(Yeah, I’m in Chicago, but let’s pretend
I’m not)
Overall, this last camp was pretty
good. My class loved all the songs
and games I taught them, and they were incredibly silent when working in their
books. But there was one boy, most
accurately described as a computer geek with poor social skills, who often
sought physical resolutions to social problems. And the girls were
relentless. They openly teased him
and whenever we practiced the group bow at the end of the show, it always took
10 seconds before anyone would hold his hand.
(Pictured- The soccer-playing dog) I’d imagine it’s difficult to address
bullying in a monolingual environment.
It’s pretty much impossible in the ACLE environment when a tutor doesn’t
speak fluent Italian. The directors
lectured the girls every day but they couldn’t be in class all the time and my
Italian is nowhere near good enough to address these situations, even when I
can tell what’s going on.
(Pictured - Montepulciano) On Wednesday at one point he pulled me
out of the classroom and brought a helper over (we have teenage helpers at
camp). Through the helper, he told
me that he didn’t want to be alone in class anymore and that he knew I couldn’t
understand what they were saying to him but that someone had to do
something. I did the most I
thought I could, made sure he was a part of set painting and at least felt
included in the games. But these
were band-aids that quickly peeled off.
(Pictured - The Foiano staff) There was a similar problem in the middle
class of 9-10 year olds. There
were several boys in that group but three of them stuck with each other and one
was left for abuse by the girls in that class. They passed a note around saying they would bash his teeth
in (which the directors laughed off, I still don’t understand), even though he
was a really sweet kid. So he and
the boy in my group became friends (at least for a day or two), even though
they were totally different personalities.
(Pictured - Most of my class, boy missing) I really did enjoy the kids at the camp
for the most part (especially after last week...), but I think the bad times in Foiano are more interesting/memorable. On Friday I was supervising all the
kids at the beginning of lunch, which is hard given that it was a big school
with lots of escape routes from the central courtyard. I saw from afar that one of my girls
was near the fence to the park behind the school, outside of the
courtyard. When I got closer, I
saw that in fact four of my girls were already behind the fence, climbing up a
steep sandy hill. I yelled at them
and told them to come back, which they did. But to return they had to step on top of a wobbly chainlink
fence (presumably how they got over in the first place), then onto a more
sturdy gate, before jumping on the ground. It’s hard to describe, but it was NOT SAFE.
We’d had a lot of issues at this camp
with kids wandering into the gym or up to the classrooms unsupervised, but
nothing super dangerous. This was
super dangerous. So after I helped
them all down I got them in a circle and got really angry. They laughed. When one of the directors came back about 45 minutes later,
I explained what happened. Since
she’d laughed off the “we’ll bash your teeth in” incident, I didn’t expect
much. 15 minutes later, all four
girls came up to me sobbing. The
director explained that she told them I got angry at them out of concern for
their safety, and they told her that they felt guilty because they thought I
was a good tutor. I told them that
what they did was not intelligent (always with the basic English), but that I
wasn’t angry anymore. That didn’t
stop them from spending the next 20 minutes crying together in a bathroom
stall. But they got their game faces
back on for show practice and everything was ok.
Outside of camp, my host mom took me town-hopping. We went to Cortona, an ancient Etruscan town now famous for "Under The Tuscan Sun," Montepulciano, famous for Nobile wine (waaaaaay better than Chianti Classico), and Pienza, a beautiful really old-looking "perfect" Renaissance town.
I think I’ll do one more wrap-up post
about the final final show and some other things I don’t want to forget to
remember.
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