The Italian school system

During the past year many changes have been made to the Italian school: the reintroduction of one main teacher, the mandatory use of a uniform, the grading of the students’ behavior, just to say a few.

However, besides these recent changes that have taken place because of a new law (Riforma Gelmini), many are the differences that I’ve noticed after the first days of school. Obviously my notes are made by comparing the American system to the Italian one, and most precisely to the specific schools my kids are (and were) attending.

Books - Books are provided by the government, the only expense for the student’s family is for the class supplies (paper, pens, erasers, uniform, etc.) . I spent about Euros 100 (~$150) for both kids.
Notebooks - Kids have a notebook for each subject.
Hours - Kids can either go to school from 8am to 1pm, including Saturday, or from 8am to 4pm, excluding Saturday.
Recess - Kids attending school from 8am to 1 pm have only one 20 minute recess (around 10am). They stay in class. Most schools don’t have a playground.
Volunteers - Parents are not allowed to volunteer in class, unless they are holding a certain level of expertise in a field or topic that the students are learning. In this case they can teach in class for a few hours.
Diary - Kids have a diary to keep track of the homework they need to do.
Fundraising Auctions - Auctions are not held in public schools.
Communication - Families and teachers communicate through the student’s diary. Emails are currently not used.
Office - In my kids’ school, the school office is open only one hour in the morning, and one hour in some afternoons.
Physical Education (P.E.) - Kids need to have specific clothes (white t-shirt and black shorts) and shoes for P.E. They keep them in a bag that remains at school (until washing is required…).
Principal - Some schools share the same principal. In our case, we share the principal with four other schools.
Religion - Catholic religion is taught in all public schools. Kids have the right to refuse the attendance, in which case they are moved to another class for alternative activities. The crucifix is present in all classes.
Classrooms - Besides the desks and chairs, my kids’ classrooms have a blackboard with chalks, and a metal armoire for supplies. If it wasn't for the 2009 calendar on the wall, it looks exactly the same as when I was there 30 years ago.

Spending 4 months in Italy with my kids

Have you ever considered spending an extended period of time in Italy? If you are like me, you probably did many times. And if you've kids, you might have shelved this dream considering all the complications that come with any international move.

As an Italian mom living in the US for more than 13 years, the idea of giving to my kids the opportunity to experience Italy more than just as tourists was extremely appealing. So after some long conversations with my husband and some careful planning, we decided it was worth the try.

My two young kids (Alessio, 6 and Silvia, 9) would attend a local elementary school for four months. For conveniency, we chose our hometown Trieste as our destination. In Trieste we still have our extended family that helped us with some of the logistics such as finding a rental apartment and getting some of the school paperwork done. Admittedly, knowing the language and having local support made things smoother, especially due to the time difference (9 hours) and the inability to use the Internet to get through some of the school red tape.

As a small business owner, I was able to put on hold my activity. My husband's job in high tech wouldn't let him leave for too long, so he decided to stay in the US and reach us later for a vacation.

So, here I am, back to my hometown, Trieste, where I’ll stay until Christmas, with my kids attending the same Italian elementary school I was attending when I was their age…

While there, I'll try to cover some of the curious aspects of this experience. If you've some questions feel free to email me or post a comment below.

Enjoy 300+ photos of Trieste (copyright free)

Several years ago, my wife and I decided to produce a photo CD of our home town Trieste, a beautiful city and port in northeastern Italy near the Slovenian border. We collected numerous pictures and selected the best 300 for the CD, including landscapes, food and panoramas. We also published a screensaver.

With mixed feelings, we decided it was time to discontinue the CD (old digital world), but we are happy to share these images with all of you under the copyright free license called Creative Commons (a small contribution to the social media travel community).

Next time you're visiting Venice, if you want a nice day trip off-the-beaten path, jump on a train for a couple of hours and visit Trieste. We hope these pictures will entice you to do so.

- View Trieste CD photos as a slideshow
- Download Trieste CD photos from Flickr.com

Trieste, a free screensaver

In anticipation of the upcoming podcast about the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, we thought to share some pictures of its capital, Trieste. We're particularly attached to Trieste as it's where my wife and I grew up. Located just a couple of hours far from Venice, Trieste is a beautiful city that thrives particularly in the summer, with music, theater, food festivals, sailing regattas and other frequent outdoor happenings.
A couple of years ago, we created a photo CD-ROM about Trieste. We are sharing some of these pictures with you as a screensaver. As usual, it's FREE (yes, no cost, no viruses, no adware, no spyware, just pure enjoyment). Please let us know what you think.

- View some pictures of Trieste
- Visit Trieste in Pictures CD-ROM site
- Download Trieste screensaver
(Self-extracting EXE file - 3.9MB)

How to install this screensaver (Instructions for Windows XP machines)
1) Click on the link above and save the file Trieste.exe on your Desktop.
2) Double-click on it and extract (unzip) the file Trieste.scr onto your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder
3) Right-click in the Windows Desktop background (yes, the empty background) and select "Properties". A dialog box opens. Select the "Screen Saver" tab. Select the screensaver called Trieste in the list (it should appear in this list if you copied it in the correct folder). The screensaver appears in the Preview screen.
4) You can adjust the screensaver settings or display it full screen.
5) When all done, click OK. You can now remove the file Trieste.exe from your Desktop.
6) To uninstall it, just delete the file Trieste.scr from the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder.