Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone!
Welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy.
Mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video, we're going to talk about the school culture in Italy.
La cultura scolastica in Italia.
Scolastico comes from scuola, scuola with a C, be careful, not Q, scuola, which means school.
First of all, let's talk about the length of studies.
La lunghezza degli studi.
School is mandatory till 16 years old in Italy.
Fino a 16 anni, la scuola è obbligatoria.
Till 16 years old, la scuola è obbligatoria.
School is mandatory.
So you start with 5 years of elementary school, which is la scuola elementare, scuola elementare,
5 anni, 5 anni, 5 years, 5 anni di scuola elementare.
Then you have 3 anni di scuola media, 3 years of junior high, 3 anni di scuola media, media
literally meaning medium, then you have high school, 5 anni di scuola superiore, 5 anni
di scuola superiore, also called superiori, superiori only, like heights, which still
means high school though.
So even though it's a cycle of 5 years again, you could technically drop out after 2.
Anyway, la scuola superiore, high school, has 3 different types, liceo, liceo, liceo
is that kind of school that actually prepares you for university, so we say that you get
there in order to learn how to study for university and you can choose a specialization already.
We call them indirizzi, indirizzi, which literally means addresses, okay, but in this case it's
the specialization of the school.
For example, you can find liceo linguistico, liceo linguistico, language liceo, which is
actually the one I did, liceo linguistico, liceo scientifico, scientifico, of course scientific
one, artistico, artistico, about arts, and also liceo classico, liceo classico, which
is the one where you study things like Latin and Greeks.
So you kind of study the fundamental, the basics in order to be ready to then study
with, like for example, rights or laws and so on.
If you don't go to a liceo though, so if you don't plan on going to university, actually
you don't really have to go to a liceo in order to go to university, you can do that
anyway, but you get, let's say, a better preparation or at least that's what it's advised.
So if you don't go to a liceo though, you can still choose between un istituto tecnico,
istituto tecnico, technician institute, literally, where you get more tools, let's say, like
for example there is the tecnologico, istituto tecnologico, or economico, where you can study
economics or technologies and stuff like that.
Otherwise, you can go to un istituto professionale, istituto professionale, professional institute.
These ones are more for people that just want to get a job like right away after school.
In fact, here you get to know like how to do stuff.
For example, you can go to istituto professionale meccanico, mechanics, gastronomico, gastronomics
if you want to be a chef, or let's say artigianale in general, crafts, artigianale.
No matter which type of school you choose, at the end of the five years you have to do
an exam.
No matter which type of school you decide to go to, after the five years you have to
take an exam, which is called esame di stato, states exam, literally, but also called maturità,
which is the maturity.
So once you get that, you are an adult, let's say, and you get your diploma, diploma, so
the certificate.
La notte prima della maturità è molto dura.
The night before maturità, maturity, so this exam, è molto dura.
It's really tough.
Because you're basically tested on everything that you studied in the five years and you
don't really know like which subject.
Also, it has to be said that before, even after elementary school and junior high school,
you had to take an exam, like a summary kind of exam on the whole cycle that you took.
Nowadays, you don't have to because it depends on laws, but it's always changing, so I wouldn't
be too sure about that for the future.
For all of them, of course, there are public institutions, but also private ones.
So, la scuola pubblica, la scuola pubblica, or la scuola privata, scuola privata, the
private one.
And there are also scuole cattoliche, scuole cattoliche, which are the ones run by nuns.
Up to you to decide which one to go to, but if you go to the letter, you cannot escape
religion.
Religion, religione, religione.
So, if you're going to the public school, you can choose for your kid not to attend
to that, while, of course, if you choose a catholic one, they have to go.
Let's talk about other subjects as well.
They're called materie, materie.
If you think about materials, maybe, you'll remember this word, materie.
Italiano, italiano, Italian, dramatic and also literature.
Sono molto brava in letteratura italiana.
I'm really good at Italian literature.
Sono molto brava in letteratura italiana, ma la grammatica mi annoia.
But, ma la grammatica, grammar, mi annoia, bores me.
So, in the end, your mark wouldn't be that great, because they go under the same materia.
Italiano, materia scolastica, of course, if you want to say school subject.
Matematica, mathematics, matematica.
Storia, history, storia.
Geografia, geography, geografia.
Arte, arts, musica, music.
Scienze motorie.
So, only scienze would be science, but scienze motorie is actually physical education.
You can also say educazione fisica.
But scienze motorie is also really common, and that means motories, sciences, meaning
like what you use to move.
Scienze motorie.
Quale è la tua materia preferita?
Which is your favorite subject?
La mia materia preferita è lingua straniera.
My favorite subject is foreign language, lingua straniera.
Nowadays, actually, kids study English at elementary school already, but it wasn't like
that before.
I think I started in junior high, and then you add another language which could be English,
French, or Spanish.
So, inglese, lingua inglese, lingua francese, lingua francese if it's French, or lingua
spagnola, lingua spagnola if it's Spanish.
As for me, I also studied lingua tedesca, lingua tedesca, German language, for example.
Something that has to be said, which I think is really interesting compared to other cultures
in school, is that we stay in the same classroom the whole day.
So, you don't change classroom as a student depending on the subject that you're taking
on the class that you're taking, that you're learning, but it's the teacher that changes
classroom.
This may be really convenient because you don't have to move, right?
So, hours are made of 15 minutes, not an hour altogether, because then you have 10 minutes
for the teacher to finish, like to sum it up, to finish some things and then exchange with
the other one.
But you stay in the same class the whole time, which also means that you have the same classmates
for actually the whole cycle.
So, if you get some classmates first year of elementary school, you'll most likely stick
with them till the end.
Same thing goes for junior high.
Also, it's considered to be, like usually, junior high is close to the elementary school,
and when you go from one school to the other, and if some friends of yours are going to
the same school, which most likely they are because they're really close by where you
live already, you can write who you would like to end up with in the same classroom,
and if they do the same, then you will be with them, probably.
So, yeah, it's a long, long time to spend together, and also in high school as well,
so you have five years and you're going to be with them the whole time.
Of course, you can get transfers, some transferimento, but i tuoi compagni di classe, i tuoi compagni
di classe, your classmates, saranno gli stessi, will be the same, saranno gli stessi.
Classes are, depending on schools, sometimes really, really crowded.
For example, around trenta alunni, alunni is another way to say students, trenta alunni,
then, if they keep, like, increasing, if someone else is coming, they may split the class up,
ending up in two classes of around, like, venti studenti, venti studenti.
For example, in my case, and I'm bringing you real experience examples, it was 30 people
the first year of high school, then someone else came in, I think 30 is the maximum,
and so we had to split, and then we were, like, 16 and 15.
But that means that at the end of the cycle, so in high school, since some people dropped off or
because, you know, you can be bocciato, bocciato, essere bocciato, essere bocciato,
to be bounced, literally, but it means that you failed the year, so you have to repeat it.
Otherwise, you are promosso, promoted, promosso.
So if some of them were bocciati, it meant that you were decreasing.
In fact, my last year of high school, we were 11 only, which was a nightmare when you had to
go through interrogations, interrogazioni, means, like, oral tests,
because it was always your turn, basically, it was really quick.
Every school has around 30 hours per week, so kids go till 2 p.m. mostly,
and then it could be the two afternoons, they could stay more, or some schools go on Saturdays as well.
Talking about time, let me also say that punctuality is really important.
I mean, we do allow, let's say, five minutes maximum, but then you really do have to be sharp,
except if you're going to university, which is università,
finishing our first topic, which was the length of studies, università can be università triennale,
so three years university, the first cycle, magistrale,
which are the two years of specialization after the triennale,
and then il dottorato, which is PhD, il dottorato.
Now, I was saying when you're at university, there's actually il quarto d'ora accademico,
which means the academic fifteen minutes, the academic quarter of hour,
which means that even though the lesson is supposed to start, let's say, at eight,
because lessons at university are longer than before, like in high school, it's actually two hours long,
usually that's a period. If the lesson is supposed to start at eight, it won't actually start before eight fifteen.
Of course, it depends on the teacher, professora, but usually that's what they do,
because they allow everyone to get in, because it's really a lot of people, right?
And people are coming from afar with trains and so on, so also the professor himself or herself takes his or her time,
so yeah, quarto d'ora accademico means that fifteen minutes of lateness can be accepted and then the hour will start.
Also because then when it finishes, you have to change in university, it's you who changes, yes,
you have to change classroom, so you also need time to move around.
Let me finish with some curiosities, for example, we don't have any big ball, any prom,
non c'è il ballo di fine anno, there is no ending of the year party,
but we do have a pizzata di classe, which is a class pizza,
meaning that you go to a restaurant and eat pizza altogether and that's really common to do at the end of the year,
pizzata di classe, also we don't have un annuario, like you know the album where every student has his picture taken,
no, we do have a foto di classe, a picture of the class, like all together,
and it's really common to have a diary, un diario, that some schools provide, but you can get yours as well,
and on there then your classmates will write you a dedica, which is a note, like a dedication I would say,
they write something nice, it's supposed to be to you and then you always keep it, not always, but you know, I do have them from school,
so yeah, this is pretty much how school works in Italy,
let me know in the comments if you found something similar or really different compared to your school culture,
also if you haven't done it yet and you want to learn more Italian, click the link in the description,
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thank you for watching, I'll see you soon, bye bye, ciao ciao!

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