First 4 days in Rome

I will start us off with the blog.  We are in Rome!  For those of you who don't know this, I was raised in Rome. I came to Rome when I was 2.5 and my parents were both of Indian origin. I went to an American school, American Overseas School of Rome (AOSR) for my elementary school and then went to a British school, St. George's English School (SGES) for middle and high school. I speak Italian fluently and still have a number of friends and connections in the city. I miss my friends as well as the sights, food, smells and sounds of Rome when I am in Seattle although there are lots of things I love about Seattle too.

This is my fourth study abroad program that I am doing and all of them have focused on the theme of youth, schools and immigration, which is my teaching and research specialization as a faculty at UW.  I am especially passionate about this topic here in Italy because I grew up as an immigrant of color in an immigrant family. Italy has many fascinating experiences related to immigration, the most notable being that even if one is born here, one is not automatically guaranteed citizenship here (unlike the United States) and the other being that Italy is a land of emigrants in that historically many people have emigrated to other countries but in the last 30 years, Italy has become a destination for a number of immigrants.

The students in the program mainly arrived on Friday. I wanted to provide them the weekend to recover from jetlag. They are all housed in Trastevere, a lovely neighborhood which many call the true heart of Rome, in three apartments. They have been settling in, buying groceries and exploring the neighborhood.

This first week, we are both providing an orientation to the Rome Center, where we are housed, our program and an orientation to the city.  Professor Nancy Hertzog from UW, an early childhood specialist is visiting and helping out this week. She is providing an overview and experiences related to how early childhood has developed and is implemented in Italy, focusing especially on the Reggio system of schools. For a quick overview of these schools, please look at the following site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach.

This morning the students and Nancy were taken by Virginia Agostinelli (who works with Rick Steves) on a historical tour of the city, which she will continue on Thursday. This afternoon we will continue with class. Tomorrow afternoon we will be all be visiting my elementary alma mater, AOSR, which has a Reggio inspired preschool!

We are enjoying the week of wonderful sunshine and the students are getting also acquainted with gelato here, cornetti, and pasta and pizza here, among many other inspiring things!  Stay tuned for the student blogs starting today/tomorrow.

Manka