High school all over again!

May 6, 2009

This morning I woke up early because my bus was at 7:20.  I took the bus into the city and I got there right on time.  I went up to the teachers lounge up on the fifth floor and waited for Professor Monaci.  When he got there he told me that the very first Italian thing to do was to go get a black coffee from the snack bar.  So we went there and the man downed his coffee in less that half a minute.  Then we went towards our first class while he explained things to me on the way.  In this high school the students stay in the same classroom the whole day and the teachers are the ones that move from classroom to classroom.  There are five years of high school and they are divided into five classes.  They are called the 1^st class, the 2^nd class, the 3^rd class, the 4^th class, and the 5^th class.  There are groups of about 20 students in each classroom and each group has a letter to distinct them from other groups in the same level or ‘class’.  The first hour we taught a group in the 3^rd class, I don’t remember which letter it was.  It was so different being in an Italian classroom than what I remember high school being like.  The teacher is at the front of the class on a kind of plat form and it’s the same in every class.  Prof Monaci didn’t move around the classroom at all, he sort of just spoke sitting down in front of a desk like as if at a podium.

 

The first think that I noticed from Prof Monaci is that he told his students to “shut up” quite often.  The first time I was shocked.  I don’t think I had ever heard a teacher in the U.S. tell any of their classes to “shut up!”  But then I thought maybe since the teacher was Italian he doesn’t quite get the full feeling of the word.  But then he said a couple of other things like, “that was the stupidest mistake!” to some students about their homework.  I’ve decided that it must just be the Italian way here.  It’s so weird because in all of my TESOL classes at BYU they often talk about trying to encourage students and making sure that they are never put down or feel uncomfortable.  It’s not like Prof Monaci is mean or cruel, he’s a very charismatic teacher and it seems like most students like him, it must just be the “Italian way.”  Still, I kinda feel bad for the kids, just a little.

 

During the first hour with the 3^rd class, Prof Monaci started with an interrogation about the Tudors family and the difference between the English renaissance and the Italian renaissance.  Interrogations are very common in Italian classrooms and it just means that the teacher chooses at random students to ask questions about the prior homework or reading that they were supposed to have done and the students have to answer after which the teacher gives them a grade, on the spot, on the scale of 1-10 for the day. 

 

Professor Monaci seems like a very smart guy and he tried to bring in a lot of interesting topics.  He tried to get them to think about things in Siena that were part of the Italian renaissance and relate it to what they were learning.  As they were discussing the topic I thought that it might be interesting to become a teacher because you get to talk about a lot of different topics and learn new things. 

 

During the second hour we taught a class of the 4^th class.  They kids looked older, I’m not really sure what ages they were but I could tell that with his interrogations Prof Monaci expected a higher level of proficiency than that of the 3^rd class.  I was observing at the way that Prof Monaci was teaching and he had absolutely no lesson plan, all he had was the book and what their homework was supposed to be and he just went from there.  He was quite good at explaining things and the grammatical reasons behind it.  It sounded like he knew his stuff and he explained in a way that the students seemed to understand.  This 4^th class wasn’t a very good class, no one had done their homework so Prof Monaci stopped in the middle of class and pointed out that if they didn’t step up their game they were going to have serious problems. 

 

Then there was a break of about 10 minutes.  Prof Monaci went back to the snack bar and downed another black coffee.  During the next hour he didn’t have any classes so we went up to the teachers lounge and he answered some of my questions.  He explained to me about the books that they use and the programs that he follows for his classes.  Basically the 2^nd classes that he teaches are all grammar classes and the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th classes do different works of literature.  He talked to me about how he uses English films with English subtitles to teach and different listening pieces from the BBC.  And then he talked to me a bit about the different books that the 5^th class is working on until the rest of the year.

 

The next hour we had the 2^nd A class (he teaches two different 2^nd class, A and G).  He passed back an exam that they had had the prior class and he went through and explained corrections and the reasoning behind it.  Sometimes he would have students translate into Italian the questions so that he was sure that understood.  On the exam there were different things like the difference between still and yet and if and whether.   Then at towards the end he tried to start an interrogation about a certain topic but no one would answer so he knew that they hadn’t studied.  He switched topics and tried to get them to answer but still nothing.  A few of them didn’t get very good grades on their interrogations and they were sort of upset about it. 

 

During the last hour we had the 5^th class.  I think this is Prof Monaci’s favorite class and I can see why.  They were fairly behaved and they were older than the rest.  The class had organized itself and made a sort of deal with the teacher so they as a class would decided who would get interrogated what day and they have to have a long interrogation for that day.  It was interesting to see that the number of students in the class was much less than all the rest we had taught.  I think it was because a lot of students drop out.  There were only 16 students and only 4 of them were girls, the rest were boys.  I think maybe families might stress more importance on their sons getting educated than maybe their daughters.  During this class they discussed the Lord of the Flies.  Prof. Monaci asked about things like the themes of the this work and the certain relationships between the characters.  All of the students were very involved during the class period and they paid more attention that I had observed in other classes.  I’m sure that its because those that have washed out have done so and that next month they will be taking exams that lets them graduate and get into universities.  In this class almost no Italian was spoken and their English was very good.  There was one particular student who spoke very well and I was impressed. 

 

After this class school was out.  I was pretty tired because I just haven’t sat in class all day long like that for a couple of weeks.  I left the school and went into the centre.  I talked to my fiancé for a bit and had lunch.  Then I met up with Hillary and we went to find the public library that someone had told me about.  I was able to get myself a library card!  I checked out Robinson Crusoe and the movie Sabrina.  Hillary and I went home on the bus together and watched a little bit of the movie before dinner and finished it afterwards.  Now its time to get to bed because I have to get to class in the morning again.