Читать книгу From Sicily to Connecticut - Paul Pirrotta - Страница 6

In school, I started out as a lion, muddled through as a lost sheep and finished as a tiger.

Across the street from where I was born lived a teacher who held private lessons for kids and, probably more important from my perspective, served lunch. I loved to go to her home and sit in with the other kids, all of whom were older than I was. The problem was that my parents were not paying for me to go there so I did not get lunch, which usually consisted of a panino, a roll filled with mortadella or jelly. I came home crying and my mother arranged to pay for my lunch so that I could go to this private tutoring sessions—not to study, but to eat!

Somehow I must have learned pretty fast and well, because I never went to first grade and I started school at six years old in second grade. Few kids were allowed to do that then or now, so I must have shown a certain level of knowledge or understanding or reading that allowed me to do so.

I started elementary school in 1956 in second grade. The school year began October 1 and usually ended in early June. We went to school six days a week and had only one teacher for the entire day and for all subjects. School days would start around 8am and end by 1pm, and I would usually walk to school since it was about five minutes away from my home. As was common then, we wore a dark blue gown-like garment, usually over shorts and knit shirt. I believe we also wore a white ribbon, almost like a bow tie.

I also remember going to a convent for schooling and my first experience with nuns. And like nuns everywhere else, they were mean, there’s no other way to say it.

There are a few things to know about the five-year elementary schools in Sicily in the 1950s. Teachers were absolute dictators with the power and the willingness to rule unopposed. Corporal punishment was not only allowed but encouraged and an integral part of teaching and raising kids. Classes were not mixed; boys and girls were segregated, each to their own classes. Homework load was heavy. We were subject to oral and written examinations and also had to pass one final exam before being allowed to go from elementary school to middle school.

I did just fine in elementary school. I was not a troublemaker, just a curious and vivacious child like many others. I don’t recall many events but two somehow have stuck in my mind. One was being punished—for God only now knows what—by being made to stand in back of the blackboard, which stood upright on an easel, for an entire hour.

The second incident is more vivid. The father of a student in my class knocked on the door and was let in by the teacher. The students rose in a sign of respect as we were taught to do, and the teacher greeted the father, who asked about a black-and-blue mark on his son’s forehead in what, at least in the eyes of the teacher, was a threatening manner. At this point the teacher, a diminutive person not known for his courage, raced out the door and slammed open the door to the classroom next to ours. Out came another teacher, a bulky, burly man, who rescued our teacher from the irate parent. Nothing came of it, but the whole town knew what had happened and that teacher was marked for life as not too brave.

So I got to middle school; remember, I am ten years old, when all the other boys are eleven. Middle school provided two different venues: Media and Avviamento. The kids who expected to go on to high school or liceo attended Scuola Media, while the kids who, because of financial or family reasons, would not go on to high school but would instead look for a job attended Avviamento, which was more like a trade school. There was a lot of class stigma back then, and going to Avviamento was one such stigma. The up-and-coming middle class wanted their children to succeed and this required attending Media. I went to Scuola Media.

Middle school consisted of a three-year program, but unlike elementary school here we were taught by several teachers, and uniforms were mostly out. The classroom system worked like this: the kids remained in the same classroom and the professors came to us, which quite honestly in my mind works better than the system here in the U.S., with kids constantly changing class. I said earlier that I muddled through my middle years and sure enough, that is what happened. I did well my first year; the second year I had to go to summer school to make up a couple of subjects, but eventually I went on to the last year, where I actually failed. I had to go back the following year to attend and pass the last grade of middle school.

Sometimes I wonder how I survived this stage. To say that my parents (really more my mother) were disappointed would be the biggest understatement of the millennium. And of course punishment meant that my mother would try to hit me; fortunately I was a lot faster than her and I could always escape next door to my grandmother, who would protect me! What happened to that brilliant student who blazed thru elementary school? Lack of focus, not working hard enough because I had always learned so quickly, girls and soccer; in other words, normal growing pains. Plus, I happened to be in the last class to be required to learn Latin. I hated Latin as much then as I am grateful now for having been exposed to it!

I still vividly recall events from my middle school.

The professor of Italian was a stocky woman, local from our town, who was a real terror: I mean, nobody would breathe inside that classroom when she was teaching. As I mentioned earlier, we were tested in both written and oral form. One of my classmates was at the teacher’s desk, standing on the platform upon which the teacher’s desk was also positioned. He had a book open to the Iliad in front of him and was answering a question about Achilles. Except he got it all wrong. The next thing I know, he is lying on the ground. The teacher had hit him so hard with a slap to his face for not knowing the correct answer that he had fallen off the platform to the ground! Talk about intimidation.

I hated drawing class, primarily because I cannot draw anything. The professor was a knowledgeable fellow, intelligent but also very fiery. He always railed on the same topic: teachers were not paid enough and the custodians were paid more than teachers. He must have had a lot of mercy on me, because while he failed me the first time I had him, he was a lot kinder the second time around and somehow gave me the minimum grade I needed to go on.

Once in a while we had substitute teachers and we were never kind to them! Now, looking back, I say we were so cruel that we should have been put in jail. Especially revolting was one day when our substitute was a fellow who suffered from crossed eyes. Being the heartless and mindless kids we were, and him being too kind of a person, we abused him to a degree I have never forgotten and for which I now am ashamed. Using the tube of our pens we would launch wet pieces of paper to fly like bullets around the room, and I am sure they hit him on several occasions, although he never said anything. Terrible.

Anyway, I made it out of middle school and decided to go on to study Ragioneria, accounting.Why? Easy; it was the only program that did not require a drawing class! I swear, that was the basis of my decision.

High school in Sicily is composed of a five- year program. I needed to travel daily to Siracusa by bus, about 20 kilometers away, because our town did not have any high schools at that time.

The first two years were very tough ones for me, for the same reasons I did not do well in middle school: lack of focus, not working very hard, diversions with girls and sports. A break-up with my girl was tough on me and I tried to get more involved in sports, even tried shot put: I stunk. I managed to get promoted to the second grade of high school, but unfortunately it all caught up with me the second year and I was bocciato, failed: I had to repeat that grade the following year. In 1966 I started my second time in the second year; finally I guess I had matured enough and I did much better at school from then on.

In Italy we have a saying: non tutto il male viene per nuocere, similar to the English, “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Certainly, being left back taught me valuable lessons. Of course I had to explain to my parents why I wasn’t progressing as I should, and that was not easy. My father tended to be away working so I saw little of him, but my mother was another story, tough and unforgiving. However, as I said earlier, several things happened in ‘66 that turned my schooling around: I was placed in a classroom with what would turn out to be some of my best friends, and I started attending school in the afternoon sessions, as there were not enough classes to house all students in the morning. Fact is that from October 1966 to August 1970 when I graduated, I was one of the more accomplished students with nary a single problem or hiccup.

I believe we had about 25 to 30 kids in the classroom, and unlike the U.S., this core group of kids remained together for the next fours years, which allowed us to bond in so many ways. They were the brothers and sisters I never had! I will never forget the words of one of our professors, who told us then that the friendships formed at school are so much stronger than any others simply because this bond is based on true friendship and no other selfish interest. Absolutely correct!

The school I attended, Istituto Tecnico A. Rizza of Siracusa, was effectively a regional high school with kids attending from any number of towns in the province of Siracusa. I was the only one from my hometown, and quite honestly I liked that I did not have anyone to report back about me, good or bad. I usually took the bus at 1 pm, arrived in Siracusa by 1:45, started school at 2:15 pm and finished between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. I often bought dinner at a tavola calda, fast food Italian style, or a panino at a local salumeria(deli) then caught the 8 pm bus, which got me back in town by 8:45 pm. I went home, changed, and went out to the bar to meet my friends. I stayed there most nights until 11 pm or midnight, when I would walk back home. The next day I would sleep late, get up, study and get ready to start all over again, six days a week, eight months a year.

School was tough! There was lots of homework and tough exams, both written and oral. The oral exam could happen at any time, usually when I was least prepared! We students played kind of a guessing game with the teacher as to when we might be called next in that particular subject. Actually, we did pretty well in guessing, as every teacher had a system they used and which, sooner or later, we would learn.

The relationship with my classmates evolved into a mutual support society, and not only for school. In the classroom it was understood that those of us who had the ability to solve problems faster or better were responsible for “sharing” that information with those mates who were not as capable. I and three classmates were acknowledged as a smart group that could help people in need. We sat in the last row and used all kinds of tricks to communicate information to our classmates when necessary, usually when we took written exams in, say, math. I am not defending the practice, but that was the way it was, a kind of Communist system that allowed us to move students along who needed a little help…by helping them cheat on the test.

The 60s were a time of upheaval and mass demonstrations and those issues engulfed our school as well. We were activists, left-leaning and willing to strike for any reason. Every year for four years we went on strike the first week of October to protest the lack of classrooms that forced some of us to go to school in the afternoon session. We all knew this would happen; it was like extending the four-month vacation we had enjoyed for one more week. Personally, I loved going to school in the afternoon!

Once we went on strike against a single professor. This guy was big and mean and well connected politically. Teaching consisted of reading chapters from the textbook in class, out loud. He was abusive in his language, a real bully. Well, the thirty of us went on strike. We simply did not show up for his class! Believe it or not, it worked. He mellowed a lot and we actually ended up inviting him to a dinner dance we held that same year.

Did I mention that school was tough? Just as in prior years, we were subjected to both written tests and oral examinations. The teacher called us to the desk, asked questions, and we needed to provide the right answers. Stressful, to say the least, but little compared to the pressure cooker of the final exam. When we arrived in the last grade of high school and before we were allowed to graduate, we had to pass an exam which, as I recall, focused on four subjects chosen by the National Education Minister. The subjects would be different, say, for me attending accounting school vs. those in classical studies, but the subjects were uniform in all of Italy. At this point I had studied and done well during the full year and gotten good grades in all subjects only to begin one last trial, a tough one that could derail lots of hard work and sacrifice. Talk about overkill! Anyway, I did well enough to graduate.

I look back at the years I spent going to school in Siracusa as some of the best years in my life. I loved the city and its antiquities. I loved my classmates; we worked hard but had fun as well. I think back to those days and friends more often than any other time or people, outside of my family, in my life.