10.18.07
What to do with three hours
Italian law (or at least our region’s law) says the school week must be 27 hours long. Most schools meet for 30 hours per week, meaning that there are three hours to fill with extra-curricular activities.
Which sounds really simple, but in practice ends up kind of complicated. The law says that the parents must be unanimous in what activities to choose. You already see the problem… So sometime at the beginning of the year the teacher, or the class representative, will ask for ideas. People send in some ideas, they do some checking on costs, and then we get to vote. However, the teacher has already weeded out some of the ideas, so we’re usually given very little actual choice. The teacher sends out a note that says, “Do you want your children to participate in music class for €25 per year?” And we all vote yes because there weren’t any alternatives.
Sometimes a parent will get to feeling feisty and decide they don’t want to vote for, say, chess lessons (1 hour per week, €25 per year). They feel like their kid doesn’t really want to sit anymore, and why can’t they learn a sport? So they vote no.
Which means a meeting will get called. And we will all try and change that person’s mind because the law says it must be a unanimous decision. And they get frustrated because what little choice they had is taken away under the guise of being unanimous.
And the funny thing is, nobody is really happy with the system the way it is. But we’ve got three hours to fill, so what are you going to do?