Back to something that feels normal

This past Friday all of the girls in the palazzo started their service learning. Our service learning is a component of our Italy Today class that we take with Sara Andrini. All our service learning takes place in the local schools in Sansepolcro. The idea of helping out in the schools was formulated as a way for our Meredith community to give back to the community of Sansepolcro. I was told that my service learning would take place at a nearby elementary school. I had specifically asked to be at an elementary school given that I am working towards my K-6 licensure back home, and I felt as if I could truly benefit from experience in as many different types of schools as I can possibly work in. I was excited to see what similarities and differences there are between American and Italian schools and how significant these differences would be.

During a semester at Meredith I usually have two to three internships a semester in local schools and more times than not I have a job either Nanning or working at a daycare. Therefore, I am accustomed to working with children on a regular basis. Not working with children for almost 3 months now I have felt like a piece of me has been missing. I have loved observing the children here and even the parent-child relationships, but I have felt myself longing to be able to have the opportunity to work with the children not only in the US but while in Italy as well. Needless to say, the opportunity to work in a school while living in Italy brought much excitement as well as a subtle feeling on uneasiness. A first day interning in a new class always brings a small amount of anxiety but this time there would also be a language barrier. I was nervous that I would not understand the students or that I would not know enough Italian to effectively communicate or that the students would not understand me. The thought of the language barrier that would be present in the classroom made me nervous but I knew that it was nothing that I could control so I decided not to let it cause too much anxiety.

From the moment my first day of service learning started, the differences between American and Italian schools were apparent. To begin, the school that I go to is located on the roof of the local shopping mall. As someone who worked at the front desk of school walked me down to the classroom where my teacher, Ms. Casa, was teaching I found myself quickly scanning the building. There were classrooms full of students and coat racks full with children’s coat racks in the hallways; so far nothing on the inside separated an Italian school from an American school. When I arrived to Ms. Casa’s classroom I was warmly greeted by both Ms. Casa and many smiling facing. I immediately felt welcomed and all my anxieties ceased. I was greeted with a very loud, “Hello!” by all the students.

After becoming reacquainted with Ms. Casa, she explained to me that the students, who were around the age of 7, were working on English prepositions. The students were given sentences in English such as, “The dog is under the chair.” They then had to draw a dog under a chair. Ms. Casa asked me to walk around and see if any of the students had any questions. Let me just say that every single one of those students can draw much better than I ever could. Once all the children were done drawing and coloring the pictures of their prepositions, I was told to go around and put a mark on each one of their papers. The marks were to be short comments such as “Great Job! Excellent! Good Work!” I felt extremely uncomfortable putting a mark on the children’s work because I felt like I did not have the authority to do so.

After finishing in their workbooks, Ms. Casa split the class up into two groups to play a game. She asked me to explain the game to the children but I had no idea myself what the game she wanted them to play was. The game turned out to be a variation of tic-tac-toe. One team was the lions and one team was the tigers. Ms. Casa drew a tic-tac-toe board on the chalkboard and the lions were X’s and the tiger’s were O’s. My job was to hold an eraser and a book in my hands. I had to but the eraser either on the book, in front of the book, behind the book, under the book, in the book, or near the book. The students, one student from each team, then had to tell me where the eraser was in proximity to the book. Whichever student got the entire sentence right (i.e. “The eraser is under the book.”) got to put their letter (either and X or an O) on the tic-tac-toe board. I had never seen tic-tac-toe used in this way before and thought that it was a great idea that I could use one day when I am in the schools back home. This game went on for about 15 minutes and the students stayed intensely involved the entire time. Before I knew the class time was over.

The entire day went by extremely fast. The language barrier ended up not being a huge issue, which I was truly grateful for. I was amazed at how much English these 7 year olds knew. There were only a few times throughout the day that the students and I hit a couple bumps where we were not understanding each other. However, if there were no bumps in the road or obstacles to conquer it wouldn’t truly be a learning experience. I am very excited about what the next 4 weeks of service learning will hold.