School Four Weeks In: I Compiti (Homework)

A diario- the record
of all homework
assignments

"What do kids do all afternoon?"

As I mentioned before, we were happy to find the boys a school with a shortened school day. We just didn't understand what life looks like on that schedule. Dave asked one of the graduate students at the university, "What do kids do all afternoon?" She answered, "Homework. And sometimes sport." We couldn't see how that was possible... hours of homework after school?

Yup. Hours of homework after school. I didn't realize just how much there was at first, because of our lack of a diario for Ben. The messages I was getting through the moms' group texts (particularly for Ben's class) were so confusing. What were all of these assignments they were talking about? Why didn't Ben have any of them? I figured that the teacher was just giving him time to adjust.

Ethan is very
conscientous. Yes, he's
doing homework on
the floor of the bus.

Once we got Ben a diario, the messages and pictures of assignments made a lot more sense. Usually he had something similar written in his. At that point, we had another problem, though. Ben didn't have the books he needed for class. The teachers explained to us that they would probably just make copies for the boys because we would be here for a short time. Since Ben was bringing home math problems and history to study in his notebooks, I let it go for a while. Getting Ben to complete the work in his notebooks was a big enough challenge for the moment.

Ethan's teacher gave him books that were left over from another student who left the school. First graders don't have a diario. He brings home any notebooks they used that day in class, and we go over what they did, finishing anything that isn't complete. The teacher also folds over pages in his workbooks when they need to be completed.

Ben had to make a poster
about the Loch Ness
Monster for his English
class. He wrote in English
and Italian.

While the boys adjusted to school pretty well during the first few weeks, life at home was crazy for a while. We took less trips to the park and to get pizza over lunch, as I was trying to establish a routine similar to the Italians'. When we got home, they were absolutely crazy, still releasing energy after focusing on learning a new language for five hours that morning. I have to help them with most of the work, and it's hard to have both kids working at the same time. The kid who is not with me is constantly distracting the other kid... We are still working on it.

Other tidbits about school:

Ethan brought home a green shirt on his first Thursday. He is supposed to wear it for gym class on Fridays. He says the color has something to do with the green on the Italian flag. Ben doesn't have a shirt for gym, I don't know why not.

Ethan's class also wore the green shirts on their field trip. We got a permission slip to sign in his red libretto, and it said that they would be going to the 'canile'. Google Translate told me that meant 'kennel', but I figured that must be wrong. Instead of a dog kennel, they must be going somewhere to learn about the system of canals around the city. Nope, they went to a dog kennel to learn about caring for animals. No parents went on the field trip, and a motor coach took them. Every time we see a motor coach, Ethan still points out the fancy bus that they took on their field trip.

Ben hasn't talked about having Italian lessons since the first week of school. I don't think he's having them. Both kids talk about watching movies pretty often, but I think that happens when the other kids are in religion class, so I'm OK with that.

The boys have adjusted to the noise level. They report that they understand more of what is going on. There are still small areas of confusion. Ethan told me he wasn't allowed to bring fruit to school. Ben explained to him that he could, but he had to throw it away in the compost container in the centrum (hallway).

Finally, while talking to a family we've all befriended, I learned that the public middle and high schools do have school on Saturdays. All of them run from 8am-1pm, six days a week. So it's only the elementary schools that have moved to a longer day.