Posted by amalfesa on Friday, June 3, 2016 in Blog posts.

For my interview, I had a conversation with Giusi Amalfa, one of my Sicilian relatives and a valuable resource for information about life on the island.  The interview was conducted in both English and Italian as each of us enjoys working on our non-native tongue.  Giusi is 40 years old, and has lived her entire life in Milazzo, a small city near Messina.  Her family has always been close-knit to the extent that they own three houses in a row on one street for immediate and extended family members.  They also own a few acres behind the houses where the family business of vegetation production is located.  The most popular product is surprisingly their palm trees, which usually take over 30 years to grow.  Upon attending the U.S. high school equivalent (liceo), Giusi gained an interest in both history and foreign culture.  That passion for foreign topics extended to language as she began to learn as much as she could in English, Spanish, and French.  After completing her 5 years at the liceo level, Giusi decided to specialize in foreign language at a university.  She chose Università di Messina because of its close proximity to her home and its program for “lingue straniere” (foreing languages).  She earned her 4 year degree, and went on to do assistant teaching in both English and Spanish as the capstone portion of her collegiate program.

She enjoyed both her higher education experiences in Sicily and then went on to become a teacher of foreign languages at the primary school level.  She has now been a teacher for the age spectrum of 6-12 for 15 years and has grown to love the profession.  Currently, she teaches English to students in primary school from the ages 6-9.  However, this year is part of a transitional phase for Italian education and instruction.  Throughout the country, teachers are evaluated on performance of students and parental reviews.  Unfortunately, Giusi will be transferring to mainland Italy in September, but does not know to which region, school, or level until the final results are gathered.  She believes that the current education process within Sicily and Italy at-large is more well-constructed than it had been while she was a budding student.  However, education has been affected much like most other industries during hard economic times for the European nation.  Furthermore, Sicily, with little to no exports and limited support from its parent government is at the extreme of an overall dimly lit economic spectrum.  It follows that the job market is slimming even for teachers.  It saddens me that not only does my cousin have to move away from her family for work, but also that the country cannot support a sufficient supply of the people who provide knowledge to future populations.  Education is a key component of any society wishing to solve systemic problems, and Giusi did not seem to think the Italian government valued that assertion enough.