Posted by memishc on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 in Blog posts.

 

During my interview with Alessandra, I learned that she has always lived in Cefalu, but she has both Italian and English origins due to her mother being from England and her dad being from Italy. Unfortunately, her mother passed away in 2002, but before that her mother lived in England, and she would often visit during the winters when Cefalu was dull and quiet. I also learned that all of her stepfamily is in England as well, which includes her stepsister and her stepbrother and her two nephews and nieces. Alessandra was also extremely excited to say that she is a great aunt, which amazed me. However, she explained that her mom and her stepsister had been pregnant at the same time, so by the time she was one month old she was already an aunt. On the other side of her family tree, her father’s family all lives in Cefalu and is extremely large and extended. Her father had ten other siblings, which she said was completely normal thirty years ago because people lived in the country and needed more hands to work. It was also hilarious when she declared that they also had more kids because back then television hadn’t been invented yet, so they needed something else to keep them entertained.

After we discussed her family, we moved on and talked about the school system here in Cefalu, and, more specifically, her experience at school. She noted that most people start school at age four, and stay there from ages four through six. After then people go to elementary school, then three years of lower secondary school, then upper secondary school, which she also called language school, and then university. The way the system works is that you’re supposed to know what you want to do in life at age thirteen when you have to decide what upper secondary school you want to go to, which includes schools that concentrate in the arts, the classics, math, and science. Then, if you pass every year of the upper secondary school, you’ll get to choose whatever university you want to go to, which concentrates in one field as well.

Her personal experience was a little different than normal. She changed a lot and didn’t exactly know what she wanted to do at age thirteen. Therefore, she began studying at a university in Sardinia for a year after language school and studied journalism. However, after that she came back to Cefalu and wanted to study languages so she could be apart of the Italian embassy. The only thing that prevented her from concentrating in that was that she had to work as well. Consequently, she changed her concentration to tourism, which she ended up graduating in. However, it took her four years to complete university due to her working in addition to school.

When talking about the school system, Alessandra stated that she believes that thirteen year olds are way too young to be making the big decision of what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Teenagers are definitely still changing their minds about what they want at age thirteen, and will drastically change from then until the time they go to university. She even said that if she went back in time she thinks she would have changed her mind and would have studied something different than what she did. I also asked her if her parents ever had any role in her decision making, especially when she was a teenager, in which she surprisingly replied no. She stated that her mother thought that if you are going to do something with your life, you must do something that you like. If you don’t, then it’s not going to be the job you want to do for the rest of your life, and you will be very unhappy. In addition, when you actually like the subject you are studying it will only take like an hour to study for it, but if you are studying something you don’t like it will take around four to five hours to study. Therefore, she had to make all the decisions herself as a young thirteen-year-old girl.

When I asked her about if she would change anything, she responded that she would create levels of classes based on a children’s ability. For example, she would want classes to be split into beginner, medium, and advanced classes, so the kids that are faster and better learners can go faster. In addition, the students that are slower can go at a slower pace and get more attention from the teachers while not being embarrassed that they cannot keep up with the pace of the others. She compared her proposed system to how in England they have levels for classes that are ranked A through C, and all vary between fast and slow paces of learning.

After discussing the school system here in Cefalu, I decided I wanted to discuss something completely different, which was food. I asked her what her food preferences were in which she said that she tends to stay on healthier side, but still loves all the “fatty foods” as well. She loves fresh vegetables, like artichokes prepared many ways and caponata. She also loves fresh fruits, sandwiches, fresh fish and meat. Funnily enough, she also said that one of her favorite drinks was coke. When I asked her about what the classic Sicilian foods are she responded pasta al forno and arancini and fresh fruit. I had never heard of pasta al forno before, so she explained to me that it is a ring-shaped pasta that is made in the oven with meat, sauce, and pine nuts. This made me extremely sad that I hadn’t tried it so far on the trip even though we are three weeks into our stay in Cefalu. Lastly, we discussed American food. Just as I thought she was going to make fun of how Americans eat, she said that yes she thinks about hamburgers and hot dogs when she thinks of American food, but she knows that most Americans don’t eat that everyday. This was a very fresh response from the usual jabs at American obesity and obsession with fast food.

I learned a lot about Italian culture from Alessandra. One thing being that there are definitely some major flaws in the schooling system here in Italy. I think that kids are definitely too young at age thirteen to be able to make decisions about what they want to do for the rest of their life. When I think about myself as a thirteen year old compared to myself now, the differences are amazing. For example, I think I wanted to be a baker back then, and now I want to go into the finance industry. Therefore, I can only imagine what kids in Italy have to go through. This makes me grateful for the wonderful education system we have in America and the many opportunities we have as a Vanderbilt University student.