Sunday, June 3, 2012

The End of a School Year


 
L'Aquila
L'Aquila 
                                            
                                                                             L'Aquila
Rome 

And what a beautiful school year it was. One of the things I will miss most is the feeling of being excited to get up and go to work each day. I could not have asked for a better group to work with. My students and colleagues will truly be missed. The last week was a series of parties. The students brought food and we spent the lessons talking and asking final cultural questions. I was showered with gifts and flowers and I felt like a celebrity or something. In my favorite class I got quite emotional when I told them how much I loved working with them throughout the year. My cooperating teacher started dancing in front of the class room to lighten the mood; it was pretty funny.  
Cultural Notes: 1. Secondary school teachers work 18 hours (in-class hours) per week. They only come to school for the classes they teach. It’s not like in America where teachers are assigned to hall duty or lunch duty etc. They earn about €15,000 per year. 
                          2. Tips are not the source of a waiter’s income and tipping is rarely done in Italy. Nothing more than a few euro is left for the waiter. Waiters have contracts and receive vacation days. They earn €12,000-€24,000 per year. 
Highlights: 1. Teaching a really fun lesson on American slang. In one of the classes, they taught me more Roman slang than I taught them American slang. At one point I was laughing so hard that I was sweating.
                    2. Going out to dinner with my cooperating teacher and two of the classes from the liceo classico in L’Aquila. 
                    3. Showing my Aunt around Rome. I brought her to one of my favorite restaurants and it was her first time having an artichoke. A classic Roman dish is carciofi alla romana...fried artichokes.      
Impara con me!     1. esigente- demanding 
                            2. siamo sgamati- we’ve been found out (Roman Slang)
                            3. me la sto tagliando- I’m having fun (Roman Slang)