wonderful experience
 

I'm a teacher in a secondary school, and have just returned from a school trip to Italy. We -3 teachers- brought 33 pupils (fifteen and sixteen-year-olds)to Pisa, Florence and Venice for a week. I was a little worried that students would get bored of watching so much Renaissance masterpieces, but I was wrong. We did our best to explain the kids what they were watching in a simple, easy to understand way, and the results were great. They had the time of their lives, and so had we. It really paid to watch those amazed young faces watching, and starting to appreciate, masterpieces they had only seen in history books. The fact that they are bilingual in Spanish and Catalan also helped, because they could understand Italian fairly well and make themselves understood. So, if any of you is hesitating about taking teenagers to Europe, do it. If you try to make them understand what they are watching, and give them time to relax between pieces of art, they will surely enjoy themselves. And the gelato, pizza and pasta help, as well...

Glad it turned out so well, mnc.

I shuddered at the 11:1 ratio.

I hope your post-vacation recovery goes well and the school and parents fully appreciate what you did.

Bet you had your hands full with the little darlings! Still, it had to be rewarding on many levels.

Brava!!! I have the privilege(along with 12 other teachers-better odds than yours) of living, learning and travelling with 75 teens at a high school for North Americans here in Italy. Your posting helped remind me why it is (mostly) a joy on a day when it is decidedly less than that...Thanks for your upbeat attitude.

Hi! Thanks for your support. You are right, in spite of being a joy, the trip was tiring. Happily, now I have a week's holiday, so I can recover. And, when we go back to school, we have already organised a meeting with the students and their parents to look at the photos and eat something - kind of the "last act" of the travel before the children have to face end-of-year exams.

Glad to hear it turned out much better than you expected, and that all of you had the time of your lives. How wonderful indeed! Grazie.