Today was a very interesting day at school.
1) I showed up to school on time for the first time since coming to Italy. (If you're wondering why this is the first time, it's because we drop off my host sister before going to my school.)
2) When I got to school, there were a lot of people just standing around; they weren't making an attempt to enter the school. I was suspicious that something might be happening.
3) I usually switch classes on Friday (a very strange thing to do in the Italian school system) so I can sit through a chemistry lesson, but not a single student was in the classroom. I'm like, "What?"
4) As I'm walking back to find my host mother, I'm noticing that about 85 percent of the classrooms are empty.
5) A lot of people (or at least the one who were actually at school) were dressed in white.
6) I was making some conclusions.
7) A lot of sticky notes (picture below) were posted all throughout the school with sayings like "+fondi -tasse" ("+funds -tax"), "scuola libera" ("school liberty"), "formazione democratica" ("democratic formation"), etc.
8) I found my host mother.
9) Yes, after 15 minutes of wondering what was going on and why there were so many people camped outside the school gates, she confirmed my assumptions that there was in fact a school strike in session.
10) I camped out in the teacher's lounge with the other Rotary inbound to Siracusa, Mats Hanson.
11) The police showed up.
12) Some students entered the school, the majority just got on their scooters and rode away.
13) School was canceled for the rest of the day.
So this whole ordeal was certainly a change from Madison, South Dakota. All of this is part of the experience, right?
I got on Facebook and I had friends all over Italy telling me their school was also on a strike.
I'm being told the strike was for reasons like not enough funding for the schools, too many hours in the school, and some people want an entire school reformation.
What a day.
Have an excellent weekend everyone!
AF
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