school 1: ipsia
A part of my work for the next few weeks is to go from one school to another and speak about European programmes that could be of interest to 17-18-year-old Italians. A lot of these 17-18 year-olds don't care much about what we have to say, but there is always a few who think along. I guess it's them we do it for.
Me, my colleague Riccardo, and the representatives of the local youth information point took on the first school yesterday. I had been asking around about it beforehand and this particular school is known as quite a rough one. "They probably won't listen." "That'll be the hardest one." And so on. There are schools like this in my home town too, and I know that as firm as these images are, they are often generalised.
We had gone through the material several times beforehand. All the presentations were ready and all we needed was 10 minutes to try out the technology before starting (showing a movie becomes noticeably less impressive if it doesn't work, is too light, needs volume or such). But it turned out that we had to start half an hour earlier than planned. The potential cable-computer-USBkey mess was saved only by the impressive improvisation abilities of Riccardo's Mac. (My Linux computer would have been quite useless in this situation.)
To be honest, listening about all various kinds of opportunities for 90 minutes in a row would be trying for me too. I too would like to comment about it to my neighbour, or gossip, or make jokes. I probably wouldn't pay much attention, knowing no-one will test me on the material later. From this perspective the students acted as any normal youngsters would in this situation and I really didn't mind the mild chatter as long as half of the people looked like paying attention. In fact, it was one of the teachers who annoyed me most.
She walked in halfway through the second half of the session and stood in the back of the hall. It was obvious that she had taken it upon herself to keep an eye on things instead of sitting down and listening to what we had to say. When I was halfway through explaining the funding issues for EVS, she interrupted me loudly and treated the students to some well-chosen and obviously habitual sentences along the lines of "the signorina is talking" and "one shouldn't allow themselves to disrespect..." and "why do you always have to make a bad impression for the whole school". I thought to myself of all the times I had heard something similar in highschool and how little impact it had made on me. When I could finally continue and started with: "So where was I...", she interrupted me AGAIN to tell me exactly where I had left off. I felt like making faces, but I smiled. After all, the Informagiovani will have to return with the same session next year. The teacher continued to walk around the audience, having apparently only started to keep the order. When someone asked if for Erasmus it is necessary to learn the local language (slightly off topic, but otherwise quite a fair question), I had barely opened my mouth when the professor drew herself up to her full height and went: "But of course you have to learn the local language! What do you think?" I was happy to contradict her - obviously it's impossible to arrive in Finland and become fluent right away. Most of the international studies will be in English and the local language gets only as much attention as one has for it*. The discussion went on in this pace for a while and we got to hear a few other annoying condemning calls to order before the end of it. In all honesty, it was quite appalling. If these young people hear that they are the shame of the class / school / town every day, they will truly become so. What else could they do if someone convinces them every day of being irresponsible, immature and disrespectful? I'm quite sure that the most likely response is to be irresponsible, immature and disrespectful.
Apart from the disrespectful teacher, the whole thing went down just as well as we could have hoped for. Next school is coming up next Thursday. We'll try to cut the talk in half and create some action instead. If possible, without the teachers.
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* In Estonia, and for what I've seen, in any country where some percentage of people speak English (roughly means countries other than France, Spain and Germany), most of the international students have lectures in English and don't even arrive to the level of being able to have even a 5-minute conversation in the local language. This applies also for myself after one semester of Lithuanian. It's only normal - acquiring a new language in a matter of a few months would be an achievement indeed. This is one of the reasons I'm disappointed in Erasmus as a method of knowing another culture. The situation of an Erasmus student usually prevents any attempts to get to know local people, language or customs. But YFU exchange students (highschool level) who often go to small towns with no chance of managing in English, will learn faster than anybody will believe.
Me, my colleague Riccardo, and the representatives of the local youth information point took on the first school yesterday. I had been asking around about it beforehand and this particular school is known as quite a rough one. "They probably won't listen." "That'll be the hardest one." And so on. There are schools like this in my home town too, and I know that as firm as these images are, they are often generalised.
We had gone through the material several times beforehand. All the presentations were ready and all we needed was 10 minutes to try out the technology before starting (showing a movie becomes noticeably less impressive if it doesn't work, is too light, needs volume or such). But it turned out that we had to start half an hour earlier than planned. The potential cable-computer-USBkey mess was saved only by the impressive improvisation abilities of Riccardo's Mac. (My Linux computer would have been quite useless in this situation.)
To be honest, listening about all various kinds of opportunities for 90 minutes in a row would be trying for me too. I too would like to comment about it to my neighbour, or gossip, or make jokes. I probably wouldn't pay much attention, knowing no-one will test me on the material later. From this perspective the students acted as any normal youngsters would in this situation and I really didn't mind the mild chatter as long as half of the people looked like paying attention. In fact, it was one of the teachers who annoyed me most.
She walked in halfway through the second half of the session and stood in the back of the hall. It was obvious that she had taken it upon herself to keep an eye on things instead of sitting down and listening to what we had to say. When I was halfway through explaining the funding issues for EVS, she interrupted me loudly and treated the students to some well-chosen and obviously habitual sentences along the lines of "the signorina is talking" and "one shouldn't allow themselves to disrespect..." and "why do you always have to make a bad impression for the whole school". I thought to myself of all the times I had heard something similar in highschool and how little impact it had made on me. When I could finally continue and started with: "So where was I...", she interrupted me AGAIN to tell me exactly where I had left off. I felt like making faces, but I smiled. After all, the Informagiovani will have to return with the same session next year. The teacher continued to walk around the audience, having apparently only started to keep the order. When someone asked if for Erasmus it is necessary to learn the local language (slightly off topic, but otherwise quite a fair question), I had barely opened my mouth when the professor drew herself up to her full height and went: "But of course you have to learn the local language! What do you think?" I was happy to contradict her - obviously it's impossible to arrive in Finland and become fluent right away. Most of the international studies will be in English and the local language gets only as much attention as one has for it*. The discussion went on in this pace for a while and we got to hear a few other annoying condemning calls to order before the end of it. In all honesty, it was quite appalling. If these young people hear that they are the shame of the class / school / town every day, they will truly become so. What else could they do if someone convinces them every day of being irresponsible, immature and disrespectful? I'm quite sure that the most likely response is to be irresponsible, immature and disrespectful.
Apart from the disrespectful teacher, the whole thing went down just as well as we could have hoped for. Next school is coming up next Thursday. We'll try to cut the talk in half and create some action instead. If possible, without the teachers.
--------------------------
* In Estonia, and for what I've seen, in any country where some percentage of people speak English (roughly means countries other than France, Spain and Germany), most of the international students have lectures in English and don't even arrive to the level of being able to have even a 5-minute conversation in the local language. This applies also for myself after one semester of Lithuanian. It's only normal - acquiring a new language in a matter of a few months would be an achievement indeed. This is one of the reasons I'm disappointed in Erasmus as a method of knowing another culture. The situation of an Erasmus student usually prevents any attempts to get to know local people, language or customs. But YFU exchange students (highschool level) who often go to small towns with no chance of managing in English, will learn faster than anybody will believe.
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