“A new Great Awakening is sweeping the country, with Americans increasingly telling pollsters that they believe in prayer and miracles, while only 28 percent say they believe in evolution.” Nicholas Kristof, NYT, Jan 7, 2003 This shouldn’t be surprising, given that, in some parts of America, public schools are required to teach evolution with disclaimers that it … Continue reading Evolution: How It is Taught in Italian Schools
Growing up in Bangladesh and India, I observed that every scrap of paper, or anything else potentially useful, was re-used. Peanuts bought from a roadside stand were given to me in a little bag, carefully handmade from a page of a Singapore telephone directory. At school, the kabadi-wallahs (second-hand men) would come around collecting paper, cloth, and … Continue reading Recycling: A New Italian Tradition
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. … Continue reading An Italian Middle School
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 … Continue reading Schoolbooks: Part of the Cost of an Italian Education
David Pogue of the New York Times has written a series of articles on “Customer Service Cluelessness,” in which he postulates that the incorrect billing many of us suffer from various companies is actually a money-making stratagem: most of us won’t notice small discrepancies on our bills, or won’t spend the time to communicate with … Continue reading How to Get (Slightly) Better Customer Service
