presentation" -- I showed my students some Thanksgiving food last week. In response to a photo of a green bean casserole, one student said "bad presentation" with a very heavy Italian accent. My students agreed, and all 20 repeated "bad presentation, bad presentation" until I changed the slide.

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This is the castle, Rocca Montis Dragonis, feat. me for scale (and Emlyn in the window)!

HUGE shoutout to Julian for doing the hike in boat shoes (double photo for the laughter, minus Julian who is wholly unamused).

More mountains to come.
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Many more mountains to come.
 

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• Curriculum -- High schools in Italy are separated into licei scientifici, high schools for students who are college-bound, and licei technici, vocational programs. All students at licei scientifici have to choose a major, an indirizzo, before beginning high school, and they have to pass an entrance exam to attend a liceo scientifico. Once they enter high school, they take every class of every day with the students who are in their class year and major. The teachers move between classes. Again: they sit in the same seats in the same classroom all day with the same group for 5 years.

• Timing -- High school in Italy is 5 years, rather than 4. And undergrad is 3 years. The fifth year of high school is preparation for a large exam, la maturita` -- much like the bac in France. So the oldest high school students here are 19, and some are 20. (I finished high school at 17; I cannot imagine being 20 and in high school.)

• Structure -- The school has 3 locations, 2 in Mondragone and one in a neighboring town. The students are divided between schools based on their indirizzo, which is possible since the students stay in the same classroom all day. So we teachers have to move between buildings, and some teachers have to move between towns. On Mondays I teach second period at one school and third period at the other. One of my co-teachers drives me, but it still takes 10 minutes out of the hour. We always rush so that I can get there as quickly as possible, and this happens fairly often to other teachers as well.

• English -- All of my students have studied English grammar and vocabulary since elementary school, but without a focus on communicative skills. While they can read well, they struggle broadly with listening, speaking, pronunciation and writing. It's also worth noting that they study British English. The first unit of their textbooks focus on the Celts and Druids, and in literature courses they read Beowulf and Milton. They have little to no knowledge of American geography, history or culture (which means I have plenty of lesson material), with the exception of movies, music and pop culture.

• Pedagogy --  My students are not used to critical thinking, or relating their education to their lives beyond the classroom. Most of their lessons consist of the teacher reading aloud from the textbook, cold-calling on students to answer questions, and then asking them to repeat the textbook verbatim during an oral exam. It's classic banking model (Friere), and most students are deeply disengaged. It's also a shame-based classroom. Grades are all announced in front of the entire class, and the students with the lowest grades, rather than receiving support, are instructed to "study harder." The level of competition varies by class, but some groups are very intense about grades.

• COVID -- My dreams of shattering this model through Restorative Circles and Dialogue have been slightly impeded by the fact that the desks are arranged in rows, and students are not allowed to move the desks or to move to other desks. I've been able to facilitate groupwork in class, but always in the same groups because of proximity & assigned seats. We have to keep the door to the hallway open at all times, regardless of noise levels, which is especially difficult for my students who have hearing impairments. And I am technically not supposed to move around the room, but I cannot think of anything more stifling than teaching an entire lesson from behind a desk. (I tried to push the teacher's desk against the wall on my first day and was scolded. I'm going to keep trying, though.) Oh and less related to pedagogy but a bonus -- all teachers are required to have the vaccination in order to teach, but it is illegal to ask anyone under the age of 18 whether or not they are vaccinated. So the school has no idea what percentage of students in each classroom are vaccinated. However, in Italy it's impossible to go anywhere without the vax card, so it's very likely that most if not all students in every class are vaccinated.

• My students --  I have students in the scienze umane (humanities) and music tracks. So I'm teaching American culture through the history of American music to the music students (high school me who wanted to be a music teacher is so deeply fulfilled by this -- we did a lesson on music theory in English and they loved it), and I'm teaching critical cultural studies to my humanities students. The Fulbrighter who was here in 2018 was teaching students in natural sciences and classics, so I got very lucky that my students are in indirizzi that I have a lot to say about. I teach 8 classes, 4 in scienze umane and 4 in music/dance, and I meet each class twice a week. They are all sophomores, juniors and seniors (in the American system, so no students in their 5th year). And my classes range in size from 7 to 35!! Which is a doozy for lesson planning.

• The other teachers -- I will say much, much more about this in my next newsletter, but for now I'll say that most young people do not teach high school. Young adults who want to be teachers all start at the elementary or middle school level. At my school, the next youngest teacher after me is 32, and after her the next one is 42. This means a lot of things both for the school system and also for dynamics within the classroom. So while I'd already be a young teacher in America, it's even more exaggerated here!

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Regina update! She got lots of attention from Julian and Emlyn.

Saw this lil snail friend while I was sitting outside the immigration office for 3 hours last Monday. A moment of tranquillita` during a not-very-tranquilla day.

A post-run sunset.
 

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As always, thank you for valuing my thoughts! I am settling into this practice, and I am happy to have given myself the flexibility to send this a few days later than planned so that I could be more present with my visitors (much much gratitude to you both!!). I have started a list of other themes & ideas I want to introduce and revisit, and I'm happy for the opportunity to synthesize so many of my observations and reflections.

Con tranquillita`,
Antonella



 

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Appendix: Ground Rules

In Restorative Circles, especially recurring ones, a key part of the practice is to revisit and consent to community norms at the beginning of each gathering. I will likely include these guidelines in each email (although maybe not right at the beginning every time), and it's very likely that they will evolve with me and with this newsletter throughout the next 10 months.

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.