Antonio Iacono: Vtisi italijanskega prostovoljca o naši šoli

Hello everyone! My name is Antonio Iacono and I come from Sicily.

I graduated a few months ago from the Faculty of Primary Education Sciences to become a primary school teacher.
In recent years I have carried out various activities: working as an au pair in Austria and Spain, participating in five Erasmus+ projects around Europe and beyond, and for this year I decided to try an experience abroad as a volunteer with the European Solidarity Corps working as a teacher in a primary school: I had several options, but I opted for the Majde Vrhovnik primary school because this project suited my idea of being a teacher. Here I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time in all the classes getting to know all the students in the school and all the teachers!

Since I started my volunteering in December I have had the opportunity to notice the differences between our school here in Slovenia and the ones I was used to in Sicily.

The first is certainly the incredible modernity of this school: everything is so new, colorful and such large classrooms!
In particular, here you have a classroom for each subject: art, technique, geography, music, computers, Lego, science, cooking, biology and others, where students create many works of art and have the possibility to use learning tools on their own.

Students have the opportunity to attend optional lessons in the afternoon, where they can find really interesting courses: they can study German, French, Latin, Lego, even more art and sports… and this opportunity is fantastic! We have no optional subjects in our system, so all students between the ages of 11 and 15 have to go home after school.
Same thing with children aged 5 to 10: in my experience in Sicily the kids have to go home, there is no possibility of leaving them at school after normal lessons, even if the parents work, at least where I was.

And what about the services? It’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen a working elevator in school. Ours are just ornaments, they never work. Same thing for radiators, they really work! I still remember all the winters with the jacket at school…

The idea of putting a sink in each classroom is also excellent, so children will have the opportunity to wash their hands before each meal.

It’s also nice to give them multiple meals each day and not just one for lunch – in Sicily they usually need to bring food from home for the first break, before getting really expensive and poor quality food for lunch.

There is also a library here, the children go there to enjoy a quiet place to read in silence… so many different things!
Every week is different here too, there is always a day in which the lessons have something of particular: going hiking, in the Tivoli park or around the city, going skiing, ice skating, swimming in the Tivoli pool, at the theatre, studying in presence the city’s monuments and many other useful activities for learning that we don’t actually have in our schools.
In addition to the colorful lockers we also find a foosball table where students can spend time playing during breaks, a courtyard, a playground and a large gym, where the teachers train the children very seriously (I wouldn’t want to be a student during sport hours here).

Another positive aspect that I noticed here is precisely this: all the teachers are very professional; I see the results of their work in some subjects such as languages, where children learn a lot from an early age! This is why most students speak English much better than me: in Italy you don’t learn English at school, but when you start travelling, like I did three years ago.

But based on what I have noticed in my experience here and in Italy I can say that in reality the difference for a child’s future is not made by the teachers at school, but the most important work comes from their parents!! Parents with a good mentality and after hard work can be satisfied with their children’s future! Conversely, when parents do not take on their responsibilities and try to entrust them to teachers, they are unable to do both jobs, so the child’s future will not be at its full potential!I hope that more and more parents understand this concept to help each other for the good of the children, actively collaborating when necessary!!

Antonio Iacono, May 2024