Where for art thou, Rome?

So, just found out this week that our group would be leaving for Rome next weekend and spending a day or so in Florence on the way… then just yesterday were told that we may be in the Lombardia area a little longer, and then go to Rome in a month or so. So, we probably will not know what our tour will be for sure until we are in the car and headed in a specific direction. These kinds of quick changes are good for me, because I am such a planner and a control freak. I like to always know what is ahead so that I can plan accordingly for it. So, I am hoping that through these next few months I will adopt the flexible attitude that is innate in most Italians and take it away with me when I leave here.

Workshops. Workshops. Workshops.

When I walk into a classroom to conduct a workshop the students are usually told to sit in their desks and they repeatedly hear, “Silencio!” from there teacher. But then the first thing I say to the students is, “Hello everyone! Move your desks to the wall. We need to make a big circle.” This is usually accompanied by several gestures to help with comprehension, depending on the level of English. Typically the students will move their desks to the surrounding walls, and then sit back down in them. I have to tell them repeatedly to come into the center of the room and form a circle, and this idea appears to be completely foreign to them. For the entire time that these actions are being performed, the students check in with their teacher (if the teacher is in the room) to make sure that it is ok to be doing what they are doing. More often than not, the teacher looks as confused and distressed as the students do during this furniture rearrangement. After the students have formed a circle with me, I begin the workshop.

In this introduction to the workshop it is troubling to me that the students are staggered by this action of getting out from behind a desk in a classroom to learn. Since I have been working here, each day I am struck with this same thought and it seems to be continuously circulating in my head… The importance of seeing beyond the way things appear to be, and seeing the potential that they have. Basically, the main point being to color outside the lines. This concept may not seem to be an important one, but I know in my heart, and from observation that change does not come from one operating the way that they always have, but by going against the grain and perceiving life in a different way. This is a generalization, but for the most part I feel like Western education does focus on learning through doing, but in Italy, one could study a subject and only be taught through a book and not through experience. I feel that in some small way I could be altering the way that the students think about learning, and possibly bridging this idea on a much larger scale- changing the way that they perceive the world around them.

I feel very blessed that I was raised to not settle for the mediocre and to not become complacent or satisfied with the way that the world around me is presented, but to question things, and to see beyond the way things appear to be. I think that very often, especially in school settings, this ideal can be confused with a rebellious nature. However, in this context, I feel that it is only an expansion of one’s self and exercising the right to think independently.

So, yeah… these are the things that I keep thinking about.

On a lighter note...

This past weekend, my friend Camber and I spent the day in Milan and it was lovely! We shopped, and had the best cannoli ever! And, this was on Chinese New Year and a parade began as we were walking downtown and we were amidst it all. We also went to a carnival that was near the "castle" downtown and it proved to be an experience as well. A fun weekend indeed.

This blog was super serious and wordy.