Sneak Peek!!

Is it a landing lane for airplanes? I'm just joking!!!

just the roof of the prison's many compounds

Aha, I saw it on the model, some photos 'later'. A good model, indeed. A prison... I thought it was a school or an institute.
In my mind, I admit, there's not much difference.

you dont differentiate between a prison and a school/institute!!? on what grounds!?

I had a lot of teachers who did not mind if you were human or not. They were always full of rage, they love gossips and, of course, insulting us. You had no rights, you could not have a dialogue.
I felt just a number, a X being...
I don't want to bother you with sad stories. Believe in me, a prison and a school are very similar to me.

in my case - my schooling till 8th class was in a very caring and conducive environment. The teachers really treated us like their own children! like one teacher used to say "i'm here to teach, not to cheat". Sure there were sometimes punishments, but overall it was a very good learning atmosphere.
While i had to change school from 9th onwards, then it was like all hell broke loose! The new school's teachers were like some 3rd degree interrogators! their hands itched if they didnt got a chance to beat anyone! It was horrible, always an environment of constant fear it killed curiosity & confidence both. So yes that felt like a prison i wanted to get rid of.
But here in India - we hear good reviews of European schools or may be every story from far away lands are dressed up to look good and desire for it.

Well, Europe, as you know, is very big. Here in Italy we are not famous for the quality of our schools and institutes. If you don't count a little number of excellences, moslty private, all the others are like a building in ruins. Sometimes, literally!!!

Our teachers are underpayed, are too many and most of them are not qualified; since our old Governments decided to open university to all students (even to ones coming from professional schools), we were submerged with man and women with a degree... but always ignorant!!
Many of them pronounce Latin as if it was English, and also Englis as if it was Italian... and it's better I don't tell you about French or German.

I attended my kindergarten (well, I could say "asylum", because in Italian is "asilo"... what an irony...) and all elementary schools in a Catholic Institute.
When I was very little, I knew Hell; then, elementary school was better, indeed, in such a way that I felt free and realized. Those 3 years are the only safe point of my own education.
My teachers were nuns, so, we learned not only Italian, Maths and History, but also prayers, sacred songs, parts by New Testament and, in may, we did the "Rosario" (four long tranches of prayers in honour of the Holy Virgin).
That time we had uniforms. A tidy environment, sometimes not very full in justice, but almost good.
And we learned a lot.

After last two years, where my own personal problems gave me some problems, I 'met' Middle School (from 11 to 14 years).
A disaster.
I thought I was to be followed as nuns did. But nobody did. Another situation, an ugly place, old teachers, and horrible schoolmates. School caretakers were rude, there were not good services in toilets, and NO recitals and NO good art lessons.
I felt almost dead. They told girls to wear uniforms, all black as a burqua... then, we left them under our desks and never wore them again, and nobody told us a thing. We were left alone.

Then, High School. I forgot where I could find peace. I hated every day of those 5 years.
And my situation was an excellence: other schools are literally in pieces, full of asbesto or without good safe ways in case of fire.
It was an unicum that day we tried to organize an exewrcitation in case of fire.
You have to PAY to have your copies, even if we are supposed to have already paid them with taxes.
Kids with handicaps are left alone, and they grow up as spoiled brats, wanting their schoolmates play as their servants... And so on...

School in Italy, in my experience, is a complete disaster.

Our schools are good: new buildings, luxuries, Fabulous spa facilities for students. Our instructors run the range from every poor to very excellent, with no rhyme or reason to it.
...
At WVU, one of the colleges I attended, you could
have all the private one to one tutoring with native language speakers you wanted. If there was a book you wanted that was not in the library, they would order it for you.
....

But the afroamerican population remains a big problem: in Cleveland only 25 pct. of the men and 50 pct. of the women
get even a high school degree.
...
So, when you see the "test results" for education in the States, you have to remember what is what throws the figures off.
...
They do spend for the kids lavishly: we are only young once, seems to be the attitude.

Here in Italy, instead, all seem to be created to give young people obstacles.
And then, we aske ourselves why on Earth we're always depressed...

In my university time, I had to chase teachers, literally, to be herad ten minutes and less; they would come here with 3 hours late, but you had to be very punctual. Well, they did say nothing if someone came in late or left his/her lesson too early. They just don't care.

I know that some professors want their alumns to proove they bought this or that book, and, before starting an exam, they take from their hands a part of it, as a little paper or a CD. They steal it, to prove you bought the book you had to buy.

If in school we had to buy used books, at university most of us copied books. Now it's illegal to copy a whole book, but I still have old copies I bought, all hand-made in shops and in stores.
Some of them are too expensive for a boy or a girl, so, some students have to arrange an alternative way. They can share a book or they copy it.

There are many exams where a student need just one or two chapters of an entire volume, so he/she don't want to spend for an entire book.

Many students act as they were still at high school: they read and memorize. Then, they go for their exam as a little show. Then, they can forget everything. Wthout asking why they have to do this. They don't learn, they just take a part, they act...

Our university are in old places, ancient building. In Italy the most new place is 100 years old, and not enough space to build a new one. We use places we have. But they are always dangerous, with falling pieces.
If, instead, there are enough money, we see marvelous and shining white places, enormous room, working supplies. But it's rare.
It's all a matter of money...

Some university are too crowded, so, there is one teacher in a room, overcrowded, and some cameras: on screens, other class can see the same lesson. Imagine this exam. I heard about a habit, to be not sumberged by work: a professor chooses only 20 tests an leaves other 80. They won't be checked out. They will be just thrown away.

And I never told you about some tests they give to you just to enter a faculty: Pharmacy, Architecture are 'a numero chiuso'. If you don't pass an odd test full of strange questions about Reality Shows and the so-called culture, you can't enter University.

Young people are left alone. So, when we get older, we are overraged, maybe jealous of other luckier students. Or we become too protective with our sons and daughters...

We have abuses too,of students:
purchase of expensive textbooks,that are stipulated for, but not used in class; arbitrary grading, verbal abuse of students -- though generally enough students can complain at the department and university levels to cause problems; poor scheduling for people have to go to school an extra year or so get get a required class. Colleges that reject transfer credits -- at one time Arizona universities were rejecting one-half of the transfer credits from Arizona junior colleges -- so students have to retake classes and spend more money. High tuition rates: $15,000 to $25,000 a year, plus. Students routinely graduate owing $100,000. Arbitrary requirements for courses: ie, you are a painter, but you have to take some many language and science classes, to make sure the faculties all have a job.
...
They use tests to determine admission for graduate programs -- but the Asian children do so much better, the entire graduate program in California schools would be Asian if they used only admission test results.
Likewise, they reduce requirements for afro american students, for admissions and scholarships.
....
Our grade is insane:
A, if you shown up and actually seem to know what you are doing
B, if you show up
C, if you really mess up somehow
D, if you never show up and demonstrate you know nothing
F, if you never showed up, demonstrate you know nothing,
turned in no papers, took no tests and missing the
withdrawl period
...
Meaning, the grading is not a measure of
knowledge: just participation, being nice, being
middle class or upper class, in most cases
...
But basically, our education system is a paradise in
comparison to what you describe, historic buildings or not.

In the end, you tell me, it's always a show.
Well, if it is all made to be a fake, I'd like the show have not too many acts to play. Instead this torture is long... too long.

If you end all this when you are young enough, maybe someone could 'rescue' you, you could feel able to show your ideas. But if too many years passes, you feel not good for the world, your ideas are childish and poor. So, you can abhandon them, or raise them up as a little hobby.

Great minds are left alone. Great genius or great skilled student (with fantastic memory), are the scale you are compared with.
Students are shouted at by professors: they say they know a lot of boys and girls who have 3 degrees each, and are 18 years old; they, so young and smart, will go to teach in American schools... meanwhile, you, at the same age, worm of the soil, you can't memorize two or three stupid things on a book...
I'd really like to see any of those 'little' geniuses, and know where the heck they studied, with how much money, and, above all, if they are real or not.

And, add this: I have been in this world enough time to see that if you have degrees and titles as sir, doctor, etc, you could be stupid as well, like me or any other human.
Marks don't make brain.
(In Italy every change of Government, tries to change school system: once we had numbers, then we had alphabet, then "Ottimo", "Distinto", "Buono", "Sufficiente", "Mediocre", "Insufficiente"; each one with a legion of + and minus, that complicete averything. The change is just a try. When our 'leqaders' change again, previous works have to be stopped and new rules start a new change).

But, as you can tell, all seems to be a great circus. Important is to be here, and to shout. Not to learn and grow up as a sensed human being.

I know all this, and I have been aware of it since I was very very young. That's why I think school system is all to be ricycled, and school is a jail with another name.

"... all seems to be a great circus. Important is to be here, and to shout. Not to learn and grow up as a sensed human being."
...
This is such a profound post by you -- and I am so struck by this line.

Ah, thank you. But you wrote the same.
As I wrote some minutes ago, I had been aware of this matter since I was very very young. Maybe 12 or 13 years old. 'Scuola media' period. Teenager. I was, wasn't I?
I was not intrested in boys, in actors, in clothes. I was checking out what I have been learning before, and the actual world I was living in. And the result broke me apart. And I never healed.

I developed a sense of "being removed from the crowd" at that time -- I mean, I actually remember the moment: I was at a football pep assembly in the fall. Couple days before the game, there is an evening pep assembly and bonfire....cheering, the band: the same thing is held indoors the next day at the school: "pep assembly," don't roll around on the ground laughing and holding your sides: I am not making this up.
...
We would wear our new sweaters, even though it was not quite cold enough....and I was watching the show and realized I could not be part of it, that the best I could do was observe from back on the fringe. At least, I could see the whole thing: it's just I couldn't be part of it.

Oh god; it
's flooding back: the cheers
sis boom ba
rah rah rah
....
the "fight songs"
which in reality should assure you would all go run home and crawl under the bed
....
and the associations: unversity songs
alma, alma mater, we sew thy seeds
of Victory

would be one line, as one example of how bad they can be be:
not to mention, STATE songs, which get tied into this: