Its Greek to me

On your mark, get read, GO. The maturità exams have begun. My son arrived at school for the first day at 7:30am and left at 3.30pm during which time he participated in the "prima prova" -- an essay. EIGHT hours (???). Yes. That is the time allocated for one essay.

First all backpacks had to go in a corner and cell phones in a box. Then there were sheets of paper to be counted and signed and instructions given before the theatrical entrance of the carabinieri. Why the police you (and I) may ask. The police deliver the official envelope with the essay questions to distribute. Two hours had already passed before the essay questions were in hand. Six more to go.

Out of the five choices, M. chose the one on science and technology. He seemed fairly pleased with the final result but he wished he had managed to make it more linear. I wonder if anyone will notice? Maybe his desire for linear thinking comes from elsewhere. In any case, from what he described over supper, he covered a lot of territory.

and tomorrow, it starts all over again....this time, Greek.

will it end? When will the students know when the oral exams begin? Not until the professors figure out how long it will take to correct the written ones. Why can't they estimate that time in advance, since they have been doing this for many, many years? "By the 30th at the latest" is the best they can do as a response.

It is not to ask, but to simply shrug and follow.

Pazienza.

a domani,
E

Grades are out

Grades are out, and I really mean out. As you walk in the front door of the school, class lists are posted on the wall with grades for each subject for each student for each grade level, for all to see.

I've always felt a bit uncomfortable with this public display of personal information. I guess Italians don't consider grades to be personal, and therefore needing privacy. THere are students that are "admitted" to the final exit exam -- the maturità -- or the next year and others that are non ammesso, or "not admitted." Those with many "credits" and others with "debits". Those with high grade averages and those who just managed to pass.

A written report card never comes home at the end of the year -- just the posting of grades and the "ammesso" or "non ammesso" by each name. In the end it is just important to have passed the year.

There is something about my sense of individualism at the root of my discomfort with this system. Grades are personal business, my business, not the group's business (my classmates). I can chose to share my grades, but at my discretion.

My son, instead has passed the last five years with essentially the same group of 25 students, sitting in the same room, with the same teachers day after day after week after month after year. Their school lives are so intimately intertwined after endless interrogations, "information sharing" during written tests, discussions, jokes, studying, being stressed out and helping each other that a strong sense of one unit has been formed -- to such an extent that it does not seem strange or out of place that everyone's grades are posted for everyone to see.

And you wonder why that core group of high school friends follows them around the rest of their lives like a life-raft.

a domani,
E

Rules of the game

It is hard to figure out the rules of the game here. Italians are much more flexible than we are in accepting odd rules (odd to us at least) without questioning why. Well, they learn this skill at school.

Today my son got back an Italian test. Grading runs from 1-10 with a 10 being an A+ anything below a 6, a failing grade. While handing back the test the teacher said that the highest grade on this particular test(for a perfect job)was a 7.5 which means that that no one could receive an "A". Why? Because, "It is too early in the year and we haven't covered enough material for this test to merit a full-value."

Does this hit you as being strange? and arbitrary?

Tests are often given (at my son's liceo in any case) on this sliding value scale. Sometimes a test is worth a full "10" value and other times (if it is an easier exercise) only a "7". The first time my son came home with a 7 on an English test, I asked, "What did you get wrong?" "Nothing" was the answer. A "B" was the highest grade for a perfect score.

Along with Dante and algorithms, he is learning cultural skills that will serve him well in this world: tolerance of ambiguity and how to navigate among uncertain rules.

a domani,
E

Eleven lucky students

In the middle of lunch, after a long pause in the conversation, my son looked up and announced, "today was really a strange day." As my mother antennas went up, I calmly replied, "in what way, strange?"

M -- "We had way too much homework for today and "interrogations" in Philosophy, Art History AND Science. I wrote my Art History essay and studied an impossible amount of philosophy text, but I didn't have time to look at science."

("oh no, he got interrogated in science -- Murphy's law," I thought to myself)

M-- "Instead, only eleven students came to class."

Me -- "I bet the teachers were angry."

M-- "So angry that they didn't interrogate us at all! We just went ahead in the text and the Art History teacher took our essays. The philosophy teacher told us that when he does pull names out of his bowl for the next interrogation he will skip over our eleven names until he picks one of the absentees."

His cell phone rings and he tells the friend on the other end what he has just told me.

M -- smiling, "everyone is calling me to find out what happened today."

Me -- As I try to draw a lesson from all this, "I guess it pays off in the end to go to school even when you haven't been able to finish everything."

M -- Thoughtfully, "Not always, sometimes it actually does pay off to stay home, you have to know how to manage the workload and skip a class, go into school at the second hour, leave early or stay home when you are not prepared." He has done it too in the past, but he happened to play his cards right today.

So, the lesson is: to get through liceo, you have to learn the subtle Italian art of "risk management" in the ambiguous jungle that is the Italian classroom with its surprise interrogations, or planned interrogations but for only a few students (picked out of a bowl) and teachers that do not coordinate workloads. The final results will not mirror a "fair" playing field in any case, there are too many capricious factors that raise obstacles along the way. As the science teacher told the lonely eleven, "You have just had an important biology lesson -- the survival of the fittest." Or the furbi, or the just plain lucky.

By the time he finishes his maturità exam this summer, he will be well prepared for what lies ahead in the Italian university, starting with medical school entrance exams! (click and look for September 10 post)

September

I've returned to blogging. An official re-entry from the summer.

The trouble with August is that then September comes around. Soon the newspapers will have articles on "September-itis", the annual bug that attacks as everyone goes back to work, study and daily life with another eleven months ahead before August comes around again.

The symptoms include low grade depression, lack of energy, difficulty in getting up in the morning, difficulty in getting to sleep in the evening. The cure is to rest, eat lightly and get back into your routine slowly while allowing time for a walk in the park, a stroll and an ice cream, a chat with a friend. Diving headfirst into a frenetic rhythm is not recommended.

So September starts out slowly, con calma. It is the provisional month -- everything is provided for the time being, pending permanent arrangements.

Summer is over. Families return from the beach or the mountains and while parents slowly get back to their work routines, children finish summer homework under the watchful eyes of grandparents or nannies. The annual September dance begins as everyone engages in the process of moving all that is provisional to its final rest. When I call the doctor to change an appointment, the secretary assures me, “It’s September, we understand.” Everyone understands that arrangements, calendars, schedules and appointments will be provisorio for the interim month that separates the August holiday break from the rest of the year. Then October arrives, the pieces fall into place and the year takes form.

School starts. Early in the month national newspapers and television announce the official starting dates as dictated by the Ministry of Public Instruction. The Ministry establishes these dates by region, the schools in the north start around September 8 or 10, those in the center around mid-month and Sicilian schools start as late as September 25. With the last reforms, individual schools have some administrative flexibility, called autonomia, and they often exercise this new freedom by adjusting the regional starting date to meet particular needs. These dates are then kept a secret from students and parents. The school website gives only its long and illustrious history, not pragmatic information such as the first day of classes. The office is open only three mornings a week and the staff is so busy with enrolling students that the phone rings unanswered.

But the word gets out anyway, in that particular Italian way so that everyone just "knows" although never through official channels. A few years ago, the school suddenly decided that it would open a few days earlier than anticipated. Within minutes, the news had spread down the beach from lounge chair to lounge chair. Parents re-arranged plans, cancelled last minute weekend trips and liberated grandparents from additional days of babysitting. I found it amazing that no one seemed particularly annoyed by this uncertainty, it is just part of the September game – flexibility is the only rule.

During the first days of school, teachers dictate class schedules that children carefully pencil into their new diari -- the colorful agendas will hold a year’s worth of homework assignments, notes from teachers to parents and most importantly student to student correspondence. Although they may seem quite official, these first class schedules will change a few more times before they can be set in pen – sometime in October.

My agenda is starting to fill up for September, in pencil. My pen will have to wait until October.

a domani,
E

P.S. I have recently posted an interview on an expat interview site.

I also just saw that my article on the American expat community published in The Roman Forum July 2007 issue is online.

Oral exams

I spent the day at a meeting and orientation for a group of Italian and American Fulbright scholars where I held a workshop on Cross-cultural communications.

It was HOT and the combination of post-pranzo dozzies and no AC was potentially fatal, but they politely sweated it through with me and I think enjoyed the intellectual challenge that delving into into the depths of our cultural selves entails.

Over lunch, I asked the American professors at my table if they had ever had any experience teaching Italian university students. One had and here is what he said. 1. They asked the best questions he had ever had from students. 2. If they couldn't follow a lesson, or were just tired, they would either walk out or start chatting to a neighbor. 3. He so enjoyed the oral exam tradition that he has decided to try it on his American graduate students.

This led to an interesting discussion about the pros and cons of oral exams versus American style "quizzza" (multiple choice). With the recent reforms of the maturità exam, the terza prova of the three day written exams will be in this imported American format. Italians say that it is arbitrary and doesn't allow a student to show what he/she knows. At the same time, says another of the American professors at the table, a lot of B....S.... goes on in oral exams.

To each educational system, its assessment tools.

a domani,
E

School's out

School was scheduled to finish on Saturday June 9. Then, a few days ago the principal announced that it would close instead on Friday the 8th. My son's class had a last history test yesterday and a few students from his class were expecting to be "interrogated" one last time in philosophy tomorrow. He was worried instead about a last surprise interrogation in science and history, for which he had planned to study this afternoon.

But instead, at about 12:30, the teachers received an announcement from the office that the school would be closing today. No last minute interrogations. No time to get organized for a party in the piazza. No time for good-bye's and such. The bell rang and the year was over. How is that for a different time orientation! One day more or less, whatever. The year had been long enough in any case. Let's be flexible.

My son said it was strange, not having a soft landing to the year, and the teachers were disturbed about not fininshing off their last testing. Some students will have final grades based on fewer individual grades than others. Now is that "fair"? Doesn't bother him -- a different sense of classroom competition.

I assume President Bush's arrival has something to do with this early closing as the school is in a central location and the police will have other things to worry about tomorrow than wild students getting out for the summer.

They got that today instead -- flour, eggs, tomatoes and more flew in the piazza and my son went straight into the shower when he got home. It is a kind of ritual, I just wouldn't want to have my car parked in that piazza today!

Happy summer.
a lunedi,
E

The stress of meritocracy

Today’s top moment was receiving a pack of April and May New Yorker magazines from a woman who had read this entry. She was very happy to find a home for her old subscriptions and even suggested that I pass them on to Shelley for her tourist apartments so that they can continue a long and happy life. Expats get that way about their beloved magazines.

The first “Talk of the Town” commentary I read from the May 21 issue fit nicely with Trento’s Festival dell’Economia topic, “Human Capital, Social Capital” – at least the human side. It was about higher education and meritocracy. “Americans want education to be two things, universal and meritocratic.” So why all the stress? While everyone, in theory, gets a place at the starting line, the weeding process that makes the system efficient is hugely stressful. “The more purely meritocratic the system – the more open, the more efficient, the “fairer” – the more anxiety it produces, because there is no haven from competition….Everything you do in a meritocratic society is some kind of test, and there is never a final exam…..which at some point starts to get in the way of becoming educated. You can’t learn when you’re afraid of being wrong.”

I write to my US friends with their college-applying children that I am SOOOO happy not to be going through all that stress. Their children have applied to an array of “top” colleges, all are super kids with lots of interests and activities in addition to great grades, all are stressing on which school to pick, which one didn’t pick them etc. Their parents are stressing on the future fees….

My older son is just going to enrol in the University of Trento and study economics. Getting in is not the stressful part -- although there is an entrance exam that weeds out the true losers -- passing exams one after the other until the end, is. In fact, there is a very high percentage of non-finishers (about 70%). It is just a different way to let everyone get a place at the starting line, a different way to set in motion a weeding process and a different kind of stress.

The big difference is that Italians buy into a much less expensive version of stress.

Do they get a good education? From my experience, those with the desire to study and the capability to do so, come out very well prepared. The others less so. Not much of a difference there.

A domani,
E

It all works out

While reading the newspaper on the beach today, I discovered that I was right to have faith.

The parent committee sat at the table with the political interests and worked it all out! No more door on the piazza, no more corridor to ministerial offices taking space from the school. An alternative solution was found -- in two days, after five years of projects and interests and such. I guess last minute consensus building through active confrontration worked.

Ministro Rutelli is even HAPPY to make the announcement.

Now try to figure that one out -- I think I'll have a swim.

a domani,
E

How things work

Yesterday afternoon parents were invited to a school-wide meeting assemblea straordinaria in the aula magna. Subject: The recent visit by Ministro Rutelli to announce renovation work soon to take place in this important historic building to meet school safety regulations and provide access for the disabled.

Sounds fairly straight forward. But it was not. Never is.

I got a seat up front (simply by arriving on time) and listened carefully and attentively for over two hours as various political representatives (a capo gabinetto del ministero, an assessore della provincia), parents, teachers and the principal spoke. In the end I understood that there are three sides to this triangular question.

The school side: the school needs (and wants) to meet necessary safety regulations (fire regulations were the only ones specified) and provide access for the disabled (a ramp to get up the front steps and an internal elevator seem to be the two issues at hand). The school also desperately needs a few new spaces as several rooms that are now serving as classrooms are grossly inadequate.

So far, all is clear and no one disagrees (politicians, parents, teachers, students, principal).

The principle side: the building, originally owned and run by Jesuits priests as an educational institution, was donated to the Italian state in 1873 (soon after Rome had joined the rest of Italy) on the condition that it continue to be used for this purpose, giving birth to the first state-run liceo in Italy – Liceo Ginnasio “Ennio Quirino Visconti”.

Things are still clear but although the politicians do not disagree, they do not agree quite as enthusiastically and we will later see why.

The political side: the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali has its headquarters just next to the school and shares the same complex. It wants (needs?) another entrance and has incorporated the re-opening of a door on the front of the building, that has been closed for centuries, into the school renovation project. This new door will then require a hallway to allow for access to the offices and this additional space will come from the north wing of the school.

Wait, could you repeat the purpose of this renovation work again (fulfill safety regulations for the school and access for the disabled and the need for new classrooms) and clarify what the Ministry’s door has to do with it? No problem, new classroom space (in lieu of that being taken away) will be provided for by dividing a few current rooms in two vertically by installing metal lofts.

Now I get it -- why so many parents showed up, the cat calls, shouting and wild applause. Can you imagine those desks, chairs and lively adolescents all moving about on a metal floor above the heads of another class. Ma che succede?

I listen more carefully and attentively.

First to the Assessore della Provincia di Roma. Lots of very nice words, but not very much information.

Then a student spoke, concluding with, “Prima la storia dell’istituto, poi tutto il resto” (First the Institution’s history, then the rest). Ahhh History (with capital “H”) bubbling up there again.

A father followed finishing with his “fear of politicians – first they put their foot in the door only to then take it all”. Wild applause – the crowd was warming up.

Another father then came to the microphone to state, “I will not accept the arrogance of the strong, we must educate our children to respect the rules”.

Yet another father returned us to the question of space and safety followed by an impassioned mother, the first to highlight Side Two of the question – the destination of the building by the Jesuits for educational purposes (not ministries and public officials).

Finally came the moment for the architect and project designer to speak. He was whistled at as he wafted on about Ministro Rutelli’s sensitivity to cultural issues. Someone cried out, “keep to the technical side”. So he proceeded to outline the two essential needs, that of the school to be put “a norma” and that of a second entrance for the Ministry, but he never did get around to the technical side. Someone finally yelled out, “tempo!” and he sat down.

Things were certainly heating up.

Then a woman came to the mike, a mother, and what a mother. Tall and imposing, thick, long overflowing reddish hair, grey low-cut stylish tunic, lots of strings of white and gold colored things around her neck, tight jeans tucked into leather boots with heels. As in other occasions, looks can be deceiving to the foreign eye. She was a professional, a civil engineer that has sat on various government committees for public works safety – a powerful woman who could afford to be “particolare” and freely express her individuality, no conservative suits for her. She asked very pointed questions of the architect, demanding clear answers and as she made an eloquent and passionate speech it was clear that she had done her homework.

A few other fathers followed, one calling for a “stato di agitazione” and my favorite father, a lawyer, who ended up mediating a three way discussion at the mike with the capo gabinetto and the architect to whom he asked pointed legal and technical questions (to which they did not actually respond). As the architect raised his voice, the lawyer/father stepped back, “don’t be so aggressive, I am a timid person” followed by a round of applause and some comic relief.

The Capo Gabinetto spoke so well that I got lost, “what did he say in the end?” Boh. But he is open to dialogue and confrontation.

Final result: A representative group of parents (made up of lawyers, engineers, architects, art historians etc.) was formed and will sit down at the table with the various ministry representatives to talk about reciprocal needs before the project proceeds further.

Can someone explain why this didn’t take place at the beginning of the process instead of now when there is a “progetto esecutivo” in hand and a renovation company already chosen and ready to start on June 15?

A true Italian mystery. But in the end, I have faith that the process will work – certainly in a different way and by a different route, let's call it consensus building through active confrontation.

In any case, it was a great show.

A domani,
E

p.s. sorry no pictures, I brought my camera, but was too intimidated to actually set off the flash, irritate the speaker and have everyone look at me as a consequence....one of those blogger skills I need to work on.

Classroom dynamics

A comment left anonymously on this entry:

"that's ridiculous... maybe that's why Italians don't feel they can be held accountable for their actions. I think that's a very ineffective way to "discipline" kids. they'll never learn about being responsible for their actions within a group/class/community!"

I recently received an email from my son’s class representative (mother) stating:
“I professori, con l’eccezione della prof.ssa R. e della supplente di Italiano, continuano a lamentarsi del comportamento della classe che, in generale, rende difficoltose e faticose le lezioni, comportamento che evidenzia un certo disinteresse nei confronti delle materie insegnate nonché una scarsa propensione allo studio. L’insegnante di scienze ha riferito un certo miglioramento. Manca uno studio sistematico di tutte le discipline e in genere lo studio è superficiale."

Basically that “the class” was being disruptive and not studying enough etc.. The math teacher is one of those on the rampage, but when I saw him the other day, he seemed quite surprised that I might think “the class” behavior might pertain my son – “of course not”, he exclaimed. Actually I hadn’t imagined so, but I was just checking, since “the class” had been indicted.

Back to the comment. In school, Italians develop a different way to be held accountable for their actions – not the Anglo-American way that stresses the individual – but a much more subtle “group” way, peer pressure. The WHOLE class gets indicted, and therefore the same group of 25 odd students is forced into finding its own equilibrium during long, endless hours in the same classroom for years on end (five hours a day x 6 days a week x 37 weeks a year x five years). They have to figure it out, work it out, find a balance and get on with it, and they often do --- a true lesson in group dynamics, compromise, consensus building, the power of peers. Discipline often comes from within the group instead of from above. Is that less effective in the long run? Boh. They certainly are accountable to their group.

Until very recently, youth drinking wasn’t an Italian problem. We all know how effective “rules” are in this area. Instead, the concept of the bella figura and the fact that you had to face your peers the day after (and after and after and after) made for a much more effective deterrent to getting wasted and making a fool of yourself.

To each culture, its approach to discipline.

A domani,
E

Middle school days

Clare and Jean had to rush off from our lunch for a school meeting. Their children are in a terza media class that is in trouble for disruptive behavior. Actually only a couple of children in the class are making the trouble (and everyone knows who they are), but, in any case, the teacher called in all of the parents to discuss the bad behaviour of the class as a whole.

The remaining six members of our lunch group were confused. We were meeting for a good-bye lunch to honor a friend who is returning to Canada after eight years in Rome. Together we cover a few continents: a South African, an American, an Italian / American who grew up in Rome, a British / American married to an Italian, a Belgian married to a French-Canadian, a Russian naturalized American, the honoured guest, another French-Canadian and me. All but three of us have or have had children in the international or French schools and they were confused. “Why doesn’t the teacher just call in the parents of the children who are making the trouble?” asked the practical American. The three of us exchanged those knowing looks, "doesn’t work that way,” Clare cut short – this is her third child going through the Italian school system and she knows the ropes. The teacher never singles out the individual children who are making trouble. Instead the parents of all the children must account for the behaviour of the class as a whole.

As is often the case, it comes down to the relative placement of the individual and the group on a value scale. In Italy, over and over again, the group takes the high ground. The school sezione or class is the place where this value is both learned and exercised. Teachers do not single out students because the class is a unit onto itself – like the family, a basic unit of survival that is higher on the value scale than the individuals of whom it is made. The group must survive in order for the individuals within it to do so too, not the other way around (our way). So it is the group, the class as a unified whole with the parents, that must deal with its disturbing internal elements in a way that allows for the survival of the group. The dynamics of the classroom are so different from anything we have experienced that they are very difficult to grasp. The process of group formation is slow and complex and effective so that by the end of high school, the web of collective experience has been spun for life.

The Italian / American nodded in understanding. Although she attended an international high school, American university and British graduate school, on return to Rome, she easily slipped back into the web of her Roman scuola media friends, of which she was and will always be a part.

A domani,
E (that's me in the brown shirt)

problem solving

Today I read a newspaper article on the dilemma parents face in enrolling their children into secondary school as they wait for new reforms that never come, “Classico o scientifico, tecnica o professionale, that is still the question”. In the article, Prof. Vaciago of the Università Cattolica di Milano commented on the need to modernize secondary school education to include “problem solving” skills that help students slide into reality -- interesting that “problem solving” was in English. How would that translate? Not even a distinguished university professor could come up with an Italian word that would encompass this concept, at least in a concise term.

I have been quite impressed with the liceo classico experience, the breadth and depth of the subjects it covers, the comprehensive approach, the interdisciplinary orientation and high expectations. Both my sons made it through boot camp (quarto e quinto ginnasio) and are seeing the fruit of their labours -- a newly acquired critical sense and capacity for the rigorous consideration of a subject. But…..there is something “missing”, or at least different – my cultural moment for the day.

Empirical approach. Creating a hypothesis. Defining alternative solutions. Putting alternatives to test. Observing and evaluating results. And most importantly, arriving at a conclusion based on all of the above. In other words, the process that leads to a “problem solving” mind-set of which Prof. Vaciago was wistfully dreaming. It is the one area that is glaringly missing in my sons’ elite, rigorous, theoretical, thorough, chronologically ordered, interdisciplinary education. They are never, never asked to take a personal position, research it and present conclusions based on personal observations and interpretations in an empirical fashion. They write lots of essays – pages of writing with no paragraphs that are, at times, based on personal opinion but they never prepare research papers on individually determined topics. Topics are distributed from above, the same for all. They all learn the same material in the same way based on the same positions – a group forming process in act.

Why is this important? American culture, more than any other one, is based on the individual and we learn this cultural orientation over and over in school, in this case, through an emphasis on direct, personal experience leading to personal conclusions. This approach is often seen as intellectually careless and shabby by Italians. Their system is more concerned with passing on other cultural orientations, starting with the importance of finding one’s place in a group and therefore learning what the group thinks, a priori. To each culture its own educational system.

People and systems usually act rationally; you just have to find the rationale.

A domani,
E

No Schopenhauer please, I'm American

My 18-year-old son looked up from his Hegel, Kant and Schopenhauer and asked, “Mom, did you study philosophy in high school?” What could I say, but, “no”. I ran across a few philosophers in history or English courses, but no philosophy courses were offered. He shook his head in horror and disbelief…. Here I go again, defending my American education-based ignorance. No, I did not take Ancient Greek or even Latin (thrown out of the public school system in the post ’68 frenzy of “new ideas” only to be later reinstated as a “new idea”), not to mention philosophy. But I did get into a “top” college, which sounds like collegio, a high school level boarding school generally for students who cannot make it in the public school system due to behaviour problems. Liberal arts – with something called a “major” – not a real education filled with specific content.

Cultural Moment. I actually did have an education, liberal arts as it was, but the content was different because the aim was different (learning to think, communicate, analyze, solve problems etc) which serves the American need for future-oriented workers. The US has little need for content-laden cultural and historical background that ties you to the past. Onward we go, from the present to the future with lots of skills and entrepreneurial spirit, often based on scattered ad-hoc content.

Italians place importance on a mass of shared cultural information. This was essential at the time of the founding of modern education with the Gentile reforms of the 1930s. Italy was still a young country and it needed to have everyone on the same page – culturally, not emphasizing regional differences but national unity: common history, literature and roots that go back Ancient Rome. No room for fostering individualism, but unity in one national cultural background through education. As one reform falls to the wayside after another, this still holds true. Avanti I Promessi Sposi – the national novel.

I appreciate the wealth of content that my sons are receiving and the skills they are learning to be able to absorb this mass of information. I also appreciate the skills that I learned that allow me to absorb masses of information I encounter every day. In the end, both systems work.

I will get back to education another day – lots of interesting differences!

A presto,
E