Good morning my friends and happy Tuesday!
I hope you had a great weekend. We did: my husband was back home from a week long trip to Europe, so we enjoyed spending time together: we went to Legoland, which the kids love and always ask about visiting, we had a wonderful brunch in Boston on Sunday morning and we watched some tv!
It`s the beginning of a new week, Winter break is over and I don`t have any sick kids at home, it seems so strange to be able to work without interruptions, I wasn`t used anymore!!
Today I wanted to talk to you some more about the differences between the US and Italy, in particular I wanted to discuss about the school system. I am aware though that what I know about the Italian school system goes back to many, many years ago when I went to elementary school, so I could make some mistakes in assuming that the US school organization is different in some cases. Let`s say that I will list below the things that surprised me (always in a positive way) about schools here…
Aurora started Kindergarten this year, so I will talk a little about it.
1-KINDERGARTEN
The first big, big difference is that in Italy we don`t have Kindergarten. When kids turn 3 years old, they can be enrolled in the public school system which means that they will go to what is called `scuola materna`, or maybe `scuola dell`infanzia` (not sure how it is called now) from 3 years old to 6 years old and they will not have to pay. Here in the US the system is private, so it is up to the parents to find a daycare for their kids from when they decide to send their kids to school, until the kid turns 5 years old, when they can start kindergarten and enter the public school system. Of course a parent can choose to send his kids to a private elementary school.
What is kindergarten? Kindergarten is a transition to elementary school, the kid is not in first grade yet, but he will go in the same building where the elementary school is, he will learn letters, numbers, how to spell words, how to read and how to do simple math, so essentially he will learn everything that in Italy we learn in 1st grade, I am under the impression that kids here start one year earlier with Kindergarten, but maybe my Italian friends can comment below and let me know, kids probably learn the same things as kindergarteners during the last year of scuola materna.
2- AGE CUT
The other big difference is that a kid in order to attend Kindergarten has to be 5 years old on September 1st, if the birthday is on September 2nd, the kid will have to wait one year to go to school. In Italy kids can go to elementary school during the year they turn 6. So for example my boys have their birthday on September 6th, so they will not be able to start kindergarten the year they turn 5, because school will have started before they are 5, but they will go the following year and will turn 6 a couple days after school started. I am not particularly concerned because I think that they will have one extra year to mature.
3- EMAIL UPDATES FROM THE TEACHER
What surprised me a lot here was that the teacher after a couple days of school sent me an email letting me know how Aurora was doing. I was shocked! It meant that she took the time to analize each kid, assess how they were doing and she sent personalized e mails to the parents of her 20 students… amazing! I am sure this didn`t happen three+ decades ago in Italy when I was in elementary school, but maybe it is happening now. The teacher keeps sending weekly updates every Sunday morning letting the parents know what they will be doing during the week in class in every subject. As for subjects, I was impressed again by the variety of activities the kids are involved in: they spend time with their teacher, but every day they have an extra subject, like art, music, library or gymnastics. This probably happens in Italy too, but I am not sure if it is scheduled and organized as it is here.
4- SCHOOL SUPPLIES
Another big difference is that here the parents don`t have to provide anything as far as school supplies: no pencils, no pens, no markers, no pencil pouch, no diary, nothing! Aurora just has a blue folder (provided by the school) which is divided into two parts: one part contains the communications from school to home and the other part contains communications from home to school, so if I have to send something to school, I will place it in the correct part of the folder and the teacher will get it during her daily check.
5- PTO
The reason why the families don`t have to provide anything is that there is the so called PTO, an group of moms who work with the school in order to raise funds for the school. The funds will be used for school supplies (paper, pens, crayons, pencils, glue and whatever the kids might need), field trips, parties and much more. In order to get funds they organize parties, ruffles, auctions, movie nights, and much more (I am not even aware of all the work they do because this is my first year in the school system!!).
I think this is it for today, I hope you find this post interesting, it is always nice to get to know the differences between countries, right? As we go on, I will be aware of more differences and I think I will be able to write a new post .
I hope you have a great week and I will meet you here on Friday
Anna