Week 1

Wow-- time has absolutely flown by! I have already been in Italy for over a week! The first week and two weekends have been jammed packed with everything!! Nellina and Paolo are even better than I thought! They are always so nice and talkative (which I appreciate greatly, because I am too). I have been able to have many many conversations with Paolo and Nell about so many things: food in Italy and America, the places, the people, the politics in Italy, the education system here in Italy and in America, Paolo and Nell's college, everything! I feel very comfortable with them, I feel that if I have a question about any part of Italian culture they will listen to my questions and answer the best that they can. I hope they know that I will do the same! They do ask me many questions about how things are in America, relative to the current subject matter, but sometimes I worry that they hold back because they are unsure of their English. Paolo knows so much more English than I thought (I think more than he thinks too) and Nellina's is improving every day! I feel bad that they are working on their English way more than I am practicing Italian, but I know so little that I feel as though I am starting from scratch. They are both very understanding, though, and patient with  me when I either don't understand them or I can't explain myself in English or Italian well enough for them to understand. Beside the language barrier, which is fading more and more everyday, everything with my family is perfect! Giulia has taken to me so well, too! We play together a lot, and I help Nell to get Giulia to eat (in international 2 year old fashion, she is a very picky eater). I feel bad, sometimes, though because I think I get her too excited often and it can make her more hard to work with at dinner and bedtime. I don't know how to communicate with Paolo and Nell that they can tell me to stop playing with her whenever they want her to start settling down... Hopefully I will figure that out soon!

Aside from the family--Italy is great! Things at the school, Giotto, started out rough, but have quickly improved! My first two days in the classes I sat in the corner (between the wall, teachers desk and teacher) and strictly observed. Looking back on it know, I am glad that I had time to observe how Italian teachers work with the students because almost everything is different. The first thing that I observed is the physical communication/relationship if you will between the teachers and students. Teachers here can hug, pat, rub backs, pull, push (in a playing manner), etc with the students and don't stop students from doing the same. I was told by the school psychologist that the teachers in Italy see it as very important to establishing a relationship with your students, which helps students to learn what you teach. Thinking of it this way, I can understand, and definitely see that it is a cultural difference in America (where such action can get you fired and worse). The second thing that I observed is the interaction between teacher and student during instruction. The teachers, for the most part, stay stationary at their desks and lecture students from there. I am so used to interacting with students, being mobile and walking amongst students that this at first made me think that the teachers were lazy. After spending some more time in the classes, however, I now understand that this, too, is a cultural difference--the students don't need the teacher constantly entertaining them or grabbing their interest for them to pay attention the lesson. Also, I noticed that the discipline is completely different--almost opposite as in America. I have seen teachers yell and scream at the class as a whole or berate a single student for many minutes as the other students watch for things as simple as not knowing the answer to a question. This seemed to slightly phase a couple of students, but if there were any evidence of embarrassment (anger towards the teacher has never been present), it dissipated quickly. Other than the potential emotional damage, which would be the biggest concern in America,  this tactic does not seem to work because the only time the students are quiet is when she/he is yelling. As soon as the teacher stops yelling and get back to whatever  he/she was doing, the students go directly back to talking or playing around. I told Nellina some discipline techniques that I learned in Clemson and she seemed very interested to try them out. I was surprised to find out that education is one of the most important factors to the citizens of Carpi, yet discipline is such a bad issue and so hard for the teachers to manage. If I have any affect on the teachers in Giotto and on Nellina, I hope to be able to help them with some classroom management/discipline techniques!

This entry has gotten really long really fast, so I will post all about my adventures next! Rome, Ravenna, Rimini,  Carpi's historical monuments and daily life in Carpi, Italy!