Roam Italy: A Teacher and His Students Take the Ultimate Class Trip

Acknowledgments

My eternal gratitude goes to my parents for showing me how to live poetically.

Alphonsina Paternostro, a woman with extraordinary vision, is the reason I now have a second family in Italy.

Thank you for the laughs, Maria Cacioppa. You are the most exceptional chaperone I have ever met.

My students, you mean everything to me. I am grateful for the days when you teach more than I do.

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One   Teaching

Chapter Two   Benvenuto!

Chapter Three   Dinner

Chapter Four   School

Chapter Five   Around Town

Chapter Six   Lingo

Chapter Seven   Easter

Chapter Eight   Road Trip

Chapter Nine   Society

Chapter Ten   Several Lists

Chapter Eleven   Back Home

Preface

Xenophobia is the fear of strangers or foreign cultures. The most critical lessons I have learned in life by far have to do with exploring others’ backgrounds and their thought processes. 

When I graduated middle school, there was only one African-American student enrolled there; she was a year younger than I was. High school was much more diverse, but the discussions about race were rare. I remember hearing the expression multicultural tolerance a lot back in those days. The term tolerance made it sound like we were to grin and bear it when it came to noticing differences in others. Eventually, the preferred term changed to multicultural appreciation. Despite this improvement, another saying popped up around the same time, that being the infamous I don’t see color. This expression quickly became number one on my list of Most Ignorant Things People Say. (Yes, I kept a list.) I could only imagine the looks on my peers’ faces back then if I proclaimed, I don’t see gender. They would have thought I had lost my marbles. People come in different sizes, shapes, and colors; we all know it, we should all appreciate it, and it is foolish to pretend that we can ignore these differences.  

Nearly twenty years forward and I am a middle school Social Studies teacher, the very last career I entertained having back as a teenager. I even recall ranking history as my least favorite subject when I was younger. In my current classes, I invite discussions about diversity whenever the notion of multiculturalism surfaces. I go to great lengths to foster a comfortable, safe environment where students can make inquiries about race-related topics without fear of consequence from a judgmental peer.

On a related note, a few weeks ago I returned from another Friends Beyond Borders social justice tour of the Dominican Republic designed by my colleague, Kevin LaMastra. During the expedition, we traveled to an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS, a Free Trade Zone factory, and poor communities of Haitian migrants who left their homes and families to find work. Our coalition of teachers also brought donated goods such as medicine and classroom supplies for impoverished schools and neighborhoods. The main purpose of these life-altering excursions is really to gain a sense of the hardships faced by the people of Hispaniola and to understand the global factors that contribute to them. Upon my return, when people found out I had visited the Dominican Republic, the one recurring question I received was, How was your resort? It amazes me how people take for granted that when traveling to an alluring destination they assume you are only there to enjoy the natural wonders, not the local cultures.

I have examined the resorts on the island that people rave about and it could not be more obvious that the buildings are designed to keep you in and them out. These resorts arrange for a van to pick you up directly from the airport and escort you safely to their sanctuary. The private vans are even equipped with window curtains so tourists aren’t subjected to any unpleasant sights on the way to their five-star accommodations. The resort offers three extravagant meals a day, a secluded beach, and live entertainment every night. These meals and shows are advertised as traditional delights reflective of the local people. The most disturbing thought for me is that when these tourists return home they are actually convinced that they saw the island.

While my humanitarian tour of the Dominican Republic and the student trip to Italy were quite different, I believe there are many parallels between the two. First, we chose the path less traveled. While in Italy we may have done plenty of the touristy things; more importantly, we dived into their culture with reckless abandonment, and that has made all the difference. This abandonment allowed for a deep understanding of the people. To observe, exchange, and connect with the locals made these adventures truly special.

These empowering trips have changed who I am and the way I teach. When students ask why I always place them in random groupings for class projects and do not allow them to pick partners, I share with them that working with those who are different than you is one of the most difficult things at any age. Understanding the perspectives of people who do not sound, look, or think like you is life’s single most important lesson of all. 

Introduction

Let’s jump right in with a quick lesson in Italian.

First, hold out your right fist. (C’mon, nobody is looking. Put it out there.) Okay, now that your fist is in front of you, stick out your thumb. Bring your thumb to your face, while the rest of your fingers are still clenched, gently drag your thumb across your face from the top middle of your cheek to your chin and then drop your hand, passing your chin. If you were to perform this action in Italy while gazing at someone that would inform her that you approve. Maybe she did or said something you thought was considerate or impressive.

Next, hold out both of your hands in front of you as if you were about to clap. Make sure that your fingers are straight, and join both hands so the fingers match evenly. Depending on your religion, your hands might look like you are praying. Now bring your hands to the middle of your torso. Keep the bottom part of your hands near your chest, but bob the tips of your hands up and down at a medium pace. If done properly, you have just asked someone to reconsider. For the avid fans of Italian soccer, you probably know this sight well. When a player has just been issued a yellow card for a questionable infraction, the members of his team will plead foremost with this gesture.

All right, here is a quick one. Take your left hand, palm facing you, curl your fingers like a C and quickly scrape, then flick the bottom of your chin away from your body with the tips of your four fingers. Wait a second! This one you might not want to perform if you are out in public. Sorry, but you may have just cursed someone out. I would not recommend using this expression while on vacation unless you are experiencing road rage and need to get your point across quickly.

Finally, here is my favorite expression. Hold out your right hand as if you were about to snap your fingers. The tips of the three fingers on the right should be touching and the other two should be relaxed. Now bob your hand a little bit while flicking your fingertips outward. The faster you do it the more agitated you are claiming to be. Of all the actions, this is the one I witnessed the most. Girls do it when their older brothers annoy them, and boys do it to their sisters when they want to torment them even more. Adults who are arguing and trying to get their point across without raising their voices often use this movement.

If you have mastered these four popular Italian gestures you are pretty much considered fluent in most social situations. In that case, bravo! You have learned the most important parts of the Italian language, better known as la bella lingua (the beautiful language).

Some say that communication is 93 percent nonverbal. In Italy, this may be a conservative estimate. After the fall of the Roman Empire, a wide variety of regional dialects became engrained within local cultures. Misunderstandings and communication breakdowns were commonplace. To overcome these problems, Italians began to augment their verbal messages by making ample use of body language. While Tuscany’s economic, political, and cultural dominance caused its version of Italian to become the national standard, regional dialects continued to be widely used in everyday life. Today, as I watch my Italian friends speak excitedly using their whole bodies, I see a physical expression of unreserved passion and love for social interaction that is an essential component of the Italian national character.

At a quiet gelateria along the sparkling Amalfi Coast, while enjoying the remarkable ambiance and a sensational strawberry ice cream, an acquaintance made a curious observation about me. I could tell you are not from Italy. You don’t speak much with your hands.

Chapter One—Teaching

Growing up, my father Frank used to tell my brother Steven and I many elaborate tales from his past. If they were not about his exploits on the crushed oyster shell bocce court, then they revolved around his first job as a teenager in Newark, New Jersey.

He informed us that many days at the busy corner of Littleton and South Orange Avenue started and ended with him cranking an emerald canvas awning. While he had many duties at the Italian deli, none was as crucial as looking out for the inspector. At the first sight of him, it was Frank’s responsibility to hide the unstamped gabagool (salami) in a reserved garbage bag and seamlessly rush it to the basement. To do this successfully, he had to hurdle the three-foot-long boxes of baccalà (salted codfish), avoid glancing at the hideous headcheese (jellied meat, no cheese), and dodge the provolone hanging from the ceiling. And of course, we were reminded that he always walked to work, about a mile and a half each way, sometimes in the snow.

My work ethic spawned from the tutelage of my father, a toolmaker and second-generation Italian American. When I was young, our family was quite poor and my dad had to take on extra jobs, most of them legal, to pay the overdue bills. My quirky sense of humor also comes from my dad. When my mother, Judith, had a difficult time keeping our bellies full with home-cooked meals, my father did so with laughter.

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Chi rispetta sará rispettato. (Respect others and you will be respected.)

A savvy professor in one of my first education classes told us that if we wanted to sustain our idealism and energy as teachers he had a proven technique: stay out of the teachers’ cafeteria. Something led me to believe it was not the soup of the day he was warning us against, but the contagious pessimism of many cynical educators.

Several years ago, I particularly recall one table filled with brilliant teachers, but literally every day they found a student, and occasionally an unfortunate colleague, to tear to shreds. This was the same year the principal set forth an edict that we were not allowed to eat lunch in our classrooms anymore. Therefore, I was trapped. I never once met a teacher who began her career in the bitter barn, but I know too many who finish it that way.

During my first year as an educator in 1999, I ate lunch with two older, witty Social Studies teachers. They were incredibly smart and well informed when it came to history. In fact, they were so proud of their boundless knowledge of America’s past that they would often remind me that they had more knowledge in their pinkies than I had in my entire body. Fortunately, I was able to borrow another important piece of advice I received in that first education class: don’t take what the students say or do personally, and apply it to my colleagues as well.

Over time, things became more amicable among the three of us, and they even attempted to get to know me better. I remember the day that I was actually asked about my life outside of school, Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend? Of course, when I answered no, the next question was, You’re not gay, are you? That statement, from a teacher who is now retired, bothered me not because I took it to heart, but because as Social Studies teachers we are constantly encouraged to educate our students about concepts like diversity, perspective, and cross-cultural understanding. Concepts he joked about regularly. When has teaching about diversity ever raised test scores? he would ask whenever the subject came up.

After the marital query, I decided it would be best to keep a low profile at the lunch table. Eventually, I came to realize that when I spoke to them one-on-one, outside the dreaded cafeteria, they weren’t too bad. In fact, they were quite helpful when it came to ideas and resources to make my classes more interesting. Unfortunately, the progress that I made outside the cafeteria did not always carry back into it. One day, after talking to one of them that morning, I saw him at our table and remembered that I needed to borrow some books. I brought this request up right when I sat down so I would not forget to mention it later. My inquiry was abruptly answered with, You work too hard. Get a life and relax. This coming from a man who exits the teachers’ cafeteria by saying he is off to rewind his lesson.

I once overheard a principal proclaim, Show me a teacher who isn’t frustrated, and I will show you someone who isn’t working hard enough. Now I would not classify myself as disgruntled, but I do experience my fair share of aggravation from time to time while on the job. And in the greatest paradox about teaching, agreed upon by nearly all the educators I have met throughout the country; it’s typically not the students but other adults who cause most of these frustrations. Reprimands for writing homework assignments in my lesson planner with a pen instead of a pencil, using an outdated history book, and other serious infractions of that nature are bound to take the wind out of anyone’s sails.

Overall, I guess the awkward situation with my two colleagues flustered me a bit because I was looking for more sympathy and support in a profession where the average neophyte lasts less than three years. It aggravated me even more when I learned that one of them was my assigned mentor to whom I must pay five hundred dollars to help me navigate the tumultuous first year waters.

For the record, those two teachers were not bad people. I honestly think they were simply trying to help me with their own form of tough love, all in order to break me in to what they considered the realities of an urban public school. They just took the most convenient road to