Elementary school art: the big show

After 4 weeks of teaching in the elementary schools, yesterday was the final showing of all our students' art. We spent the entire day preparing for it—setting up posters, decorating the school, and stressing out in general over this highly anticipated event.

As we were putting together our posters, an Italian TV crew came in and wanted to interview our prof Carol about the program. After asking her a few questions through our local Italian translator Enza, they shoved the mic in my face and began asking me questions directly in Italian. Apparently Carol had told them that I spoke Italian, but had neglected to cue them in to the fact that I'm nowhere near fluent. Needless to say, I was caught off-guard. After tripping up on the first question (embarrassingly, "how old are you") I was suprised that I was able to respond to all the rest, such as "Why did you decide to come teach in the schools?" "What do you like best about Cortona?" and "What have you gained from this experience?" Supposedly segment will air later this week, but without a TV I think I'll miss it.

When the show began later in the afternoon, everything went perfectly. The show opened with a small procession and flag-throwing. Although the flag-throwers were without a doubt entertaining, far more so was the kids' reaction to them as they screamed, jumped, and alltogether freaked out. We had great support—this was the first time that the flag-throwers had come out to the event, and all the students in our program showed up to the show. Even Italian rockstar Jovanotti made an appearance.

Every grade put out awesome works of art, and I think our grades' turned out particularly well. We set up 5 posters to display the work they had done over the past weeks... they looked great, if I do say so myself. And, in thanks, our students each wrote us individual thank-you notes.

After the show was just as good, if not better, than the main event. Some of the other teachers and I decided to stay after and play "1, 2, 3, STELLE!" (the italian version of redlight greenlight) with some of the students. After walking out of the gates and leaving the school, everyone left with a great sense of accomplishment and fulfillment after a few long weeks of work.