Scuola in Italia

School in Italy is much different than school In Canada. To start school starts at 8 and ends at 2 with only a 10 minute break in the middle of the day, so a full 6 hours. At first it didn’t feel that long, but after attending classes for two weeks now, the excitement of a different environment and meeting new people has almost gone away. I don’t think I’ll ever hate school in Italy because I love all my new friends there and when the teachers try speaking English. Just a new school in general is exciting, especially because the work I do here doesn’t actually count for marks. Usually, I use class time to work on projects and assignments from my own school in Canada or try to practice Italian and pay attention to the teachers, but I never really understand what’s going on, I just nod my head and smile when the teachers look at me.

Class schedules are very different in Italy compared to Canada. They don’t have semesters and terms, just school years. They also don’t use grades, in Canada I would say I’m in grade 11, but here I say I’m in year 3, as in year three of high school. They also don’t go to different classes, instead the teachers switch every hour with different subjects. Every day we have different classes, like today we could have philosophy, biology then English first but tomorrow would be Italian, gym and chemistry. It’s not completely random, every week is the same where as in Canada we have the same four classes every day at the same time. So far, I have not memorized what classes are when, so i find out when the teacher walks in, I don’t even know if Gioia has them memorized, so each day is like a new surprise. 

 My favourite classes are philosophy and history because the teachers try to translate some of the content for James and I. My least favourite are math and physics, I’ve never taken physics at home so it’s difficult to follow especially in another language. Math is math, boring everywhere! In Italy it is a law to offer an hour of religion class every week at school, students can choose whether or not they’d like to participate, so during this hour some students leave. I’ve also learned that art, my favourite class at JDSS, is very different than art in Canada. Instead of learning to create your own art and how to use different mediums, they study famous artists and the history of art and they actually get homework for this class. 

Since going to school for a week and a couple days in Italy, we’ve already gone on a field trip. On Monday we went to a theatre and listened to an author talk about his book (I think...), then after he signed some of the students copies. We had to meet the class at the theatre by nine but we were early because we had taken the bus, so we sat at a cafe, ate breakfast and had coffee. One of my favourite things to do is visit the little cafes and meet up with friends, I’ve tried many different chocolate croissants while being here and all of them were delicious (pictured above).  After eating and chatting for a while, we walked to meet the rest of the class and found our seats in the theatre. The author talked from 9-12… all in Italian… very fast. As you can imagine, I was very bored but tried to pay attention the best I could. The only words I understood were mafia and gangsters, there were many men surrounding this guy while he was speaking which the guy sitting beside me told me they were police. After, Gioia told me they were there to protect the author because he writes about the Italian mafia and is well-known for this.  

They use different grades here in Italy. Instead of using percentages for a grade in class they use 1-10. From what I understand you need a 6 to pass the class. When they are below a 6 they have to take oral tests called interrogazione, which literally means, an interrogation. During these interrogations, they have to explain the content they’ve recently learned in class. These tests could determine their mark, from what I understand. The have to write written tests too, right now I’m sitting in art class writing my blog while the rest of the class (minus James) is writing a test on some art history stuff. Compared to school in Canada, students in Italy get tested more often but have less assignments to do, where as our marks are mostly based an work done in class, depending on the course.

I like the general routine of school here, and it's interesting learning about all of the different ways of learning but  moral of the story, school kinda sucks wherever you are:)