ELIZABETH
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
ELIZABETH
Elementary Education Undergraduate |
Today was my last day in Italy. I've lived in this country for three weeks, travelling hundreds of miles (a big amount of those miles on feet), eating lots of food, meeting so many different people and living my dream! I couldn't be more grateful for having this opportunity provided to me. I have been able to experience so much and even more than I ever could have expected! I saw amazing things that are centuries old and yet they are still standing. I met wonderful people in Torremaggoire who were more than willing to accept strangers into their daily lives and homes. Having the chance to explore this country and all it has to offer is something I would never be able to forget and I can't wait to come back and explore more of Italy!
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Florence is a beautiful city that we spent all day exploring! Early this morning we went out into the brisk cold to visit the Duomo and climb all the way up to the top in order to get a complete panoramic view of the city. There were 463 steps that we climbed, spiraling up and up on a narrow stone staircase until we finally reached the top. The view was literally breathtaking and worth the climb! All I could see were buildings upon buildings and mountains off on the horizon, spotted with homes. Next we traveled to the Galileo Museum to see antique science related tools and other instruments. Although I’m not that interested in science, it was still very interesting to see everything. It was full of thermometers, barometers, telescopes and chemistry tools as well as old globes that date back to the 1600s. There was even a large flat drawing from the mid-1400s that showed what people thought the world looked like back then, without either of the Americas shown. We then walked down some streets, shopping along the way until we came to the Duomo Museum which was full of different Renaissance and religious artwork, statues and pieces of architecture. The city and its atmosphere is what I expected Europe to be like. Everyone rides around on bikes or Vespa’s and walk their dogs, chatting with everyone. No one is rushing anywhere as they all take their time to just explore and enjoy themselves, wandering through the small shops, stopping at quaint cafes for paninis and gelato and taking pictures to capture moments and make memories. Today is our last day in Torremaggoire and earlier this morning was our last time in the elementary school. We planned a small party of sorts for the fifth graders as they were the students we spent the most amount of time with. We had selected four American songs that we assumed the students would know and be able to sing along to. Not only would it be practicing their English but it does it in a way that is not the same as learning or memorizing. It becomes a fun way to learn a different language. The first song we played was Let It Go from the hit Disney movie Frozen. Many of the kids were singing alone and just like I've seen back at home, a few of the boys groaned when they heard the song begin to play. The next selection was Happy by Pharrell Williams which everyone was singing and clapping along too. Next was Shake it Off by Taylor Swift and we finished it off with The Cha Cha Slide. We played this last song twice, doing the dance with the students as the words tell you exactly what move to do next. The children seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves! We were then told to wait in the room as the students of the school had a goodbye surprise for us and it was much more than I had ever expected! We walked down the hallway and all of the students were standing outside, waving and rushing up to give us hugs. Then we walked upstairs as two large speakers blasted a celebratory song. The second floor were the older students who we had spent more time with and they all had paper cut-out hands that they were waving at us. As we slowly made our way down the hall the children started shoving paper and pens at us, asking for our autographs. I must have signed my name at least 50 times and each time it began to look less and less like my actual name, but it was so much fun! Never did I expect to be so wanted or appreciated in a school like this! Even though I was only in the school for a little over a week, I will definitely miss it and all of the wonderful students I have had the opportunity to know and teach. Yesterday we got up bright and early in the morning in order to get on a bus with some other teachers from the elementary school and drive to Matera. This city, about two hours south of Torremaggoire, was voted as the Cultural Capital of Europe and will continue to have that title until 2019. When we arrived a tour guide was waiting for us and she led us around, explaining everything in both English and Italian so we can understand what it is we were seeing. First, we stopped at a church called the Church of Purgatory. It was constructed in the mid-1700s and the bottom half was decorated in skulls and crossbones. During that time in history, an afterlife was cherished as much as life on Earth was, which is why it was a part of the architecture. The next part of the tour was known as the Sassi, a stone district that is inhabited and has been for about 400,000 years! Even though it was chilly and rainy, seeing that view made it all worth it. The ravine had been covered in stone houses over the thousands of years and on the opposite side, caves dug into the mountain-side can be seen showing where people once lived. Slowly these stone houses were built, starting from the top and working its way down. It is said that some of these cave-like homes have been inhabited for 5,000 years and are still being lived in by people today. In the 1950s, this part of Matera was considered the slums as people continued to live in the stone houses without any electricty or running water. Even their livestock would live in the house with the family and manure would be stored in order to help heat the house. Eventually someone came and caused an uproar after seeing how people were living, demanding it be changed. Everyone was evacuated as a great number of the housings were redone and refurbished to contain modern accommodations. Some houses are still vacant today but are in the process of becoming part of a hotel where people can come and stay in the ancient homes. There are also some properties that can be purchased from the state if someone is willing to move in. However, they would not be able to redo the outside of the house and all front doors and shutters must be painted green. After the family owns the house for 99 years, it is supposed to be handed back over to the state but our tour guide was unsure if that rule would actually be upheld or not. Obviously the Earth has been inhabited by humans and other creatures for hundreds of thousands of years but to actually see a place where they once lived and know that it exists is a completely different and unbelievable story. For the past few days I have been teaching English to the children at the San Giovanni Bosco elementary school here in Torremaggoire. I have been co-teaching with Elizabeth Tsang and Yasmin Davis as we are the three elementary education major students on this trip. Before we came to Italy, each of us were required to write a bilingual children's book that related to a topic that was associated with America. Some girls wrote about sports, such as basketball and baseball while others wrote about locations like Niagara Falls and New York City. I wrote a book about the Fourth of July. On Wednesday, Elizabeth and I taught a lesson to a fifth grade class involving our books. Hers was about Halloween so our lesson was holiday themed. I read my story first. Each child had a printed copy to follow along as they read the Italian version and I would read it in English. I then had the students repeat the English in order to practice their reading and pronunciation of the lesson. Afterwards, my follow-up activity was creating a Venn Diagram on the chalkboard that compared our Independence Day to Italy's Republic Day. This holiday is also celebrated as a day of Independence as it marks when the monarchy was abolished in Italy. At first it was difficult to tell the students what we were doing since the teacher didn't know any English and the students knowledge of the language was limited. Eventually, after I began writing on the board and demonstrating what I wanted, they were able to figure it out and follow along. Elizabeth then read her book and played a hangman game using English vocabulary from both of our books. Yesterday the three of us went to two third grade classes and taught the same lesson involving a bilingual children's book about Marco Polo. Same as before, we had the students read the Italian and then we would read the English and have them repeat the words back. The book also had activities in the back of it so we had the students complete an Italian word search and a matching game with English and Italian words. Today we read Yasmin's basketball bilingual book for a third time to a fourth grade class and played the game that helped them practice their English. Even though Torremaggoire isn't the largest town, it is still full of different activities to keep our schedules busy. Yesterday we attended the market that is held every Monday and the amount of stands was much greater than I expected. People were selling clothes, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, home decor and much more. What was even more surprising was the good quality everything had and the cheap price they were being sold for. Afterwards, Elizabeth, Yasmin and I went into a fourth grade classroom to teach them English. For this trip, each of us were required to write a short bilingual book and Yasmin choose to do hers on basketball. She read the book to the students and then we played a game to practice the vocabulary they learned from the book. It was a basketball related game and the students loved it, getting very competitive as the teams were boys versus girls. The boys ended up winning in the end but they all seemed to really enjoy the lesson and the game. This morning we went to the high school in order to talk to students there about anything related to America, whether it was our culture, our school systems or any other piece of information they wanted to know more about. In high schools here, students attend for 5 years, rather than 4 like we do. However, they tend to focus their classes more towards their future career path or preparing for college, especially in their last two years of high school. We all broke up into smaller groups and Cindy, Ashley and I went to three separate classrooms with one of the teachers at the school, who spoke English very well. Some of the high school students were afraid to ask us questions, not wanting to be incorrect in phrasing their questions in English for us. It didn't matter much to me because whether they spoke correctly or not, they were still able to speak and comprehend another language better than I would ever be able to. We spoke to the students about our high school as they wanted to know if it was really like what they see in American TV shows and movies or not. They also asked us if we liked Italy and what we thought of their town and food. Before we left each class they wanted us to take a group picture with them and also exchange social media information because they were so excited to have us here. Later on, the teacher we were travelling with told us that they don't get visitors at school very often and never have they really met any Americans, so it was a big deal that we took the time to come and visit them. We have officially been in Torremaggoire for about four days and the little town is exactly what you would expect Italy to look like. It looks like a movie set, with streets made up of stone that reminds me of marble and the apartment buildings with wrought-iron balconies that people hang their laundry from in order to dry. When we arrived Thursday night many people in the town were walking around so they all saw us arrive in the large white van. Most people are not used to strangers, especially foreign strangers, which resulted in everyone starring at us as we drove by and they still continue to stare at us, especially if they hear us speaking English. We have had the opportunity to go into the school and observe the English teacher instructing a 5th grade class. They all seem very interested in learning our language including the teachers who mostly only know Italian. Every afternoon from 2-5pm the whole town just shuts down as everyone leaves work and goes home. During this time people go home to eat, rest, do housework or simply just lie around doing nothing. We all do the same thing, returning to our rooms here at the bed and breakfast and just relax, making our days much less busy than the continuous walking we took part in in Rome. Today a teacher from the school invited us all over to her house for lunch. We were expecting something a bit lighter than the five courses we ate but all the food was so delicious! My favorite had to be the second course which was stuffed shells - one with ricotta cheese and spinach and the other with some sort of meat, sauce and other spices. I later found out that the amount of food they gave us was usually what they have for special occasions or large family gatherings. They don't typically have five course meals, usually only three like what we have here at the bed and breakfast. After eating for almost two hours, we all just relaxed in the living room and the whole experience was very welcoming and homey. Yesterday was a day full of travelling to our current location, which is Torremaggiore. The day before that, on Wednesday, we explored the oldest parts of Rome. First we went to the Colosseum, having the opportunity to explore the inside of it. Almost all of the seating is gone, having worn away over the centuries, but some of the staircases still remain. The middle part of the stadium is a giant stone maze that was part of the entertainment in Ancient Rome. Slaves, prisoners and people looking to become famous would enter the maze, usually without any weapons, and have to face a wild beast, such as a bear or tiger. Only about two percent of the gladiators that ever entered the stadium survived. Across the way is a giant ruin called Palatine Hill (or Palatino if you're speaking in Italian). This massive space of land is where the legend states the twin brothers, Remus and Romulus, were raised by the she-wolf. Once they were grown, Romulus wanted to build a city on Palatine Hill but his brother disagreed. They continued to argue and eventually Remus was killed by his brother, then allowing Romulus to name the city Roma after himself. Later on, this home was where the emperors used to live. They had hundreds of rooms, multiple gardens and a perfect view of the Colosseum. We have officially been in Rome for one whole day and it is absolutely amazing! Yesterday and the day before that was full of travelling, leaving us exhausted and hungry by the time we finally reached the city. After taking a few hours to rest off our plane rides and time changes, we went for dinner at a quaint Italian restaurant before wondering around the neighborhood. Our hotel is in a perfect location, practically in the center of everything, and we were hoping to find the Colosseum. We didn't even really know it was coming until we started walking down a street and there is was waiting for us at the end! I love ancient history and after having seen a bunch of pictures of this historical landmark, I got chills when I first laid my eyes on it. It just amazes me that people actually spent the time to build the giant arena and that it is still standing today for all to see! Today we just saw everything on a tour bus that took us to all the major tourist locations. Since we were on the second level of the bus it was the perfect view for all my pictures. We decided to spend most of our time at the Vatican. No sign of the Pope, but we did get the chance to see the Basilica di San Pietro which was absolutely gorgeous. The ceilings were all painted, there were sculpted statues all over and the altar was massive! Afterwards we went to the Vatican Museum and saw the Sistine Chapel. The painting was even bigger than I expected and so detailed! I also really liked the many different globes in the museum that gradually progressed by year as the Americas slowly became more accurate. After all of our walking we hopped back on the bus and just rode it the whole way around to be able to see everything at night, all lit up. Tomorrow we plan on having another busy day of touring and photographing while I make more memories :) |
AuthorI have always wanted to travel the world! An experience like this, where I get to travel around Italy and be in an elementary school is too great of an opportunity to pass up! ArchivesCategories |