UAB in Italy - May 2008

In May of 2008, a group of five intrepid students ventured forth to Florence, Arezzo and Rome, Italy to discover more about their own U.S. educational system by viewing that of Italy. We discovered many differences amongst the educational systems, and in so doing, discovered much about ourselves, our nation and where we want to be as educators, as leaders and as a nation. We hope that through this small blog, we can share with you our journey and all the treasure we found along the way! Buongiorno e benvenuti a Italia!

May 12 - Day 2 - FIRENZE (Florence)

Today we had a lecture at the Centro Linguistico Italiano Dante Alighieri on the generalities of the Italian Educational System. Professors Alberto Materassi and Gabriella Materassi shared with us an overview of how the schools are structured and what each type of school covers. Most interesting to me was the fact that at the high school levels, the school systems break into many different categories (and I apologize in advance for my misspellings of these Italian words):

• Licei Classici


• Licei Scientifici


• Licei Linguistici


• Licei Artistici


• Istituto Technico


• Istituto Comerciale


• Istituto Magistrale

It just seems so complicated that students at such a young age much almost decide what path in life they want to take. All of these can, of course lead to university level studies, but not in the way we have in the U.S. Students are expected to have covered all of the general studies curriculum in middle and high school and then use university to focus in on their career path.

May 11 - Getting there! - FIRENZE (Florence)

We finally arrived! I cannot believe how beautiful this city is! The Duomo (pictured here) is still breathtaking to me. Our trip is to learn about educational practices in Italy, and I just cannot help thinking that education as we know it the world over got a start here in some form or fashion. When Europe drew itself up out of the Dark Ages and ushered forth the Renaissance, what did education look like? In the Middle Ages and for most of the Renaissance, education was found in one form: La Santa Iglesia (The Holy Mother Church). Monks and nuns from wealthy families were shipped off to the convent or monastery as a means of finding education - an education ruled by the rigors of religious doctrine and dogma, but an education nonetheless. Other members of society were forced to work. They received an education in the professions. Wordworkers, blacksmiths, hostelry, stone carvers, etc. all created guilds which would maintain a normative standard by which all of the major professions would be measured. One could really not achieve much in life unless he (I choose not to use the pronoun "she" here because women were afforded even less opportunity in life) learned a trade or devoted himself to God. How then did education become available to the masses and move from the arena of the privileged to a basic human right for all?

On a lighter note, we had finally arrived to Florence and started our journey by checking in at the Hotel Bodoni. It was amazing at how quaint this little jewel of a hotel is in terms of its operating procedures. Note: no computer on the reception desk and NO electronic key cards to get into the rooms!




Our first order of business after a quick shower and freshen-up was to take a walking tour of Florence. This was helpful to familiarize ourselves with the city and to begin our journey back in time and into the context of Italian history which not only shaped their educational system, but ours as well!

May 10 - Departure (Cont.)

As we were waiting in the airport, we began our course discussions. The topics that were thrown out to the group were as follows:

• Time
• Money
• Expectations for the Trip

It was truly amazing to me what came out of this discussion. We commented on the fact that in the U.S., for the most part, "time is money," and that we often find ourselves working ourselves to death just to get by or as a means of "keeping up with the Jones." In the U.S. there is a perception that being "early" is considered "on time," whereas being "on time" is considered being late. What I found most interesting was the comment made by one of our group members about the concept of "African-American Time," which, I learned, is a much more fluid concept of time - no one really seems to get angry if someone is late because time is not seen as a commodity that can be "wasted."

We discussed the fact that, at least in our limited understanding about Italian culture, they, too, consider time as a fluid concept and money as not being the primary means of acheiving happiness. It was our estimation that in Italy, family and friends - interpersonal relationships - were the key concept that drives life. Therefore, we attempted to align our expectations to the realities that the Italian systems/concepts of both Time and Money were not like ours in the U.S. and, as such, we would have to adapt accordingly. Further discussions for the group were as follows:

• What is "Dialogue?"
• "-isms"
• What is an "American?"
• What is "Education?"

We are all very excited about the upcoming departure!

May 10, 2008: Departure

On May 10, 2008, we set out from the Birmingham International Airport to embark upon our educational journey. I have led several of these types of program in the past, but am always unsure of how the group is going to interact with each other, and more importantly, with their new surroundings. We were a group of five students - undergraduate and graduate - led by Dr. Loucrecia Collins from the University of Alabama at Birmingham department of Educational Leadership. Our mission: to visit as many educational and cultural sites as possible in an attempt to glean any kind of meaning from what we observed and experienced. We gleaned an enormous amount!

To begin with, in study abroad, one is continuously learning - and not just about the subject matter at hand. If you have never flown before, you must learn how to navigate that system: what to pack, what NOT to pack, how to pack, what a passport is, why you need one, how to get through security without that beeper going off, how to get to your departure gate, how to get to the departure gate of your connecting flights when all the signs are in a DIFFERENT LANGUAGE and people keep glaring at you as though you're an idiot for not understanding their system.....

Once you arrive, you're still learning! If the country is non-English speaking, your ears will always be bombarded with the sounds from the unfamiliar language. You'll be walking a LOT and your body is making new neuro-muscular connections to all those muscles you haven't used in so long because you never have to walk anywhere in the U.S. You'll be using your mathmatical skills constantly as you attempt to figure out just how much money in U.S. dollars you are spending in this "funny money" currency that just seems to be spent so darned quickly. You'll be using your entire arsenal of communicative strategies to both convey and understand what is being presented to you. And on top of all of these issues, you are still expected to understand and gain mastery of the topics being presented to you in the formal classroom setting (if there is such a thing as a formal class in study abroad - your class may be a roving classroom, a living laboratory!).

Most importantly, however, you learn about yourself! How resilient are you? How adaptable are you? Do you communicate effectively? Do you get along well with others? Can you handle change? Can you multitask? Do you have the fortitude of character to navigate a new system, learn its ways, integrate fully into it as though you were a native, and ultimately return home to share your newfound knowledge? Does your home country have something to learn from the host country?