February 22nd, 2011 (Tuesday): Today me and the other Iqbal Masih girls (7 total) woke up pretty early to start our morning at our service learning sites. The school is located on the outskirts of Rome and it takes us about an hour on public transit to arrive at our destination. We spend about two hours in designated classroom observing the teacher & children - more specifically their teaching methods & techniques, the special needs children, immigrants, minorities & the native Italian kids. Our main perogative with these service learning visits is to gain a broader understanding of the educational environment of the Italian youth. We are placed in these different service learning locations based on our particular interests, whether it be a local refugee center, a public Italian school (Iqbal Masih), an Italian art gallery, or an Italian gay rights activist group (Archigay).
Today, me & Sha were observing the kids in Simonetta's class (the English language classroom), and the 3rd graders were learning how to read time using illustrations of hand clocks on the black board. In previous service learning visits both Sha and I have participated in class skits where we helped reinact characters in the English language guide book. We have also read outloud to the kids in English, and walked around to individual students asking them simple questions like: What's your name? What's your favorite subject? What's your favorite Italian food? Color? Game? etc. We have also played "shop" with the kids were they come up to us while sitting at a desk and they attempt to order food items in English and then proceed to "pay" for it :) It's super cute & some of the kids are extremely shy but these kinds of interactive games are so helpful in learning the English language. Btw, the are many differences between G.B.'s English vocabulary and America's English vocabulary. For example: they say trousers, we say pants; they say jumper, we say sweater, they put a plural of math (maths) and a singular on sports (sport). I mean, I knew they used interesting terms for swear words and the toilette but i never actually realized how many differences existed until i started observing these classes.
Anyways, I'll usually spend an hour in the English classroom with Sha & Simonetta and then the second hour in 4th grade Paola's classroom (there are many Paola's). This past Tuesday we they were working on fractions & decimals for the first half of the hour, and then they switch to English language for the second half hour. Jenny & I will try communicating with the kids in English and they always have the opportunities to ask us questions about where we're from, what we're studying in Italy, our favorite foods... Some times the little girls will ask if either of us are married or have boyfriends. Haha! Jenny & I will just grin at each other and then respond honestly, (heck) no.
The teachers are all very welcoming, supportive, friendly & helpful and the TA's and "special needs" assistants are also extremely gracious and open to trying to communicate with us (though some are not as fluent as others in English). But we're worse!! My Italian is horrible & my pronunciation is God awful... However, somehow the kids and the teachers are able to understand our chopped up Italian skills (or lack there of) but most of the time we have to resort to English.
We'll usually get to the school aroud 10am (if we're lucky) but most of the time it's 10:15...ish. And then we'll meet up and leave around noon. It's takes us an hour to get back into downtown Rome, and then most days we'll either have class or an afternoon excursion planned from 2-5pm. This past Tuesday we had one of our favorite guest lecturers/ tour guides, Margaret Brucia, a Classics professor at Temple University take us on an afternoon excursion to Tiber Island!
Margaret was the perfect guide for our afternoon excursion seeing as how she wrote her graduate school dissertation on Tiber Island, including the myths and archeology surrounding it. Tiber Island is located in the Tiber River that runs through Rome. The Island is linked to Rome by two ancient bridges, the Ponte Fabricio & the Ponte Cestio. Tiber Island was the location of the ancient temple dedicated to the Greek God of medicine & healing, Aesculapius. This Greek God is identifiable by a snake adorning his 'healing stick' or staff. Margaret showed us where she believed was the exact spot for the Temple of Aesculapius which is now the location of San Bartholomew, the church dedicated to Saint Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. She gave a wonderful tour based on her research, findings, expertise on relatable topics and knowledge of the site.
After this late afternoon tour we made our way back to the Rome Center located in Campo di Fiori for a little break before our scheduled guest lecturer. At 6pm, Dean Ed Taylor took center stage for an incredibly fascinating discussion on Critical Race Theory. Professor Taylor is the Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and specializes the areas surrounding "higher education, policies and programs servicing disenfranchised groups, and the construction of race-based policy". I don't know exactly what that means, but he did come and briefly lecture about CRT (critical race theory). CRT is "an intellectual and politically committed movement in American legal scholarship that studies race, racism and power". Anyone who has taken a theoretical concepts course understands the difficulty in comprehending these theories and then implementing them into our daily lives. He made his lecture personal, interesting, and easy to follow. I appreciate that :)
Finally, following Dean Taylor's lecture and a small reception in his honor, all of my peers, instructors, our guest lecturer, and a few other friends from another UW study abroad program shuffled into our conference room for a surprise birthday celebration for our dear little friend, and fellow study abroad companion, Brenda Martinez. We were celebrating her 21st birthday with cake, balloons, streamers, and, for some, other festivities that lasted well beyond the twilight hours. I, on the other hand, because i'm severely behind on my school work due to a hectic schedule here in Rome and an even more hectic travel schedule on the weekends, decided to hang around the conference room until 1am and do my graffiti poster. Originally, I was supposed to have done this in class this past Monday but missed it because i was exhausted, had a cold, and decided to sleep in until 3pm (a total of 15hrs). It took me nearly 4 hours to complete (because i'm an idiot & an "over-achiever). However, the important thing is that i finished the damn thing & now it's done, with "artist summary" to follow.
I would include a few other details which happened later in the night, after i made my way home, and which i now think back on as "funny" moments that me & my roommates have experienced here in Rome....but they would kill me & it's not school related! So, ciao!
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