Weeks 7, 8 & 9; 19-12-2021

Hello, friends!

I am once again behind schedule, so I've decided to add an extra week onto this one, which times out better with the holidays, anyways. I've had a lovely couple of weeks, full of travel and friends and new experiences. I went to Napoli with Julian, to an opera by myself, to Bologna to meet some good friends from Vassar, and to Geneva and surrounding Alps to meet a friend from high school. I tried skiing for the first time (more details to come on that) and have been settling in to my teaching schedule.

Unfortunately, on the day that the strike was scheduled, we had a large rain storm and school was cancelled because of flooding in the area. So I'm going to push my reflections on teachers' unions to another time. Instead, I'm going to share my first "field notes" section -- reflections on my experiences in the classroom -- and a brief "from the journal."

And finally, to get this out of the way up front, Omicron has not changed much here yet. The first identified case was in my provincia, but since cases are not rising, we're continuing as before -- which, as a reminder, is different from most parts of the US: surgical or N95 masks required indoors at all times, strict capacity limits on stores and businesses, social distancing indoors and outside, and mandatory vaccination card or, alternatively, a negative COVID test every 3 days. Cases are rising, but not as quickly as in the US or other parts of Europe. It will be interesting to see how things progress. (Unfortunately, access to booster shots for non-Italian citizens is a different story for another time...)

 

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Mirror selfie from my seat at the opera


View of the rest of the opera house from my seat (I could see the rest of the opera house better than I could see most of the stage)


A photo from the top of Vesuvius (from last newsletter!). That's Ischia rising out of the fog behind me. I wore my Deb Ciamacca t shirt to the top but it was too chilly to take a proper photo without other layers on. 


Julian sitting in the Napoli metro, holding a gluten free tiramisu in one hand and playing Scopa on his phone with the other. We carried the tiramisu, uncovered, for 2 hours in the rain (with an umbrella -- umbrella in one hand, tiramisu in the other) and got many weird looks.

 

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Word pictures

• From my seat at the opera, I could see the pit more clearly than the stage -- and I had a direct view of the french horns and basses. The fourth french horn knew every word to every aria and would sing under her breath whenever she was not playing. At the end, she was the first in the pit to jump up for curtain calls. Her love for music brought me a lot of joy.

 

• Showing my students Fifty Nifty United States (link; 0:30-1:42) as part of a geography lesson. Total teacher chaos. Some of them were dancing, some of them were confused, some of them were embarrassed. The downside is that I've had the song stuck in my head for the last 2 weeks, to the point that I looked up free backbeats online and tried to remix it (more chaos).

 

• Before Emlyn left we went to the poste together -- also total chaos. I mentioned in a previous newsletter that nobody stands in an actual line (chi e` l'ultimo?), so we walked into a casino (fiasco/mess). Then the poste truck needed to pull into its parking spot, which was blocked by the many people who were not standing in line. And then, because the poste truck driver was shouting at people to move, the cars on the main street got backed up, and then everybody was shouting and beeping. And THEN there was a giant clap of thunder and everybody got quiet. It took 2 hours to mail 2 post cards, and was also a quintessential Mondragone experience to bookend Emlyn's visit.

 

• The temperature has been dipping below 40 at night (which I was told didn't happen), and the mountaintops have snow on them (which I was told didn't happen -- I feel like I've been cheated). But it's still 60F during the day, so I am in no position to complain. However, I have a stufa, a stove, in my apartment that burns wood pellets. The bags of pellets weigh 15kg and I buy them from that same grocery store where I buy the cases of water, ~750m from my apartment. This week it got cold enough that I finally caved and bought pellets. I tried to bicep curl them for as much of the walk as I could -- once again, I don't need a gym here!

 

• I mentioned that I am learning a few words in the Mondragonese dialect, all fruits and vegetables because I'm learning them from the owner of the corner store. This week I learned patana (patata, potato) and acquaforte (candeggina, bleach). I also learned that in Mondragone, people refer to the store on my corner as the "American store," because the current owner's grandfather worked in America for 10 years in the 1910s, then moved back to Mondragone and purchased the store with the money he'd earned there. I'm gathering other similar tidbits about Italian-American immigration and saving them up for a future newsletter.

 

• My immigration paperwork has been a nightmare (more on that in another future newsletter on migration into Italy). After 9 weeks of trying to get the one document that had been holding up everything else, I got an appointment last Thursday. The officer looked at my passport to enter my name and DOB into the system, and he repeated my name 3 times incredulously to my landlord who had driven me there. He then said in Italian, "With a name like this you don't need this document! You could live here forever and nobody would think you aren't an Italian citizen." I have many thoughts on this comment, another time.

 

• A person riding a Vespa hugging a very large poinsettia with one arm.

 

• Snapshots from two very different weekends: sitting in a bar next to a river in Bologna with a little dog running around, talking with a bunch of musicians about the problems in American society while the smell of tomato sauce from the kitchen downstairs wafted up the stairs; 5 days later sitting in a chalet in the French Alps playing a drinking game to Wolf of Wall Street with physicists and data analysts who ski and snowboard and watch F1 racing (we also talked about American society).

Bologna

• An unbroken prosecco bottle among the litter on the side of the train tracks.

 

• Doing lunges across Piazza Carducci (in Bologna) and being barked at by a dog the size of a guinea pig wearing a pink puffy jacket.

 

• A busker singing Wonderwall (classic), joined by another busker playing his bike frame with drumsticks (less classic).

 

• A few word pictures together from a benefit concert in Bologna for an organization doing work in Palestine -- everyone passing around a bucket of cookies; an old man who knew all the words to the folk sing "Il Meglio Gioventu`"; a folk song from Abruzzo, where my family is from, about a girl named Antoniella (pronounced Antuniella in dialect).

Geneva

• I had never been that person sprinting through the airport until last Friday -- I checked in with 1 minute to spare and was the last person to board my flight. So many elements of my morning had to line up in order for me to catch that plane. I firmly believe that if one thing had gone differently I'd not have made it. I love this story, but it doesn't lend itself to being typed, or at least not as a word picture. I might send a link to an audio recording in my next email? But for now, enjoy the word picture of me sprinting through terminal A of Fiumincino at 8am on a Friday.

 

• Getting off the bus in Thoiry (where my friend was staying outside Geneva) into a snow bank on the side of a road with no buildings in sight, just snow-covered fields. The bus pulled away, I'm standing there with my 2 backpacks in shoes that are definitely not snow boots. One of those moments when the camera pans in on my face, I say "you might be wondering how I got here," and the theme music starts.

 

• Annecy has the cleanest lake in Europe. At the park next to the lake, where in most parts of America we'd find geese, there are swans!! I also tried a gluten free galette. It was delicious, and I did not take a photo of it because I'm bad at remembering to take photos.

 

• A chalet in the French alps with so much snow on the roof that it looked like a gingerbread house. Featuring the neighbor's sweet, shaggy dog who was so excited that there were people outside at 11pm (we were shoveling) and who really wanted to play.

 

• I've never skied before last weekend -- the friends I was with knew this, and we changed our plans last minute because the "conditions will never be this perfect ever again in my life." On the way up the mountain I was excited and chatty, asking if the skiing muscle groups were at all similar to the running ones. A good thought, except I was missing far too many skiing fundamentals to be at a point where I could engage any of those muscles. And to make matters worse, there was no parking at the bottom of the mountain.... so we parked halfway up the top and getting me up on my feet was trial by fire. We were on the side of the slope and two of them were holding me up while I tried to figure out how to clip into my skis. And then I ended up falling/sliding down more of the slope than I actually skied. I lost my skis about 40% of the times that I fell. It was rough, to say the least. I did not go back up the slope again (unless the little sledding hill at the bottom counts), but I made it through with no major injuries and with a better idea of the basics (hopefully!).

 

 

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All smiles with Giulia and her friends! They are all musicians and music teachers. We were sitting on this wall because two of Matteo's students were busking in the piazza


More cool graffiti in Bologna! Bologna is also very vocal in its support for Patrick Zaki (who was released last week) and Giulio Regeni.

 

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Field Notes
A space to share reflections on my experiences in the classroom; this one is going to be long since I've not done this at all yet.

• I'm feeling really good about my classes so far. One of my favorite check-out questions is "What struck you about this lesson." When we talked about the death of labor unions and post-industrial rust belt towns through Billy Joel's "Allentown," I was expecting them to say something along the lines of "the train whistle at the beginning of the song," or "I didn't know what the USO is." Instead I got "the harsh reality of the American economy." Gooooood. I also taught a lesson on the anti-war movement through Bob Dylan, and we talked in passing about the relationship between baby dolls and motherhood when the American Girl company came up in a Humans of New York story. We wrote an essay about the NYTimes Where You Should Live quiz, and this week we are watching Elf with italian subtitles.

• I've been running into my students all over town -- at least once a week, somebody in one of my classes tells me "we saw you running!!" I have purchased groceries from and had my hair cut by the parents of my students. Sometimes I'll be walking around town and people will yell "hello" (in english) out of passing cars, and once from the window of the school as I was walking home for lunch.

• There is little concern for the emotional or physical needs of students. I've had multiple students crying, and the teacher ignores it. Each time, I'll go over during a lull and offer to talk, or ask if they want to go for a walk or get water with a friend. The co-teacher is usually confused or shocked that I've offered this. Which is... shocking to me. I also have a few students who have big anxiety about speaking in front of the class, which is shamed or pushed through without any support. When my students misunderstood my directions during my first week here, my co-teacher scolded them and yelled at them for not understanding, rather than encouraging them to ask for clarification. Students get minimal physical movement throughout the day, and since they aren't allowed to get up from their desks during lessons they are always antsy during the last 2 hours of the day. They are also not allowed to exit their classrooms until the beginning of the 3rd hour, even to use the restroom.

• I have 2 students in my sophomore music class who are brothers. They do not participate at all, for anything. If spoken to directly, they stare back and say nothing, or curse under their breath. And they look down at their desk during any sort of presentation or group work. When I asked the co-teacher about how she engages them, she said that high school is mandatory until age 16. They will both turn 16 during this school year, at which point they will likely drop out. And there is not any other attempt to support them in the meantime.

• Likewise, a lot of the classes have reputations as a unit rather than as individuals. My junior humanities students (3H) have a reputation of being rowdy, unintelligent, and gossipy. It's reductive to define a whole group by a few. I also don't ascribe to the idea that a student's personality is static; they should have space to grow into new versions of themselves, especially as teenagers. During an all-school assembly on google meet, which was designed to give students an opportunity to voice their concerns to administrators, when 3H raised a concern, many of the other classes started to insult them in the chat, saying that the humanities are useless, and only stupid and lazy people study the humanities, and that it's a less important major because they are all women (I took personal offense!). No administrator or instructor intervened. The assembly was dysfunctional in many other ways -- there was no system in place to ensure that all issues were raised, there was no way to prevent groups from talking over one another, there was no record-keeping or reassurance that any issues raised would be addressed (or not addressed), and it directly cut into instructional time. I'm unsure how to change the assembly structure, but I will gladly affirm the importance of the humanities to my students at every opportunity.

• I walked into one of my classrooms last week to utter chaos -- everyone out of their desks and 3 adults, none of whom were my co-teacher all yelling at each other. The computer at the front of the room had broken, and it took 30 minutes to resolve everything. (And it was not resolved restoratively!) From what I gathered, the hall monitor had blamed the students, which goes back to entire-classrooms-getting-reputations. The students were adamant that nobody had touched it, and got very upset and hurt at the accusation. There were no skills in place to stop the yelling, let alone to listen to all sides of the conflict. And the more they shouted (to be heard), the "worse" they were behaving. No teachers were listening to their side. I wish I'd had a moment alone with them to say "I heard you, that is not fair, I want to work on this." But I did not get a chance because the teacher was very clear that the discussion was over.

• On a lighter note, I've had many hilarious moments. One student who interrupted a casual conversation about american high schools to ask about weed. Another student was doing a speaking exercise repeating the sentence "I steal the book," but accidentally said "I steal the bike." When a water fight broke out in one of my classrooms (also how does that even happen) during a lesson on Thanksgiving in America, one of my students said to the other, "You are a children." I interrupted to say "Actually, it's 'you are a child,'" and then all of the class started repeating "you are a child" over and over again. Later in the lesson when I explained that children in America make hand turkeys at school, the student who had been called a child made a whole show of holding up his hand, tracing it, and making a hand turkey. It demonstrated understanding, at least! And everybody laughed.

• After the child/hand turkey incident, my co-teacher told me that I need to be more strict with my students and need to punish them more. She said that they were being loud and unfocused - I said that I'd never seen them more focused, and that I would rather they be rowdily engaged than totally disengaged (which is the norm). I'm so sad that this educational environment overall punishes engagement unless it fits a very narrow definition of engagement which many high school students cannot maintain for 6 hours straight!

• School was cancelled last Thursday because of alluvione - flooding. There were 30 cm of water on Mondragone's main street, and many of the country roads were not passable. Even during the day on Wednesday, one of my students expressed concern during class about getting home safely, and was told to focus on the lesson. I heard from one of my teachers that her basement was flooded, and they had to drain it by hand with buckets. Many of the students who attend the Mondragone high school are from neighboring towns, to the south and west. I asked if this happens often, and they said it did not until about 3 years ago, and referenced climate change. This has happened 3 times since I've arrived.

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The fountain in the lake in Geneva -- as we were walking down the pier there was somebody getting out of the water in a NORMAL BATHING SUIT (not a wet suit) after going for a swim, as if it weren't below freezing.

The view from the mountain house.

The view from the mountain house in the other direction.

My view from the bottom of the mountain where I sat after falling a lot -- there is a hang glider coming around the mountain.
 

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From The Journal
Going to keep this one very brief! More journaling reflections to come after the holidays

• My time in Geneva was absolutely wonderful. I felt like for the first time since arriving I was deeply connected to my intentions of going new places, meeting new people, having new experiences, expanding my comfort zone, and reconnecting with myself. I did each of those at various points in this trip -- I have never been to Geneva or the French Alps, I was hanging out in a group in which I only knew one other person, I have NEVER skied before or experienced ski/winter sports culture, I've not spoken French in years (which did go much better than I'd expected), and I spent a long time sitting alone on the ground at the bottom of the mountain after I got tired of falling as I tried to ski down the little sledding hill. I was cold and quite uncomfortable physically, but also content to be sitting with myself, people-watching and reflecting. And then, as I was coming back to Mondragone, I got very sad. I felt myself geographically moving away from that sense of adventure. Since returning on Monday, I've felt stuck in a rut. ​I am craving more adventure -- but who am I to say that my life in Italy is not already an adventure in itself??? Who am I to say that a sense of adventure is something that is geographically bound?? I have 13 days to myself at the end of the holiday break, and I am toying with the idea of catching a last-minute flight to another place I've never been (or taking trains around Italy, as not to mess with international borders as Omicron gets worse). I am also wondering if I need to push myself to use that time to seek out adventure here in Mondragone. We'll see!

 

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My co-teacher posted this photo weeks ago, I was saving it for the teachers' union email, but I think that could be a while. Sending it now. The title is "how schools work in Italy." Docente is "teacher," and all the other titles are different administrative roles.


A chaotic sign in the teacher's bathroom at the school. It says "Don't put toilet paper on the broom... not even on the bathroom floor. And how gross, excuse yourselves." I have to wonder what happened to warrant this sign? Because it also does not make much sense.


Two very sweet and very old pups who kept me company at the Mondragone train station on my way back from Geneva. The groundskeeper told me that they were abandoned there. At one point they didn't want to leave the parking lot and there were 4 of us trying to coax them to go inside for dinner.


Mandatory Regina update -- here she is being the guard kitty. And me! Looking tranquilla! With a mini GF/DF pizza!

 

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I'm heading to Abruzzo this week with my mom to spend Christmas with extended family. I'll be sure to send word pictures from that trip, along with my next "from the journal" and other updates in the next few weeks. Thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with these! I so appreciate your reflections back. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy break.

Con tranquillita`,
Antonella