Twinkle Canelli

My daughter had a school trip a couple of weeks ago... don't know who dreamed it up..... the coach left the school at 06.20 am and they got back at 21.30. The trip was to Bologna and Maranello, from Asti..... I think it took them 5 hours to get there and they got to spend half an hour in Bologna while they ate their lunch, and for the girls the Ferrari museum was incredibly boring..... and the trip cost 50 euros! ......!

Lorna at Vicenza

That was a very expensive bus ride !

My kids went about an hour away - maybe a bit more on a coach.

28 euro for one trip and 22 for the other.

Chloe loved her trip yesterday so that's good.

Lorna at Vicenza

Oh God.
It's getting to the end of the school year when the class dinner gets organised and the requests come in for money to buy the teachers a present.

Fortunately Alex's note only asks for 2 euro. Not quite sure that any of them deserve a class present.

meph

Schooling here is an ongoing source of frustration and the root cause of every argument that me and my wife have. My 10 year old twins are not having a good time, the culture shock between US schools and the Schools here in AQ are still impacting them severely some 18 months after arriving.

The school cannot afford to pay for a teacher to teach my kids Italian, they have a couple of private lessons each week after school which I pay for. What this means is that they now attend a school where no one speaks English. My children have become somewhat withdrawn and they would do anything rather than go to school, for them it is nothing short of an ordeal.

They tell me tales which make me twitch, angry shouting teachers, sweeping the kids belongings from their desks onto the floor if they answer a question incorrectly three times in a row....... finger pointing and public humiliation of the children seems to be the accepted norm, or at least it is behind closed doors.

I met with the school ‘preside’ at her request a couple of weeks ago. It was a strange meeting which started out as a lengthy list of miserable and mostly petty complaints about my kids overall lack of progress, especially in speaking Italian (we had just returned from a week in the UK (the 1st in 7 years) and neither of the twins wanted to be in Italy). After half an hour of bleating it then suddenly evolved into one headmistress and two teachers babbling on about how wonderful the children are, and how I shouldn’t worry because it all takes time. It was nothing short of contradictory and overall rather bizarre.

The request my wife had a few days ago from one of the other parents is for 15 euros for the twins contribution to buy the teachers presents.

I would love to contribute to the fund, then attend the school in person, angrily shout questions at the teachers (in a foreign language) three times and then throw all their presents to the floor before storming out of the room.

Sigh............

Lorna at Vicenza

That is far too much.
The "requests" slowly started creeping up here until parents slowly started to complain at the fixed prices.

As I see it, a contribution is something that I choose to give, and how much I choose to give should be at my discretion as well.
Ask me for a fixed price of 5 euro and you can shove it !
It's the parent committee that fix the price and buy the presents. They must think you're all rich there.

It's a shame your twins are not getting more Italian help. There are plenty of foreigners here - non Catholic ones - so when the Italians are doing RE lessons, the foreign kids get extra Italian lessons instead.

School can certainly be a huge frustration here for both students and kids.
After listening to so much negativity for years, I decided enough was enough and started answering them back.
Too many parents for too many years have been scared to question anything a teacher does.

MarkRD

I'll be glad to see the back of Italian "schools" and "teachers" ..
definitely the downside to living in Italy

....

Twinkle Canelli

It will get better..... I've been there with my daughter (now 14) and everything will suddenly click into place and they will love it. I think it may be easier for your twins because they have each other, but it will probably slow them down for the same reason. My daughter point blank refused to go to school several times every week for 2 years, or we'd get to the car park and she'd cry and scream (which was a bit embarassing for me and her when she was 11 years old) and then when I took her back home we'd have a miserable time with me being angry at her and her being miserable and as you say, withdrawn.

The school seemed to think that if they helped as little as possible we'd give up and go back to the UK, but I persevered, and eventually they provided a teacher to sit in class with her several hours a day and help her (but I did have to pay the lady 8 euros an hour). This was for 3 months and it was the best money I spent as she also taught her Italian grammar during English lessons.

Now we have been here 3 years she is absolutely fluent, beating a lot of her classmates in tests, and most importantly she's happy and looking forward to a summer of sun with her friends.

I hope it works out for your twins too!

Lorna at Vicenza

Chloe has a couple of younger teachers in her middle school who would love to be able to shake up the lessons a little bit, have less book learning and more hands on stuff. Unfortunately they are thwarted at nearly every turn by the old bitches that have been in the job 40 years and still think they know best.
The very nice maths/science teacher told me as much. He was also the one that told me that it's not just students and parents who hate the "tecnologia" teacher that speaks bloody dialect in class, but so do the other teachers.
That old bitch was supposed to retire but now has another two years to do.

She was sick at this month's parent night. Probably a good thing as I was all fired up to go in there speaking to her in English to give her a taste of her own medicine.

MarkRD

Daughter year in final year .. maturità in a month's time, and they're still being stressed with interrogazioni and verifiche, which should have been completed weeks ago.

Plus maths teacher taken seriously ill beginning of year .. supply teacher taken on .. Ok for a couple of weeks..oh no they don't like him, we'll get another one..oh he's good, but no he's been offered a cattedra in another school .. another one steps in .. oh yes quite good .. let's stick with her until the maturità at least ..
then .... she hurt herself in the bloomin' earthquake!! .. off for two months!! (which takes her nicely to the summer holidays..mmm.)

Next please!!!

meph

Thanks, your post is encouraging; I am hoping that things get better for them sooner rather than later!

MarkRD

Yes, your kids will adapt .. it's just THE SYSTEM which is inflexible .. !

MarkRD

Just the tip of the iceberg here....


Italian schools should use their time more wisely

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...talian-schools

malcesine99

Sorry to hear your twins are not settling into school meph, it puts enormous pressure on a couple when your children are unhappy. I really hope through time it becomes easier.
I am trying to keep an open mind about schooling in Italy. My MIL is a primary teacher (hopefully not the one Lorna was talking about, she has taught for 40years!!!). I find her advice very conflicting, she seems to think its perfectly acceptable for a 12 year old to come home to an empty house at 1pm, as its obligatory that a women works. I am not there yet but yes I think its 'necessary' I work but that it's also necessary I am there for my children. Sorry - going a bit off thread.
When we went as a family to register for school the Preside took my OH into his office and signaled for me and my boys to wait outside! I am actively involved with school here and realise I may need to take a back seat, hopefully until my Italian is up to scratch.

Lorna at Vicenza

That article is far too 'limp'. I could have written a stronger and better one.
There is no mention of the fact that teachers cannot get fired and there are no inspectors or checks on them.
There is no mention of schools being poorly furnished and even more badly equipped with less and less funding each year.
There is no mention of the pressure put on students and parents and the quantity of homework they get etc.

Lorna at Vicenza

I think it was very mean and very unprofessional of the head to take your OH aside and leave you and the boys outside. Just another example of ignorance and ignoring a foreigner. He should have welcomed the boys to the school and showed them around and told them he was happy to have them and that he and the teachers would do their best to help them settle in ............ but this is Italy.

I know it's very hard if one's Italian isn't very good but try not to take too much of a back seat when it comes to things like parent night and class meetings. The teachers will expect full collaboration from you when it comes to homework and making sure the boys have the right books etc. so don't let them walk all over you when it comes to meetings. They'll probably use the excuse that you're not Italian for everything as well. They are very good at that and at being negative too.

I eventually got so sick of all their shite that I started to answer them back. In 4th year primary one teacher told me that Chloe was struggling with written Italian grammar a little and it was because I speak English at home.

I wasn't having that so I said, "Chloe has been at this school since the beginning. I never taught her how to read and write in Italian - you did - so if she's finding it hard that's your fault and not mine."

Some of them have no idea how to talk to parents and they have upset plenty of mums on this forum. They talk to you as if you're a kid, or as if you're thick or as if everything is your fault.

Another teacher told me that Alex is hopeless at geography and history and has a memory like a sieve. I know it's because her lessons are shite boring and it's true that Alex cannot memorise 3 pages of boring crap. When I asked her what she suggested we could do to help him she looked at me blankly like it had nothing to do with her and it was all up to me.

Some of them are nice and friendly - but the bitch ones are effing horrible.

Forewarned is forearmed as they say so don't let them think you're a pushover and don't let them use English as an excuse for everything. Some of Chloe's teachers seemed to conveniently forget that her daddy is Italian, so are her grandparents here, so is every shopkeeper and person she comes into daily contact with and so are her friends ....... yet I speak English so everything is my fault. **** off!

Sorry - bit of a rant there!