Week 1 at Sacro Cuore

Today was my first official day at the site of my Independent Cultural Immersion Project. I left Museologia a little early to get the bus but of course, it was late. So, I was late. No one seemed to care though. After all, this is Italy, and 10 minutes late means on time (which I refuse to adapt to). Madre Carol showed me to the 5th grade English classroom, introduced me to Eleonora (the English teacher) and said "Have fun."

I had NO CLUE what I was supposed to be doing. Eleonora quickly said, "You can go and help the kids write their stories." That meant almost nothing to me, and I was really confused, so I just walked around the classroom a little bit to get an idea of what they were doing. Some kids were working with Eleonora from a workbook, and a smaller handful of kids were writing personal stories in English. Eleonora had me lead one exercise in the workbook which was totally weird. I guess I did fine, except for the fact that these kids are learning BRITISH English, not American. So there's nothing I can do about that.

I started getting a little more comfortable and settled in checking the kids' grammar in their stories. One of the boys was very cute, but a huge pain. He was always insulting the poor boy next to him, telling him that he sucked, and that his own work was better. Allow me to point out that the jerk had A LOT more spelling mistakes than the boy he was giving a hard time to. The kid even said something nasty to me. I don't remember what it was, except that he didn't want me to read his story because I wasn't good enough for it.. or something like that. I finally got him to let me read it and discovered why he was such a disturbance- his past seemed very traumatic, according to his story. Or, he just has a huge imagination and feels like being an asshole to get some attention. Though terribly misspelled, he started off by writing "I'm not supposed to talk about this but..." He continued to write about how his parents used to be married and happy together, and then his Dad and Mom fought. His Dad went from "sympathetic to mean" and doesn't sound like he treated his son very well. One day, he explained, he watched his Dad get into a fight with another woman and a bunch of cops came. Now, he's living in Italy with his Mom. I almost teared up when I read that. It was also hard to correct him because I didn't want to risk hurting his self esteem even more! But, I used constructive criticism and told him that it was well-written and easy to understand.

After that class, I followed Eleonora to a first grade English class (more my idea of what I was going to be doing). They too, were ridiculously un-controlled. I stood in the back and kept the kids seated while she stood up front and taught them colors and the weather. One little girl seemed to take a liking to me after I told her that I had a teddy, just like hers. All she did the whole time was hug her teddy and smile at me. There was also the cutest little boy (with glasses- my favorite!) sitting in the back, kind of slower in the exercises than the other kids. I helped him one on one so that he could keep up with the rest of the class. It took him a while to color his triangle ORANGE and the square PURPLE. I think he was still having trouble understanding what the translations were. Such a sweet kid, though.

I could tell that Eleonora was getting very frustrated with the kids because no one would listen or stay in their seats. She had to raise her voice a few times. I came to find out (through Elisa) that this is her first year. That explained a lot. Anyway, I got a little time to talk to Eleonora and her plan (which was really no plan at all) was to have me take the native English speakers to a separate room and teach them at a more advanced level. In the 5th grade class, there are 5 English speakers and in the 1st grade class, there are 2. I asked her, "Ok, but what do you want me to do with them?" She said "I don't know. Just help them." You have to be kidding me. I just said "OK" and that I'd start that next week. I don't know what Eleonora was thinking. I don't have a teaching degree. These kids get graded and there's no way that I want to be responsible for their grades.

So, I talked to Elisa after Storia del Costume about the morning. She completely agreed with me that they were leaving the class too open-ended and that, for a person coming just once a week, I shouldn't be doing something so serious. She too thought that I would really just be a teacher's aid, and help the kids with words here and there. She also didn't like that Eleonora expected me to plan a lesson for kids. Sure, they're English speaking, but I still don't know the proper, structured way to teach English grammar! Elisa is going to get in touch with Eleonora. We think that she might have been nervous and unsure of what to do with me. I really don't mind helping out, as long as I interact with kids and speak a little Italian (which I did today). To clarify, I really do like the project, and I'm really excited. I just can't wait for a little more structure. That will be good. The Italian school system is certainly a lot different that the American school system...

And good news! Elisa said that this program can certainly go on my resume as an internship. PERFECT! I needed one really badly, and I was getting a little nervous about it. This will be soooo great because I'm doing it all the way through March, so I'll get a lot of experience. Great resume booster for sure! And a good way to secure another internship for this summer!

Anyway, after this long day, I decided to skip out on my 5:00 class. I have wayyyy to much to do and not enough time to do it with these long class hours. So, I'm going now.

More later. Ciao!