The Butcher, the Banker, the Candlestick Maker and the Teacher

The Italian school bell rang several weeks ago. Retirees have returned to the cartolibreria for gluestick and cigarettes without facing lines of last second school supply shoppers. Moms and buses have eased back into the traffic flow. And Italian kids dressed in dark-colored hoodies, Vans and Carharts flow down the sidewalks like a muddy river. The only thing left in limbo is the learning.

The first month of school is considered a provisional period. Some kids still have to meet their permanent teachers. (They may have started with a pregnant teacher who is obligated to work the first two weeks of school so she can qualify for maternity leave only to return when her current high school sophomores have become college freshman.) Others are waiting for their schools to organize their classes before they can organize their extra curricular activities. And a few others aren't sure which days they leave early enough to get to my yard for English by the fire. In Italy, it's more like 'back to school months' than 'back to school days.'

I no longer question why things for the new school year can't be organized at the end of the previous one. The resounding answer was, "Because we're in Italy." I try to embrace this bureaucratic glitch as yet another part of LA not so DOLCE VITA and consider the new school year's beginning Halloween instead of Labor Day.

Sadly, it's not just little girls in plaid dresses carrying lilacs to their teachers (like me) that say they want to be a teacher when they grow up. In Italy, some want to teach simply because there's nothing else to do with a degree in History. And others turn to teaching for the hours. I have a friend that took a test to qualify to become a teacher. Passing the test meant he could be put on a list to teach in case he got tired of his job at the bank. In the end he passed the test, he's on the list and I have my fingers crossed that he never tires of banking.
 
Another reason to teach is that it's hard to be fired. My favorite 15-year old student, Beatrice, had a terrible English teacher. I encouraged her to join her classmates and write a letter to the principal.  She was sure it would never work. She feared the teacher would find out, still be her teacher and things would only get worse. In the end, she wrote the letter, they won the case and finished their last two years of high school with a different teacher.

The following year I had a student who spoke almost perfect English when she was telling me about a cute boy in class, but had a D on her report card. Next to the D was the name of Beatrice's old teacher. Instead of being fired, she was transferred and left to wreak havoc on the self-confidence of 25 more kids.  

I'm sure I lack the ABCs of what makes a qualified teacher in Italy, but I think I make up for it with the PPPs....patience, passion and perseverance.  My students can't write to the principal to complain about me. But if they could, I'd probably consider looking for a job at the bank.