May 13, 2009
This morning it was so hard to wake up, just like it is every other morning. I made it to school on time and the day started a little sleepily. Our first class was the 3rd class. Since it was the first class period of the day I could tell everyone was still in zombie mode. The teacher started off right away with an interrogation on the Shakespearian sonnet. Mamma mia, I have never had such a hard time trying to stay awake! It was the worst! I couldn’t believe Professor M. started off right away like that. The class was SO dead! It would have been so much better if he had done some sort of warm up activity or attention grabbing activity. I think if he would have done that then the class period would have been much more effective for everyone and they would have all learned something instead of snoozing in their seats while their heads bobbed up and down. It is so funny for me to go back and read my notes from what I wrote in class because if I ever start falling asleep I’ll write in my notebook so I can stay awake but then it turns into this half awake, half asleep writing, and everything is going off the page and nothing makes sense.
So imagine this: it’s 8:30 in the morning, your sitting in a big classroom where the floor and the walls are concrete so the voices just bounce off the walls and echo this nice lullaby. Your breakfast is settling warmly in your tummy giving you that comfortable drowsy feeling. The teacher is far away in the front of a classroom spouting off questions in a foreign language at some unfortunate soul for a whole hour. ZZzzzzzz.
Our next class period we had the 4th class. AGAIN, another interrogation. That is all he does!! He assigns a reading and then he just asks questions about it to one or two people to see if they did the reading. Can you possibly think of anything more boring to do all day long at school? As I sat there I started thinking about some things. Those in the 4th class are about the age of high school seniors. I was trying to compare 17 year old American high school age young adults to 17 year old Italian ones. I think here in Italy the high school kids can do a lot of things that Americans don’t usually have to do. For example, some of these kids take a 30 minute train and a bus into town. In different cities the kids take the metro to school. Here the Italian students get out of school and hang out at a par, maybe have a pizza with some friends and enjoy a smoke and some conversations before going home with the public transportation. I remember at my high school that most kids got picked up by some family member in the car or they lived close enough to school that they could walk home and most parents wanted their children to account for all of their afterschool activities. In a way, I think that Italian teenagers are treated more as adults than American teenagers but on the other hand I think that American teenagers behave more like adults than Italian teenagers do. Of course these are incredibly general statements and can only correspond to my own personal experience but at least it was something that kept me awake during the hour.
We then had an hour break so Professor M. and I prepared a test for one of the 2nd classes for Friday. I was able to help him with the wording on some short answer questions.
The next class period we had one of the 2nd classes. And you can guess what we did that class period…that’s right!!! INTERROGATION!!! This is what I wrote in my notebook about the class period: “Something about troubles in Ireland and terrorism. The british government and Ireland and blah blah blah…sleep is coming on…so hard to stay awake…” Haha, isn’t that funny? Sometimes when I go back and read my notes for the day they really make me laugh. This is the third time that the professor has tried to interrogate these students on this topic and they still haven’t done the reading. They just sit there and stare at the teacher and when he asks them a question they just say, “pass” if they don’t know the answer. It’s pretty pathetic. I told him that he should just give them a test on it tomorrow, just because it’s ridiculous that NO ONE in the class has done the reading except for 1 person. And it’s a waste of time. That’s what it was, a waste of time and an awesome naptime.
The next class period we taught the 5th class. And again, an interrogation. This one was on another reading. I tried to pay attention to the sort of questions that he asks during the interrogations because I’m starting something new with this class. I’ve volunteered time after school to help them prepare for their interrogations. I’m going to try to get them to come up with an outline and try to get them to cover all of their bases so that they don’t get caught off guard. I hope that the students take advantage of this and come ask for help!!
When I got home I watched Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn. It was my first time seeing it and I really liked it! The only thing that I didn’t like was the ending. They should have ended up together!!
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