Italy:Carpi
From WAET
Caterina Poggi
Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Milano Politecnico University
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Geo-political descriptors
Emilia Romagna is a region in the North of Italy that includes a large portion of the fertile Pianura Padana plateau, crossed by the Po river (the longest in the nation). Agriculture and industry are very developed, as is tourism on the coast. Bologna is the administrative capital of the region. Some of the best Italian foods come from this area, including Parma ham, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar from Modena, lasagne from Bologna, and more. The historical centre of these towns are rich with artistic treasures, like the two towers of Bologna, the Battistero and Duomo of Parma, the medieval cathedral of Modena and the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini.
The teacher of the individual case lives in Modena and works in Carpi. Modena has about 180,000 inhabitants. Famous cars are produced in its province: Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and Bugatti. In addition there are many industries for the production of ceramics and machines for agriculture and industries. Agriculture and livestock (mainly cows and pigs) are also an important sector. Carpi is a rich town in the province of Modena, a textile district with a very large piazza. The population of Modena and Carpi includes an increasingly high number of immigrants from North Africa, the Balkans and China. The integration of these minorities is problematic as many of them work illegally.
 Figure 1. Modena cathedral |  Figure 2. Balsamic vinegar | |
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 Figure 3. Ferrari |  Figure 4. Parmigiano Reggiano | |
 Figure 4. Carpi |  Figure 5. Parma |
Liceo Scientifico Fanti
Fiorella M. is a Law teacher at Liceo Scientifico Fanti, a scientific-oriented high school in Carpi, in the province of Modena. She teaches in 9 classes of students between 14 and 16 years of age, for 18 hours a week. In addition she spends 40 hours per term in teacher councils, parents reception and end-of-term meetings with the other teachers to determine the students' final grades. Her classes consist of about 25 students, in some cases even 28 or 29. In the foreign languages specializations there are classes of 16 students. Some classes include disabled students, who - according to the seriousness of their disability as ascertained by the local public healthcare agency - are followed by a specialized support teacher for 6, 9 12, or 15 hours out of 30 a week. Many of them use computers. In the following paragraph Fiorella describes [1]her typical day.
"I enter the classroom at 8:00 a.m. I take the classroom register and my personal register, say good morning to the students and take the roll. From this year [2004-05], the classroom registry is adapted for electronic detection of absences: I draw a small black circle near the number of the absent pupil; then the secretary will pass the sheet under an optic reader. Thus for every student the computer provides a full record of his or her absences. I also note the absent students on my personal register and I write the topic of today's lesson (for example, the Foundations of Law, an oral test, a written test, etc.). Then, if there was any homework, I check that everyone has done it. Those who have not done it get a negative note (which does not count very much, but if there are many of them, and the final grade is not full, it may slightly decrease the grade; otherwise it may affect the student's conduct mark, which doesn't count at all). After that, either I explain the lesson or I ask questions to a few students. Often during oral tests, especially in numerous and noisy classrooms, I give the others exercises, such as tables they have to fill out, crosswords, and so forth. In order to avoid making too many Xerox copies, I give a floppy disk with the exercises or texts to some students so they can print them out and have them ready. Not every student has a computer at home, and many, especially girls, do not even know how to use a word processor program. Recently the school has activated courses in the afternoon to obtain the European computer license (ECDL) and many people attend them. The school has three computer laboratories, connected with a LAN and with Internet access. They are used especially by teachers of design using CAD programs, math and computer sciences. Students can stay in these laboratories only if a teacher is with them.
 Figure 7. Students in a Computer Lab |  Figure 8. Students in a Computer Lab |
In classrooms with disabled students, students with disabilities have a computer and a printer for their own personal use; however, even if these are not connected to the Internet, they are always full of viruses. There's a fabulous room reserved only to teachers, with five computers and two printers, one of which is laser printer. In the teachers' room there is another computer with printer. As there are more than 70 teachers, they often have to take turns in using computers, especially at the end of term when all absences and grades must be inserted in the system: report cards are compiled by the computer; they are not handwritten anymore, a recent change. For any problem with computers and printers there is a dedicated technician, who works hard to help teachers, plus another one who can't do anything (we all hope that he obtains permission to move to another school, and that we are sent a competent one). Some of the students of the technological specialization learned by themselves and can use an endless number of programs, but they are also a bit clumsy; in the other specializations everyone is taught at least the basic elements of computer sciences. My typical school day is very simple and continues at home with the correction of tests and the preparation of exercises and questionnaires."
Fiorella was born and lives in Modena (less than a hour drive from her school) with her husband and two of her three children. Her eldest son is 26 and is going to get married in 2005. One of her daughters is 25 and lives and works near Milano; she usually comes home for the week-end twice a month. Her youngest daughter is 18 and is attending her last year of high-school in a scientific lyceum in Modena. Fiorella has a computer and printer at home (although the printer has frequent virus problems), and she often uses it to type the questions of written tests. She has also spent a significant amount of time editing the research projects of her students, who had delivered both a paper and an electronic versions, to create a multimedia hypertext program on their research topic ("the foundations of law in Europe"), integrating the students' works with some additional texts and images that she had copied from a book. She typed the text and inserted the scanned images; before she had a scanner, she used to ask either her husband or one of her students to scan the pictures. When she does not know how to do something, for example, how to burn a CD, she usually asks a family member to help her. She asks for explanations and notes down the complete sequence of commands on a notebook. Her husband has a discrete computer expertise because he uses computers at work (he actually taught himself how to use a number of applications). The CD-Rom with the multimedia hypertext was submitted to a contest for multimedia works made by schools on a specific theme.
Fiorella's youngest daughter, Angela, likes to surf the Internet, search for images about movies, books or cartoons she loves, and send them by email to her friends. She rarely uses the computer for schoolwork. At school, she was involved with her class in an educational program based on a shared virtual 3D environment over the Internet, together with 3 other schools in Italy, Israel, and Belgium. The project lasted 2 months and included games, studying of materials, research homework and sharing of every class's work. (Information about the project at www.seequmran.it). The project focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, manuscripts written between the II century BC and 68 AD by a Jewish sect who lived near the Dead Sea: the teacher of Religion decided to register two of her classes for two years in a row as she thought the project could get her students engaged. Angela enjoyed it very much.
Involvement of community, non-profit organizations, foreign entities
The festival is organized by Cooperativa Sociale Nazareno, a non-profit organization in Carpi dedicated to the care, rehabilitation and integration in working activities of people with serious disabilities. Some hosts of this organization present every year a piece of drama. Most of the Festival's shows are especially dedicated to students of primary and secondary education. Every year Fiorella brings her students to see some of the Festival's shows.
Other institutions offering special programs for schools are theaters [2], museums (especially Natural History and Science Museums, whose audience largely consists of students in school-field trip) and environmental organizations (Treno Verde , the "Green Train", is a traveling exhibit by the environmental organization Legambiente, actually hosted on a train, sensitizing students on important environmental issues).
A non-profit organization can actually found its own school and run it, but this needs a great deal of work by many dedicated people. It also takes quite a number of years before the school is recognized by the Government as a non-profit organization offering a public service, and therefore receives any public contribution.
Major challenges in light of national goals and objectives
Fiorella has been teaching since she was 26. She has taught in many different schools and she also used to teach a different subject. Her case, although not common (usually teachers do not switch to a completely different area of teaching during their work life) reflects a problem that affects the Italian school system since the Seventies. In the following paragraph Fiorella tells about her teaching career.
"My career is somewhat anomalous. I graduated from high school in 1973 and I took the written part of a national competition exam for teaching technical education in middle schools. I didn't hear about the results for years. I went to the university and in 1976 I earned a degree in Business and Economy. I had some temporary jobs as substitute teacher, and then I was called to Rome to take the oral part of that famous national competition exam. The next year, 1979, I learned that I had won it and I got a permanent teaching post in technical education for middle schools: it was my first job as a full-year teacher and I just had to start right away, without any previous experience. [In September 1979 she was assigned to a school in a small town near Brescia, a three or four hours drive from home. Her son was one year old and her second child was born a couple of weeks before the beginning of the school year: she took the mandatory months of maternity leave, and then took the rest of the school year off. The following year she was luckily transferred to a school in Carpi, where she started teaching in 1980.]
Basically, the Ministry of Public Education had given way to the pressing claims of the unions, and had decided to hire a large number of teachers [in response to the increase of demand due to the children of the baby boomers coming to schooling age]. Then, about ten years later, the public expense had become unbearable and the Ministry had to proceed to a significant staff reduction. A huge number of teachers of technical education and gymnastic was affected by this downsizing: those who had the possibility chose retirement ("baby retired" teachers, 40 years old). Others took specialized training courses and became support teachers [for students with problems or disabilities]. Others, who, like me, had a degree, "recycled themselves" as high school teachers. I attended a "conversion" course that allowed me to take the national competition exam for teaching [Economy and Law] in high schools, and that's where I teach now. Luckily, nowadays teachers have to do one year of teaching practice under the supervision of a tutor before they start teaching." The Ministry of Education could only operate a partial staff reduction (workers cannot be fired in Italy), therefore the number of permanent teaching posts available in Italy is still small compared to the demand. Although salaries are low and career development is limited [3], the number of applicants for a teaching post is high, especially among women (in 2002-03 over 90% of teacher applicants for kindergartens and primary schools are women, between 60% and 83% in secondary schools) and in the South (62,96% of applicants is from Southern Italy; source: OCSE 2004) - possibly because it is one of the jobs best compatible with family responsibilities. Many schools have classes only in the morning, and holidays are longer than in most other jobs. Moreover, getting a permanent teaching post means securing a steady job until retirement, with maternity leave, sick leave, employment security and, in general, all the granted protections (the highest ones in comparison with the employees of both the state and the private sector).
The large number of teachers, the limited number of jobs and the decreasing birth rate [4]in Italy make it difficult for a teacher to get a permanent teaching post. Given the rapid decreasing birth-rate trends in Italy, the potential education demand will further decrease in the forthcoming years. Between 1975 and 1990 the number of enrolled students has decreased at all the education levels, although declines in birth rates have been partly moderated by an increase in schooling rates, and migratory flows may help to counterbalance the trend in the next years (OCSE 2004). When the demand is stagnant, teachers who occupy the lowest places in the national applicants list (compiled through a national competition exam) must wait for long before they receive any post and start working again, whereas even those at the top of the list may remain temporary teachers for a very long time - which may imply changing school every year, and having to teach in different schools in multiple locations during the same year. The demand is high almost exclusively for scientific or recently issued subjects, because teachers qualified to teach these subjects are in smaller numbers. (OCSE 2004)
Given the situation, there are many poorly motivated teachers, often resulting in poor education. Yet there remain teachers who are passionate about their work and their students, and try to make the best of the situation. Fiorella is one of them.
References
Cavalli, A. (2000). Gli insegnanti nella scuola che cambia - seconda indagine IARD sulle condizioni di vita e di lavoro nella scuola italiana (Teachers in the evolving school - second IARD survey on the conditions of life and work in Italian schools). Bologna, Il Mulino.
Eurydice (2004). Eurydice Report: Le cifre chiave dell'informazione e della comunicazione nella scuola in Europa (The key figures of information and communication in European schools). Retrieved November 26, 2004, from: http://www.eurydice.org
Jacomella, G. (2004). Gli insegnanti italiani sono i più vecchi (Italian teachers are the oldest ones). Retrieved November 19, 2004, from: http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2004/11_Novembre/19/insegnanti.shtml
MIUR - Ministry of Education, University and Research (2004, September). Survey on technological resources for education in Italian schools. Retrieved November 19, 2004, from: http://www.istruzione.it/mpi/pubblicazioni/2004/attrezzature_tecnologiche_04.shtml
MIUR - Ministry of Education, University and Research (2001). Technological innovation in Schools: Present and Future). Retrieved November 20, 2004, from: http://www.istruzione.it/mpi/pubblicazioni/ 2001/bilancio_italiano.pdf
OECD - Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2003). Teachers matter: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers; Country background report for Italy, July 2003. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/7/17997702.pdf
OTE - Observatory of Technology (2003). From computers to the network. Survey on computer networks in schools. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from: http://www.istruzione.it/innovazione/didattica/ote.shtml
SCUOLAB (n.d.) Projects Discetech and Bimbotech by Politecnico di Milano. http://www.scuolab.it
Notes
- The teacher's description has been translated from Italian as it was; no content editing has been made except notes in square brackets.
- "Teatro Giovani" is an initiative trying to encourage young people of Modena to go to the theatre. Discounted seasonal tickets are offered to students for a series of pieces that may be of interest to a young audience. School teachers sometimes encourage their class to adhere to the initiative.
- "Seniority progression is the only dynamic element of remuneration" (OCSE 2004).
- The total population aged 15-19 years is 15%, the lowest percentage in Europe; in the last two decades, it decreased at a higher rate than in most other countries. "Italy is the second country in the world with the eldest population, the first one being Japan." (OCSE 2004)
About the Authors
| Caterina Poggi is PhD student in Computer Science at Politecnico di Milano. She graduated in Communication Sciences at University of Lugano (Switzerland). Her research interests focus on multimedia applications for edutainment, in particular educational 3D worlds, virtual museums and cultural heritage applications. As member of the HOC lab of Politecnico di Milano, she is in charge of monitoring the educational effectiveness of programs for schools, including Learning@Europe and Stori@Lombardia. |  |
Citation
APA Citation: Poggi, C. (2005). Italy:Carpi. In M. Orey, T. Amiel, & J. McClendon (Eds.), The web almanac of educational technologies. Retrieved <insert date>, from http://www.waet.uga.edu/
