We left our rooms/area at about 9am and walked to the school. It was only about 15min from the centre and was an amazing building to look at as we walked up. Once closer, we met the director of the university and she introduced us to the sisters/nuns who run the school.
It is called 'Istituto Marcelline' and started in 1861...now you can start to imagine what it was like inside. It was very old with high ceilings and lots of old things hanging on the walls, from painting to tapestry (the looked just like the ones that are in the Vatican).
We were first introduced into some junior classes and my first realisation was that there were no carpets on the floor, or rugs...this meant there was a lot of echoing!!! There were 24 students in the yr 3 class, but the classroom was half the size. The teacher had great control over the students, but I must admit, when a few of them spoke, the noise was unbearable. I hate to think what it was like in the gymnasium....which again had nothing to absorb the sound!!!
At recess, the bell screamed (and echoed like a fire alarm down the shiny hallways) and we were escorted to a special meeting room that looked like it was from the pages of a history book! We had coffee and a torrone and relaxed talking to the teachers for a bit.
After recess I went and had a tour of the kindy area, where they had some students starting from the age of 2, 3 and 4. They have them all in mixed classes and start at 8.30am until 4pm, 6 days a week. Wow.
Last stop was in a high school class, quinta (yr 12), where we discussed Australia and they asked us questions.
Again, very interesting to hear their points of view and have quite deep discussions. I really enjoyed the fact that the students had a lot of knowledge behind them from their studies of history, philosophy and religion. made for interesting discussions.
At 12.30 we left and headed to lunch at the usual place. Pasta and greens:)
We had the afternoon in school, with 2 hours of grammar (based on the conjunctive) and then 2 hours where we acted out the Pirandello scene from 'La patente'. It was quite a long session after being in the school all morning and we were pretty pleased when 6.30pm rocked up!
Irene, Fra and I headed out to a local bar for an 'aperitivo' - where you pay a set price for a drink and get food free. We didn't realise it was quite a big night out in town and ended up in a bar called 'Persone' with a drink and food, plus dj and pumping crowd!
Quite fun actually!! We had a few drinks and then headed home to get some much needed rest :)
Miss A
wwwooo!!! Iam so glade that we don't have to go to school at 2 years old and have go to school for six days of the week, and for an extra 1hr. So the people who came up with the rule of our schooling are really nice i guess hahahahahah
ReplyDelete