Repubblica, 6 News from the CEA Global Campus in Florence
Issue 4, Spring 2013
‘The Best Thing’
Reflections on a Year of Volunteering in Florence, By Rachel Delozier
As an Academic Year student who has been in Florence since last August, I’m often asked by friends and people from home about my most valuable experiences here. They want to know what I’ll carry with me most deeply when I return to the U.S., what I’ve enjoyed the most, what I will miss about Italy. I always have a million different things I could say, but every time I have gotten this question my answer is, without hesitation, volunteering. Through the CEA C’è initiative offered at the Florence Global Campus, students can get involved in a truly diverse variety of organizations in Florence, catering to different areas of interest with time commitments adaptable for each student. This is one of CEA’s greatest strengths and one that sets it apart from other American universities in Florence. I began volunteering last fall, teaching English once a week to a 5th grade class at a local elementary school. I immediately enjoyed it, even when it was hard for me to control the kids or give an Italian explanation of the classroom activity I had prepared. After one semester, I was asked by their teacher to return for the spring, and since then I have really learned to improve the ways I teach. The lessons have covered grammar, vocabulary, and topics in American culture, about everything from Harriet Tubman to the Easter Bunny. The kids are hilarious and
sweet, and from them I have learned such an enormous amount that it is difficult to put into words. Of course, they have helped me improve my Italian, but beyond that, they have given me a far better understanding of what being a nine-year-old kid in Italy today is like. We talk about what cartoons they watch, what games they play, what they think is cool, and somehow I am always reminded of how completely the same I was at that age. They are creative and generous, and have made me drawings that I want to keep forever. At the moment, I have a little pile of these in my apartment made up of smiley faces, hearts, fire-breathing dinosaurs, a giant purple mushroom, and lots of happy pictures of me. With my first semester in Florence behind me, I started the New Year wanting to volunteer more. For the Spring 2013 semester I began working with an organization called AMG, operated by the Florentine institution Misericordia in order to house, support, and rehabilitate people with severe physical and mental disabilities. My job is to assist the staff of educators with recreational activities. From week to week these have been anything from arts and crafts projects to choreographing a dance to “In Fondo al Mar” from La Sirenetta (that’s “Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, for those of you who, like me, have only seen the movie in ...
What’s Inside: ‘The Best Thing’ 1-2 • Semester Highlights 2-3 • Active Learning as a MOJO 4-5 • Forza CEA! 5 • CEA + SRISA Collaboration 6-7 Meet the Staff 7 • 2013 - The Year of Italian Culture in the U.S. 8