Bambini in Scuola

And "The Day I Thought Would Never Come" has come. I have just returned from taking the kids to their first day of school. Or more accurately, I rode the school bus with them and grabbed a ride home with some other parents I know. Everyone was so excited, including me. This kids are going to a private school, along the lines of a private prep school like Grosse Pointe Academy (for you Detroiters). The classes are taught in English, although I'm guessing about 90 or 95% of the kids are Italian - so we have the best of both worlds. The kids will learn Italian on the playground and they also have about 4 hours of Italian language and culture class a week and they have the comfort of their first language for most of the day from the teachers. They wear uniforms and everyone looked so cute this morning in their white polos, dark blue shorts and their blue baseball caps. The school put Isabelle in first grade and the boys in third grade because having English as their first language gives them a head start over most of the kids at the school. I think it may be more of a challenge for Isabelle because she is jumping right into a first grade curriculum versus the boys who are kind of in something that looks like grade 2.5. I'm a little sad for Isabelle that she is missing the soft and comfy version of kindergarden in the U.S. like the boys had. That being said, I'm sure she will have a great year and she (and I) are both ready for her to be in school all day. (And if she misses anything, no problem, she will do first grade again anyway next year.) Nick's teacher is a young Polish woman who grew up in Poland, Canada and Mexico and recently taught at an international school in India for 2 years. She has lots of energy and ideas for the class - for example, she wants each child to bring in a plant for the classroom to purify the air and already had all the mommies in an uproar because she wasn't going to have the kids study their spelling words over the weekend but wait until Monday. She and Nick will get along famously in the way that we were lucky to have had teachers at Richard who really understood & liked Nick for all his quirkiness. Sam's teacher is probably close to 60 years old and is the real life version of Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter - picture British school marm and you're there. Sam-structure-rules & order - can it get any better? She is a lot like his kindergarden teacher. Although, I know he had a huge crush on his first grade teacher, misses her terribly and will probably forever compare every teacher to his dear Ms. Bendure. Isabelle, who is now in her 3rd school at the tender age of 5 has a very nice teacher, who everyone loves and except for one other little red-haired English girl, none of the kids in the class speak a word of English. So we are expecting that Isabelle's Italian will be better than all of ours in about 2 months.

The kids ride a little bus to school and the bus driver is like having your smiling, friendly Italian grandpa give you a ride to school. There were a couple of other kids on the bus, one older boy from Maryland and an adorable 5 year old Italian bambina who was very proud to speak English to me and helped as a translator for me with the bus driver. And this being Italy, she stood up next to the driver for the whole ride so she could get a better look out the window. Sit down? Seat belts? Ahh, why bother?

The kids only have half days this week, so I will now go and enjoy my first morning of peace and quiet in a long time!

Postscript on the first day of school: Sam came home fighting back tears and said "You said my teacher was like Mrs. Schulte, she's nothing like Mrs. Schulte - she's Darbus!" (from the movie High School Musical which I am assuming that every child under the age of 16 has seen this summer - we know all the words to the songs, do you?) Mrs. Schulte was Sam's kindergarden teacher who he loved. He was also mad because they spent the morning learning to spell words in English that he already knew like head, bed, egg, etc. Although after some prodding, Sam told a great story about how the girl next to him in class, Sofia, asked him his name & age in Italian and he answered her in Italian. He was very proud of himself. He also earned 2 bonus points for being quiet when the teacher was talking. Isabelle came home with a big smile because the other little red haired girl that I thought was English (her name is Agnes) is really German and gave all the children in her class a gift from Germany. Isabelle got a little harmonica and spent the afternoon walking around Padova practicing to be the next generation girl version of Bob Dylan. Also, in gym class ("gynnastica" as Isabelle said) she won some running game called Bunnies & Foxes because she was the last bunny with her tail and proceeded to explain some game that sounded like a first grade version of flag football. I met the gym teacher, he is a great guy about 25, beefy with a shaved head & matching five o'clock shadow with a thick English brogue who just came back from teaching in Germany and as he told all the parents, "I'm a footballer and boxer" so the kids will have lots of fun with me this year. Isabelle thought he was a lot of fun. Isabelle also nonchalantly told me, "I chatted in Italian with one of the Italian language teachers today." When I asked her what they "chatted" about, she said "I don't know it was in Italian! Apparently, Isabelle's definition of "chatting" doesn't necessarily require that you really know much about what is going on in the conversation. Hmm, I know lots of people like that. Nick didn't have much to say, made a French friend and had big smiles on his face. Everyone was happy & ready to hop on this bus this morning, without me, which put a big smile on my face.