I was behind so this is LONG.

On Wednesday I went on a visit to the Leonardo Divinci Technical High School. They chose to have me shadow a Chemistry teacher who spoke very good English. The first class of the day had 9 students, was a fifth year class (high school here is 5 years), and they all spoke pretty good English. Of course, this school was mainly males so I definitely got a few looks as I was walking in, as I'm sure my blonde hair and bright purple shirt stood out among the few other females. When we got to the class he had them take a test but it was written completely in English. Because the class was all boys it seemed to reduce some of the stress/pressure of coeducational classrooms. Although, when one of the boys asked me what the word "penny" meant and I went to help him many of the boys whistled or made remarks about the boy asking me for help. Soon after though, many of the students were asking me to define words for them such as "bond", "shared", and "gained." I have to say it is kind of difficult to come up with simple enough examples for them to understand but still explain the word. - Also, there was a boy in his class who looked just like Ivan when he had long hair, except he was white. Ivan<3.

During the second class period 2 of the 5th year students took me on a tour of the school. Their names were Gabrielle and Lorenzo. For those of you reading who know them, Lorenzo would be the child is Tyler Sevy and Brian Bland reproduced together. They took me around the school and showed me the Physics, Chemistry, and Biology labs, and I also met the English teacher. They also showed me the gym and the Mechanics lab. I guess the students in the Mechanics lab have been building one of those soapbox race cars that runs entirely on Hydrogen. It goes abut 40 mph and when they raced it they got 19th place in all of Europe. Anyway, on our walk back to the room Lorenzo was telling me about how the teacher in the class at that time was very mean. (I blew the statement off until she yelled at him for his mistakes in a paper in front of the whole class.) When we got back to the classroom, right before walked in Lorenzo kissed me on the cheek and told me how much he enjoyed meeting me and asked for my last name so he can add me on Facebook to "keep in touch." I don't know why these Italian guys feel this is an effective way of hitting on an American girl. So I told him if he wanted to keep in touch he would figure out my last name. Then I walked away.

The third class of the day I went to observe in a gym class. This was a bit more difficult because the teacher didn't speak English. Trying to explain what you're doing somewhere with a language barrier is difficult. But luckily I had a note and my schedule for the day so he then understood. Once again the class was all bys, but this class was freshman. They were pretty eager to peer around corners and talk about me because they thought I would not understand them. All I did was watch them play t-ball for 45 minutes. What was interesting about this class was that there were boys named Alex, William, David, and Charles in this class. These names just seemed to not be very Italian to me. Not to mention, three of four are the names of people I've dated. haha. All of these boys wore very short athletic shorts with soccer jerseys and tall socks.

Following gym I went to observe in a Chemistry lab. These boys were 16 and 17. The lab instructor didn't really speak English but there was a student who was very good at it and he was able to explain what they were doing. Basically they were extracting substances from flowers so they could test whether they were acids or bases. They used ethanol to extract the pigments from the petals to assess the pH of this every day substance. There was also another experiment having to do with red cabbage. They cut it into slices, boiled the slices in water, and then tested the substance for something. It was much more interesting than I expected. Oh! And there was 1 girl in this class.

The last class of the day I was pulled out to go observe an Italian class. All I could really figure out was that they were talking about Machiavelli. This class was again all boys. They stood for me when I walked into the room. The entire time I was in the class I felt completely lost. There was no English in this class whatsoever, only Italian. I concentrated on trying to pick out works that sounded similar to something French or English that I already knew. That actually didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but it was okay. Sitting in that class made me sad for students who have to do this every single day. How can we fix this? What programs need to be implemented? How can we make sure that every single student gets to be a part of the action and not back being a part of the scenery?

Overall, I still find their high schools, as a whole, interesting. The ideas of the teachers moving between classes makes sense but I have a feeling causes boredom. And the fact that they choose their job for the rest of their life at the end of 8th grade so they can go to a certain high school for it is nuts to me too!! How could you possibly know? And what happens if a student changes their mind? Overall, the visit was good and informative.

Wednesday evening we had a our final group meeting. We met at another middle school in Carpi. We gave our group inquiry project presentations. This was a very long process but we learned a lot about Italian culture. The presentation topics ranged from government, religion, teaching strategies, and SPED, all the way to the E-pals project (and more!). We were also given information on our trip to Florence this weekend, our final party, and Jared gave a speech on his program "Call me MISTER." Call me MISTER is a program based in the South which recruits black males to teach. He said something during his speech that I will never forget. "After being in Italy I can honestly say that after 21 years this is the first time I have just been treated like and American and not an AFRICAN American." It made me sad and happy at the same time. After that we finished up our meeting and went out for Pizza at a Pizzeria named Charlie's. Mary Jo, Shaun, and I split wine. Afterward we walked to the Gelato place across the street. Alle and Asia met me there and I bought them gelato. After that I went home, cleaned, and went to bed.



Thursday morning I got up for school as usual but during the day we went on a field trip to an elementary school with one of the 2nd year classes. While there we taught them Simon Says, Red Light/Green Light, a few dances, and they taught us their favorite hand clapping games. We also had pizza for a snack. We got to go home once we got back to school so I got home 15 minutes early!! Once I got there I began my packing process. My hope is to get everything I need for the France portion of my trip to fit into my duffle bag so I can open my suitcase as few times as possible. Then my host mom drove Amy and I to the bus station to meet our group for an activity. We drove about 15 minutes to another town to a neighborhood called Coriandoline (Italian for confetti, I think!). Basically it's a neighborhood where the homes were designed by children. They had 10 main requests: transparent, hard outside, peaceful, playful, soft inside, decorated, cozy, big, child centered, and magic. There were unique things to this neighborhood including slides next to steps in houses, fun house mirror elevators, and a secret place for just the children to go.


After leaving there my host mom picked Amy and I up, drove us home, and then she left for dance so I had the house to myself. I watched some TV online, made dinner, and then went to sleep fairly early (yes, 11:15 is early for me these days!). I got up this morning, chatted online for a bit, then went to school. We taught/watched them play baseball ALL DAY. I came home for lunch after school and we had veal and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately I have broken out in a heat rash. :(

Anyway, Tuesday is our only day left at Fassi and tomorrow we leave for Florence until Monday. But first, tonight is Asia's class Festa!

Ciao!