"Elementary, Watson"

One of the signs at the school said that: "Elementare, Watson." Today was the first day of classes for a lot of kids in Rome, so our class went to two school visits. It's been a while since I'd visited an elementary school, but it sure brought back some good memories.

We arrived at the Iqbal Masih Elementary School this morning and right away found signs on the gate protesting recent budget cuts and structural changes that many teachers and families oppose. Starting this fall, certain programs have been cut, the hours of class time cut down to four hours a day (8:30-12:30) from Monday to Saturday, and from multiple teachers to lead each class to now only a single teacher teaching all subjects in their class.

Since today was the first day of classes, the students hadn't been in school since before summer started. They were all little kids in elementary school and seemed to be enjoying some really neat classes. Strolling through the halls, we could see all the pictures from the field trips and fun learning events they've had at the school in recent years--everything from going to a factory where milk was processed to making cheese from milk to even picking grapes for making wine!

The teacher leading our tour asked us if we had ever done activities like these in elementary school. Honestly, I don't remember much of elementary school. I remember a trip to OMSI, making butter and bread on our Oregon Trail adventure in class, going to a farm to feed horses, and of course, the zoo. But it seemed that their field trips were so much cooler than the ones I did. Perhaps the closest for me was going to Philip Foster Farm at the end of the Oregon Trail in third grade. We got to build log cabins, grind corn, squeeze and drink fresh apple cider, and other fun stuff. Ah...good times. Man, it's been years since I've thought of that.

One of the most significant aspects of the Iqbal Masih school is its policies on inclusiveness and diversity. The school makes every effort to ensure that every student, regardless of race, gender, disability, or religion, has the opportunity to participate in the school community.

While we were visiting one class, we walked in as a young Chinese boy was teaching the class how to write and say "world" in Chinese. I was so proud of myself for recognizing it on the board as I walked in!

It's neat though to think that the school embraces opportunities for students to share their cultures with their classmates in the classroom. It's also significant that the teachers use these opportunities as teachable moments for their pupils. One teacher we talked to has been teaching at the Iqbal Masih school for about ten years, and he said it's changed how he thinks considerably.

On another level, the school's active inclusion of students with disabilities is great. In just about every class we visited, there were kids with special needs who, with the help of an adult helper, were fully engaged in the activities that the other students were doing too.

When we entered the 5th grade classroom, a boy with special needs sat with his helper right by the teacher. He had the happiest little smile on his face and said "Ciao" to just about everybody who looked his way.

The class ended up singing us some songs, and for one where the teacher needed two volunteers to lead the song, the young boy volunteered along with another girl. It was great to see the whole class having fun and acting as a large group of close friends. You won't find any students getting pulled out of class for special lessons and such.

While it was nice to hear the songs from the students (some of them were silly songs; others were just traditional songs that the children learn when they're young), I spent some time observing some of the students in the class.

Just about everyone was happily singing along and doing the hand motions to one of their sillier songs, but there was one girl in the back of the room, who didn't seem to quite know all the words. She stared intently at her two classmates volunteering at the front of the room with their teacher, mimicking their hand motions a second or two after them, to keep up with the fast-paced song that was considered something everyone knew.

Except her.

I felt like I could relate with her in some way. I remember growing up not watching a lot of the cartoon and TV shows that other kids in my class did. I didn't listen to any of the songs they listened to. The fact that I didn't quite associate with the sorts of things they were interested in (aside from basketball) made me sort of the odd specimen in our class. It comes back, in many ways, to your upbringing and life experiences.

Which brought me back to this young girl.

I wondered about her family's background, her own support network, her goals, her challenges, her struggles. She was definitely trying hard to fit in, and for the most part, her classmates in that corner of the room seemed to be having a jolly time chatting with her after the song.

I'm not sure what her ethnic background was, but from her physical characteristics, she seemed to be Roma. The teachers at the school told us that the school had a high percentage of Roma students, and that among communities with large Roma populations, the percentage of them enrolled in education was especially high in this school. It's encouraging to hear that the school is making every effort to be inclusive of everyone. Like one of the teachers said, "the negative perception of diversity and immigrants is from the government outside of school, not from the school itself."

After visiting a few more classes, we headed over to another school. We found out last week that the parents of students in this school had planned a mass sit-in to protest the budget cuts and structural changes to classes. There were plenty of parents selling green and white t-shirt that read (roughly translated from Italian): "The future of our children does not rhyme with Gelmini (the Italian minister of education)." A lot of the girls all bought shirts; they were too small for me though, so I didn't get one. I did sign the petition though.

After class, I came home and finished editing my Humanity in Action Fellowship Final Paper. Finally! A paper that was started three months ago in Berlin and co-authored with Anton from Hamburg and Oscar from Amherst University (although he's currently trekking around the globe) then went through several rounds of co-editing via email from three different countries and two different continents was finally submitted today.

It'll get published on line pretty soon, and it feels extremely rewarding to have finished such an intense research project and paper. We wrote a good 21 pages on upward educational mobility of students, particularly those from low-income and first-generation backgrounds, in the lower tiers of the German education system. What amazes me still is the fact that we finished the paper for our initial July 3 deadline in our 10 day research period in Berlin. Anyway, I'm fixing up a few things and then would like to upload the final paper on my blog soon too.

More news: I bought mini zucchinis and added them to the mushrooms in my tomato sauce. Deeeelicious. I also bought some good ol' Roman bread that looks sort of like a puffy flower...not really, but hopefully you can see what I mean from the picture.

Dinner and final paper read-through.

Tomorrow, we're going to another school in the morning to visit some classes and speak to teachers and students. Then in the afternoon, we'll visit the University of Rome to talk with some university folks. Can't wait!