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.

ALL ABROoooAD!

EVS, the programme I'm here with, supported by the European Commission, is not the only kind of activity that the youth groups or organisations can ask financial support for. In fact, there are a lot of opportunities to get grants if you have good ideas. One of these kinds of projects are youth exchanges - intercultural youth meetings where one group of young people hosts other groups, shows them around, organises various activities. Everyone has fun, but most of all, learns a lot through experience.

I'd never have an idea what Turkish hospitality is like, what the Czech do for fun, how spoken Hungarian sounds or what the Portuguese mean by saudade, if my friend Laura hadn't gotten me into organising a youth exchange with her back in 2004. This event was an awakening to 3 years of vagabonding through more than 20 countries. It's also thanks to her that I'm in Italy now.

My hosting organisation (by now, my home NGO) is partner in 8 youth exhanges this summer. It's more than any of the Eurodesk offices around Veneto. Different countries, different topics. The only problem is that we're living and working in such a small town that it's difficult to convince the youth that there can be good possibilities here as well. In any case, we've now officially started our 'all abroad!' campaign. In the following months I'll go around the local schools with the people of the local youth information point, explaining to schoolkids what is Youth in Action and what the whole point is. That it's not only a way of making cheap vacations, but a good opportunity to learn languages, train yourself, manage a project - things that one generally would have to pay much more for. This in turn holds a lot of other opportunities, such as being better prepared for jobs related to organising various events or working in an intercultural context.

So now there's me going around with our flyers. The author is our web designer Anna Menti. Here's an example:


These exchanges are a magic waiting to happen. I've already seen it a few times, but it's always worth a watch. First you have to call the people, convince them, coax them with the idea of a cheap vacation, say how nice the place will be. Then, when they've made up their minds, they get all excited while discussing what kind of food to bring along and what to show about Italy; they write out small dictionaries and read travel guides. Taking the train to go to the airport is a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Then we start to receive messages: "we're arrived, things look ok, really tired, talk later"; and "ciao, it's fun here, we went around Prague, very nice!" and "this is so cool!!!". During the days after arrival the group goes around and tells everyone with bright eyes about where they've been. They stay on MSN until the wee hours talking to all the new friends. Things cool off after a while, but there is always someone with whom the contact remains. And noone will easily forget the feeling of a really good youth exchange.

Some of my friends are convinced that all this "youth projects and stuff" is a big waste of money. They're entitled to their opinion. But I have to wonder - if someone has had adventures, parties, long discussions with youngsters from completely different backgrounds - be it an ex-communist country, a Muslim country or whichever - isn't this someone less likely to discriminate against people based on stereotypes? Isn't it an achievement?