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

I interviewed GianLuca, who lives in Cefalù with his wife Barbara. If you have ever entered the pizza take-away store Pizzica, GianLuca is the tall man with curly hair and glasses that always greets you with the biggest of smiles.  He and his wife started Pizzica four years ago and it consistently sells some of the best pizza in the city. GianLuca and Barbara are an extremely kind and humble couple and I would recommend going to Pizzica not only for its great pizza, but also to get to speak to one of them.

I was very interested going into the interview in Cefalù’s and Italy’s school system and had the opportunity to get his personal story and opinion on the subject. I became interested in this topic after learning that Italy has one of the lowest education levels of adults in the European Union and Sicily is one of the worst places in Italy for education. Although Italy has a law requiring public education until the age of 16, the law is basically useless because enforcing it is extremely hard.

GianLuca is 34 years old and was born in Cefalù. All of his family is here and he has lived here all his life. He went to school in Cefalù and explained that there are three different levels of schooling before university. In the interview he called the three levels children, medium, and superior, but in America we know those levels as nursery school, primary school and secondary school. He stated that nursery school goes from 3-4 years of age to 6, primary school goes from 6 to 11, and secondary school goes from 11 to 18. He went to school from nursery to secondary school, but chose not to go to college. I did not get the chance to ask him why he chose not to go to college. However, I got the feeling that he believed it was not necessary. He said he went to school and studied an industry. His particular industry was electrical, so he learned how to work on the electrical systems in houses and apartments. After he finished secondary school, he worked as an electrician and in a phone store until getting the idea to start Pizzica. I asked him if he would change anything about the school system in Cefalù. He gave a very insightful answer to my question that sheds light on the overall culture in Cefalù. He said that Cefalù is a tourist town and it is a great place for a young person to work in the months of May to October. However, it unfortunately gets barren and very quiet in the winter and there is a sharp decrease in jobs. So, when students in Cefalù graduate secondary school and choose not to go to university, there are jobs available in the summer for them to fill, but then almost nothing for them to do in the winter.

I asked him where he learned how to make the pizza he sells in Pizzica and he said that there are professional private pizza-making schools around Italy. He learned all his recipes and tricks of the trade there. I also asked him if he learned how to cook at all from his parents. He said that his mother only knew how to cook very basic things so he learned by himself. In addition, I was interested in what he believed to be the most important dish to both Cefalù and Sicily. He said that a dish called pasta taianu, which is pasta with eggplant and meat, is the dish most popular in and important to Cefalù. To Sicily, he believed that the most important dish is pasta sarde, which is a traditional pasta cooked with sardines. Lastly, I was quite interested in his impression of American cooking.  He stated that when he thought of American cooking he thought of a hamburger and fries. In addition, he jokingly said that Americans make bad Italian food. The best pasta and pizza, and food in general, he added, can be found in Italy. Some additional facts on GianLuca are that his favorite restaurant in Cefalù is Le Chat Noir and his favorite Pizzica pizza is the vegetarian pizza.

After speaking to GianLuca, I understand why the educational system in Italy is so different than that of the United States.  Moreover, it is that people in Italy and the United States have very different views on and attitudes towards education. From what I learned from GianLuca, the general attitude towards going to university is that it is not required; it is very laid-back. Yes, if you want to go to university, then its great if you go. However, he made it seem like it was very normal to choose not to go to university. In the United States, however, I feel as if the attitude towards getting a college degree is the opposite; a college degree in many cases is required and there are often negative effects if you choose not to get one. This difference in attitude is what stems Italy and America’s differences on higher education.