Italian education

An Italian Middle School

December 22, 2003

Rossella’s middle school experience is no pleasure to think back on; in short: it was a mess. As I mentioned in my article about elementary school, we had thought that Ross was getting bad grades in elementary because she was bored, so we chose a challenging middle school, Milan’s grandly-named Educandato Statale Setti Carraro dalla Chiesa. [...]

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Schoolbooks: Part of the Cost of an Italian Education

December 22, 2003

Education through university level is basically free in Italy, at least in theory. You don’t pay tuition at most schools, but there are costs, including buying textbooks every year. There is something of a used-textbook market (in the Milan area, dominated by a chain of bookstores called Il Libraccio), but the publishing companies dilute its [...]

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High (School) Society

December 10, 2003

In America, high school is hell. The movie The Breakfast Club (1985) used sharply-delineated characters to illustrate the social divisions that exist in many/most schools: the jock, the prom princess, the stoner, the brain, the geek. It’s a caste system, where positions are won by looks, money, or athletic ability, and the hierarchy is maintained [...]

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English Teaching in Italian Schools

November 27, 2003

It is admirable that the Italian public school system now requires foreign-language classes (usually English) starting in first grade. Unfortunately, a shortage of teachers means that most kids don’t actually start til 3rd grade. And how much anyone really learns is very much open to question. Parents nowadays are frantic for their kids to speak [...]

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Italian School Schedules and Calendars

October 21, 2003

Rossella is in her first year at Liceo Artistico (art high school), and we’re all struggling to adjust to her new pace of education. We didn’t know that Artistico requires more hours in the classroom than probably any other school: 4 days @ 5 hours plus 2 days @ 7 hours equals 34 hours a [...]

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Another Rite of Passage Completed

September 8, 2003

Italian Middle School Exams The Italian education system is big on exams. Ross did pass her middle school exam, with a grade of Buono (on a scale of Ottimo, Distinto, Buono, Sufficiente, Insufficiente – outstanding, distinguished, good, sufficient, insufficient). This was better than I’d expected, since most of her grades this year have been merely [...]

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Rites of Passage: Italian School Exams

June 12, 2003

The Italian education system is big on big exams. At the end of elementary, middle, and high school, everyone has to take an exam, with both written and oral components. When it came time for Ross’ 5th grade exam, I was terrified on her behalf; the teachers had made such a big deal of it, [...]

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Elementary School: An Italian Experience

June 5, 2003

Rossella’s five years of elementary school took place at Parco Trotter, where she had also done scuola materna (preschool). We had been spoiled by a great scuola materna experience; elementary was… not so great. I’m reaching the conclusion that the quality of education hinges almost entirely on the quality of teachers. And there’s the rub. [...]

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School Trips: An Italian Tradition

March 30, 2003

^ downtime in Siena during a class trip to Tuscany It’s traditional in the Italian school system, at least from middle school on, for each class to take a school trip (gita scolastica) most years. Rossella started at age five, during her last year of scuola materna. Though most of them had never been away from home [...]

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Scuola Materna: Public Preschool in Italy

January 30, 2003

Scuola materna (kindergarten) is a wonderful thing. In Italy, every parent has the right – though not the obligation – to put their child in preschool, free of charge, for three years, until they begin first grade in their sixth year. Traditionally, this seems to have been regarded as a way to socialize kids to [...]

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Asilo Nido: Daycare in Italy

January 29, 2003

Jan 29, 2003 / revised and expanded Jan 26, 2007 When we arrived in Italy in December, 1990, our daughter Rossella was 16 months old. I had been full-time at home with her for most of her life, except for two months of increasingly long hours in a parents’ cooperative daycare center at Yale in [...]

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