My two-hour-a-week job at a Venetian nursery school was, strangely enough, Berlusconi’s idea. In order to conquer the ills plaguing Italy, the then prime minister proposed the Three I’ Initiative: Imprese, Internet and Inglese. A focus on enterprise, web technology and English from toddler-age up is, he argued, the key to increasing Italy’s future competitive edge.
At the risk of sounding political, I do have a few qualms about the project, which ultimately stem from my limited knowledge of three-year-olds. Kids are language sponges’ is a great axiom, and far be it for me to discredit the English-through-osmosis theory. However, in the poor kids’ defense, with 120 minutes of English every seven days, you’ve got to be one serious sponge for something to actually stick.
I had yet to begin my preschool English adventure when the secretary called with a subbing emergency. The teacher’s assistant was sick; was I free to stand in for the day and, perhaps, start my English lessons a week early? The work-day would last a whopping eight hours. My job was to assist signorina Chiara.
Robert Fulghum learned all he ever needed to know in kindergarten. I, on the other hand, learned a single lesson on my first day at nursery school: the Italian passion for fashion stems from the country’s educational system. Why? Because, young habits die hard and preschool in Italy is all about changing clothes. Repeated rounds of Slippers on, shoes off’ was the closest we came to an organized game the entire morning. The majority of our outdoor time was, in fact, spent in the coat closet. The interminable bundle-up-strip-down process quickly convinced me that kids should bring just one glove to school. Realistically, its partner never makes it to Garden Time Two.
Signorina Chiara was one of those lovely Miss-Nancy types and we would have made noteworthy partners except that we both harbor a semi-phobic feeling for liquids. From what I could see, she shuddered at the utter wickedness of water. I, on the other hand, feared a run-in with runny noses. Not that the children’s snot is really a liquid-before you can say schifo, it solidifies on their upper lips like gummy worms. No exaggeration, preschoolers are magnets to microbes and it’s not their fault. That said, Kleenex’ should actually be a verb. A hopeful but virtually powerless verb. No matter how diligently I Kleenexed their faces, my efforts to stop the gummy invasion came to naught. The worms kept reappearing.
No more successful than I, signorina Chiara lost her war against water. Their parents will be angry if we send the children home wet’, she fumed worriedly after the half-hour hand-washing session. She had apparently discarded the possibility that damp cuffs would most likely dry in the three hours before pick-up and proceeded to change each child into his or her spare outfit’.
Apparently, in this country, one millimeter of wet sleeve warrants an additional tour of the wardrobe.
Once she got everyone’s dry shirts safely re-tucked, signorina Chiara backed me into a corner where a pile of English books lay stacked higher than our students’ shoulders.
>Perhaps you can read a story?’ she suggested.
Yes. Whatever. As long as nobody got undressed, I was game.
I turned to page one of the Teddy Bears’ Picnic and was just learning that Mr. and Mrs. Bear were planning a much-needed trip to the country when Riccardo interrupted their outing.
>Sing!’ the child demanded, as if the word were a growl and he were a grizzly.
Unfortunate though it was, this otherwise adorable tot seemed to have mastered the imperative form during recess.
>Sing?’ I repeated dumbly.
>Sing the cloud song’.
Hmm. While I could recall several tunes about storms, not a single cloud song floated through my sky-blue mind. Oh well. Fifteen years of language teaching does much to bolster resourcefulness. Had Riccardo not been sitting on my feet, I would have performed a Gene Kelley twirl and belted out three bars of Singing in the Rain’. As it was, the weight of his stocky frame had paralyzed me from the knee down, squelching any chance of a tap dance. I needed an alternative source of inspiration. The next song that came into my head was, of course, Caramba, beviamo del whiskey, an Italian campfire song inspired by the Old West that never was. I resisted. It wasn’t in English, and although most Italian parents are not declared prohibitionists, it’s never wise to risk it on your first day.
We settled for The itsy-bitsy spider’. I say settle’ because anyone who has taught English for more than three lessons fully realizes that the song is appropriate only for students preparing to take the prepositions portion of the Cambridge exam. Itsy’ is not even a real word and water spout’ will get you nowhere in life. But Riccardo took to the bitsy tune as if it were il fatto bello della settimana-which made the boy himself the beautiful fact of the week.
