Sterling: September 4

Today everybody got up early and met in front of the UW Rome Center for our last day of class before the three day weekend. First, we took the bus to the train station, and from there we caught a train over to St. George's English School, where Manka used to go to school when she lived in Italy. Going to an International school was definitely an interesting experience after having visited Di Donato School yesterday, near Piazzo Vittorio. My expectations for the school were already high, especially after finding out that tuition is around $20,000 a year--more than many people pay for college! However, the school exceeded even my own expectations. When we arrived, we were welcomed with a friendly greeting and allowed to go outside to observe the kids at recess. We were led through a beautiful hallway decorated with artwork and paintings that I would have thought was professional if not for the labels stating the names and ages of the students who created them. There were also beautiful murals on the walls and a plasma screen TV in the hallway. Just before we walked outside, there was a table set up with "milk and biscuits" for the students. Outside, we watched the kids run around the playground and play games of tag and soccer. They were all wearing matching blue school uniforms except for their shoes, which varied from student to student--I saw one girl in high top converse with bright red shoelaces.

After observing the kids at recess for awhile, we were led back inside and split into groups to visit classrooms. Megan and I visited a grade 4 class of about 20 students of every ethnicity from French to Russian to Sri Lankan. I was especially impressed by the teacher's ability to inspire the kids and really make them enjoy learning--students were literally jumping up in excitement to answer questions during a math activity. Megan and I talked to the teacher for a bit and learned that she taught in Scotland for 15 years before teaching at an International school in Portugal for 2 years. She has been teaching at St. George's for 5 years, but she is not fluent in Italian. She explained that teachers come from all over the world and do not necessarily have to speak Italian, because classes are taught in English and children are encouraged to speak English while at school. Students who arrive at the school and do not speak English or Italian are given intensive language lessons in order to become fluent and perform at the level of the other students academically.

Using my experience yesterday at Di Donato as a point of comparison, this visit really underscored the disparities in education between the wealthy and the working class within (and beyond) Rome. Students at St. George's have access to an almost overwhelming array of opportunities--even as we were walking through the hallway, we passed by a class of kids baking bread as a class science project. At Di Donato, the economic and class differences are striking, as most of the kids come from working class immigrant families, and they are enrolled in the school in large part because of its proximity to the train station, allowing parents to drop off their kids on the way to work. I look forward to going back to Di Donato once school is in session and witnessing firsthand the classroom dynamics and methods of instruction that teachers rely on given their limited resources. While both schools are similar in terms of ethnic diversity, they are worlds apart in many other respects, which I look forward to exploring in greater depth.