Sara's Adventures Abroad: Maestra, Maestra

Day 5

*Note - normally I would never take pictures of children and post them on the internet. Everyone was given permission by the school to take pictures.

I was woken up by a phone call at 7:50 am from Maria as she informed us that we had to leave the hotel to be at the school at 9:30, instead of 10:30 as we previously were told. I got up and got ready for our day of touring the school. We had breakfast which again was a croissant and yogurt. We had about a 30 minute walk to the Primaria school (grade 1-5.) When we arrived at the school we were greeted by some teachers and the principal of the school. There was so much artwork from the children on the walls which was a nice change from the Canadian elementary schools. When we walked into the school they had made signs that said Welcome and We Love Canada which was cute. We were led to the small auditorium where the principal introduced us to the school and the Italian school system and gave us some information, and Maria translated as she doesn't speak any English.

Artwork in Primary school

Artwork in Primary School

Some facts I found interesting about the Italian school system:

High school goes until grade 13, and some of the students are 19.
After grade 5, parents pay for their child to go to school
Parents pay if they want their child to go until after 1:30
Parents pay half of the cost for lunches
There is one lunch and two 15 minutes breaks during the day
Children learn French and English in the schools
Subjects they learn: Italian, English, French, Religion, Art, Music, Geography, History, Computers, P.E
They all call their teacher "Teacher" which in Italian is maestra
They learn British English

The group In front of Media school

Infanzia school artwork

Next we toured around the Primaria school, and walked into some classes. Maria got us to sing "Oh Canada" to one of the classes and they sang the Italian national anthem to us. The children spoke English pretty well, which I kind of expected them to. The children all wore little blue smocks which was adorable. Then we went to the Media (middle school - grade 6-8) and the Secondaro (high school grade 9-13) which was connected to it. The principal who gave us the speech at the Primaria school is also the principal for the Media school and Secondaria school. There was a big difference in the middle school compared to the primary school, specifically in the attitudes of the children. The little ones were a lot friendlier, where the older ones had more attitude, which is similar in Canada. When we got to the high school, we went into the vice principal's small office and he had cake and drinks for us. After we walked around to a few classes, we left the school and headed to Infanzia which is the daycare/kindergarten classes for children aged 3-6. The parents get to decide if they want to send their children to Primaria when they are 5 or 6 depending on their maturity level and readiness. I noticed in the Italian school system, it is more of the parents decision on their child's education and how much they want them to receive which is different in Canada, as there are laws that state children have to attend school until a certain age. When we got to the Infanzia school, the children were playing outside and some of the more outgoing ones would come up to us and randomly say words like "horse" and "elephant" which were some of the few English words they knew. It was fun playing with the kids outside and touring their school which was pretty nice for a daycare. After that we left for the other Infanzia school which was quite a trek down. During the walk, we went by lots of the shops in Sulmona, including the stores that sell the confetti candy which is candy coated almonds and they are put into shapes such as flowers. The displays are so beautiful and colourful! By this time my feet were covered in blisters and I had to keep bugging Michelle for bandaids as I ran out.

We arrived at the other school as they were eating lunch (fish sticks and green beans) and all the kids said hi to us. We went back to have lunch with the children at the Primaria school. The school graciously told us that they would provide us with a free lunch during our stay. They had cute little trays with a plastic cover that you throw out. The lunch always has a bun, some sort of fruit and vegetable, pasta, and meat. Quite a large lunch for small children, but it filled me up!

Lunch at school

Then we walked all the way back to our hotel, which was at least a half hour walk. Again, my feet were so sore and I felt so bad for Alex who had a severely swollen ankle. Once we were back at the hotel we hung out for a bit until the reception at 5:00 pm back at the school. Shannon stayed back at the hotel as she was still feeling sick, and Alex was going to stay back because of her ankle but they called a taxi for her and Angela, as she also had very sore feet. I came with them as the blister on the bottom of my foot felt worse, which was nice also because it started raining. We arrived there earlier than the rest of the group who had to walk, so we waited in the auditorium for everyone else. During the reception, I decided to switch from Media into Primaria, for a few reasons. First, there was no air conditioning in Media and I don't think I could handle the heat, next the students felt more welcoming in Primaria and I love teaching grade 4 and 5. I switched into Alex and Kylee's teaching group and am so happy I made that choice. We have lunch at the Primaria school, so I don't have to walk to a different school for lunch each day, and to top if off, we had an amazing Faculty Advisor is marking us! During the meeting we met our teacher we will be working with, and got into the Primaria group to discuss what the students will be learning. I decided to walk back to the hotel as my foot felt better, and we arrived just before dinner.

For dinner we had pasta with classic tomato sauce which was delicious, then our second course was breaded pork chops. After dinner Shannon, Kelly, Kylee and I walked to a gelato store to get dessert. I got Cupido which is a chocolate gelato with nuts. We walked back to the hotel and were going to go out to the bar but decided to go to bed early in order to get up early for our beach day in Pescara tomorrow.