Moving to Italy: School--Part 2

The new asilo stood alone on a small lot encircled by a fence. It was not a leftover room that had been turned into a preschool; it was built with forethought, not as an afterthought.   When we went to check it out, the tall gate was shut so we parked outside, and walked down the long driveway that bisected the lot, past the play equipment, to the main building. School was out for the day, and all was quiet. The teachers were three nuns, trained to do only that—teach. One of them was our guide. 

Younger and more energetic than the nun in Cerrina, she showed us four main rooms: one for desk work, one for playtime, one for play-acting, and one for quiet time. We saw opportunities by the score for our boys to grow: percussion instruments and puzzles, construction toys, tea cups, costumes and cars, a stage and a stove, an electric keyboard ready for curious children to play, and a piano where everyone gathered to sing. The children were split up between older and younger, so the older ones wouldn’t be held back. The nun said no naps if you were five and had given them up—Paul would like that. She showed us little exercise books of prewriting exercises, and writing when they were ready. They taught the older children to write all the letters of the alphabet, and to draw birds, flowers, and houses.  Also, they had little projects like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards. I was relieved. All of these activities would help Paul get ready for first grade. They seemed to try first to get the child's interest, and let him take it from there, just making sure that the right materials and guidance were available. The sister didn’t mention the ground-breaking Italian educator Maria Montessori, but I recognized her philosophy and methods. The outside equipment didn't look like much, but after the other school, the inside was heaven.  

Off to the side was a long room that alerted me to my support duties. A row of miniature towels hung over a bank of cubbies where the lunchboxes would go. Each towel was provided by the family and embroidered with the child’s name. He would bring it clean on Monday and take it home dirty on Friday. He must bring a sandwich in his lunch box, but soup was provided by the school. And each of our boys would need an apron to cover his clothes. The school put a new child on a half-day schedule for the first two weeks and expected that a parent or grandparent might have to stay for a day or two, so that the child was broken in easily. How much more humane this seemed than the other nun’s “Go! Go!”  No one there knew English, so our boys would immerse themselves in the language and culture of Italy, their new land. All this, and it cost less than the other asilo. We signed them up on the spot.

We had already bought lunch boxes for the other preschool, so I bought towels to match—blue-striped and orange-striped—and I embroidered their names in Italian on the top of each one: Paolo and Giacomo.  I then sewed a loop to hang them on the little nail in the wall.  Marino talked to a tailoress (his term) who would make them each a blue-checked grembialino (little apron) to cover their clothes. It was a cotton, mid-thigh smock with three-quarter length sleeves that buttoned in the front. (Sadly the only picture of them wearing it is lost.)

Paul went first, so James wouldn't distract him with tears. He came home with stories of boys that he met, and games that they played, running up “mountains” and fighting off crime. We took James and stayed with him for a few days then, on one half-day, we left him whimpering in the arms of a short, kindly nun. When we picked him up he was smiling. The little nun told George that she held him for five minutes, and he clung to her legs for five more. Then he made her sit down and listen to him talk. In Italian, he spoke of his family, every last one of us, who we were, what we did, where we had come from and where we now lived. He talked on and on for half an hour, and then he stood up, smiled, and went to play.

The philosopher Charles Taylor says, "I define who I am by defining where I speak from, in the family tree, in social space...in my intimate relations to the ones I love."  James did exactly that.  He defined himself and his position in his home, and only then did he feel secure enough to reach out to the community around him.

Without the tools of language, I struggled to do the same.