South of Rome–West of Ellis Island
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“Chickens come home to roost” – Italian Studies suffers consequences for aversion to Patria Meridionale.
(March 16, 2011)
Seemingly, it does not occur to Italian Studies professors that students choose academic majors in college based on motivating high school experiences. Students enroll in college programs that they find relevant to their lives. In short, pedagogic variables affect motivation and enrollment numbers. The history and culture of seventeen million Americans of southern Italian descent is invisible in high school and college Italian Studies curriculums. Is it any wonder why southern-Italian American students are invisible in Italian Studies classrooms?
Introduction
With the recent announcement that SUNY Albany, following other colleges and universities around the country, is discontinuing its Italian Studies program (“because few students are enrolled”), one would hope this would motivate the Italian American literati to reflect about curriculum affects on enrollment numbers.
Specifically, why are there not robust Italian Studies programs in a nation with seventeen million self-identified Italian descendants? No doubt there are many socio-economic variables affecting enrollment. Humanities studies are not seen as vocationally relevant, especially in an ever-increasingly stressed economy. For example, in a recent interview, a state governor bragged about his success “reforming education” by dramatically increasing the number of welding programs in his state colleges.
However, there are also pedagogical variables that affect humanities education generally and Italian Studies particularly, independent of economics; variables associated with motivation and perception of relevance. Regardless of the economy: if students are not motivated and do not have a perception of relevance they will not enroll in Italian Studies.
Motivation and relevance are a function of curriculum; i.e. subject matter - what is taught!
Accordingly, Italian Studies' teachers and the Italian American literati should think of these program cut backs as a message from the southern-Italian American people that it’s a time for you to reflect..."We do not find your curriculums meaningful or relevant!"
What you teach - does not tell us about our progenitors – who they were /who we are!
What you teach - does not inspire us and motivate us to study more!
What you teach - does not fill us with pride and love for our Patria Meridionale!
Italian Studies - High School Curriculums
Students who apply to college for engineering programs do so because in high school they had experiences that motivated them to become engineers. Similarly, students who choose college majors in biology and chemistry with a mind to becoming doctors have been motivated to do so in high school.
We cannot conceive of a high school student with no math/science education majoring in a college math/science program. Indeed, why would a student with no math/science education even consider a college major in the math and science fields?
In short, high school experiences motivate students for college. Yet, Italian Studies’ educators seem oblivious to this pedagogical ‘truism’. They seem to think that interests in Italian Studies are like “Athena who leaped from the head of Zeus a complete form” - no development, no evolution.
Consider New York State’s high school curriculum and tell me why one should be so shocked that Italian Studies is being eliminated at SUNY Albany for lack of interest as measured by enrollment numbers. You cannot find a spec of the history and culture of southern Italy and Sicily in that curriculum. Italian studies in high school consist of ephemeral stopovers in Rome and Florence.
What is there in the high school curriculum that would motivate a southern-Italian American student to major in Italian Studies in college?
Italian Studies - College Curriculums
Nevertheless, even if high school curriculums motivated southern-Italian American students to pursue studies of their Patria Meridionale history and culture, what is available to them in colleges and universities? Renaissance studies - that sliver of Italian history on the Arno!
Certainly not the great mass of Italian history south of Rome; the vortex of all Mediterranean cultures, reaching back into the ancient river civilizations and penetrating deep into modern northern European cultures, is complete ignored.
Certainly not the great mass of Italian history south of Rome; the vortex of all Mediterranean cultures, reaching back into the ancient river civilizations and penetrating deep into modern northern European cultures, is complete ignored.
Consider, SUNY Albany’s Italian Studies course description for “A ITA 315 Italian Civilization: From the Etruscans to Galileo”:
“An introduction to Italian culture from the Etruscans to the Renaissance, with emphasis on the contributions of Dante, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo...”
Seemingly, not much happened in the thousand years between the Etruscans and the Renaissance and certainly there are no Terroni worth emphasizing. Note also, Etruscans were a northern culture. 'Italian' in 'Italian Studies' always means 'northern Italian'.
Southern-Italian American students are required to read the minutia in Dante’s poetry and study the shades of blue in Michelangelo’s frescos, all of which tells them nothing about their history and culture. Yet, they never hear about the thirty-two books written by the great Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus; who writes to them - for them - comes from the same neighborhood as them.
Virtually all Euro-Americans/ethnics (English, Irish, French, German, Russian, Spanish) find their history and culture in the history, literature, music and art curriculums; similarly Asian, African and Jewish Americans.
Yet, seventeen million southern-Italian Americans are invisible in the high school, college and university curriculums. Ours are the only students who do not see themselves in their textbooks. Ours is the only Euro-American/ethnic group that is not present in the American education system, secondary and post-secondary.
Conclusion
In sum, we all genuinely feel for and empathize with Italian Studies teachers put “on the dole”. However, if we are going to bring them back, then we must invigorate and revolutionize Italian Studies programs in high schools and universities with curriculums that are meaningful - not just beautiful in verse and paint.
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"Real" Italians absent from Italian Studies programs.
I concur with the introduction to this article. I am Italian American and took several classes in Italian while I completed my B.A. in Spanish. I chose Spanish because there was a lack of local schools offering majors in Italian when I began my studies. After completing my M.A. in English Linguistics I seriously considered pursuing a Ph.D. as well as a teaching certificate in Italian. However, I did not pursue the Ph.D. for the very reasons indicated in this article. The curriculum at all of the programs I considered was boring, irrelevant, outdated, and uninspiring.
As a teacher of Italian for a short time in an inner city public school with a large Italian American population, I can also tell you that the problem is not just the curriculum. There certainly is a lack of truly relevant offerings and most high schools are using books that teach the same boring material taught at the university. For highly motivated creative students like me the lackluster curriculum was the issue, but for the most part the real problem is that many young people today only think in terms of which majors will provide the best source of income, and that only when they are awake enough in class to think at all. There is a serious problem going on in our schools today and the curriculum is only part of it.
I personally used Italian Rap music, Facebook interface, and other novel approaches for teaching listening, writing, and communication skills, as well as phonetics and grammar. However, when students lack a mastery of basic academic skills, habits, and discipline, even the most interesting curriculum barely gets a nod from them. They simply don’t care, period. Traditional teaching methods have too much to compete with and are no longer effective, but that is where the money is directed in the field of Italian Studies. I have several contemporary book ideas in the works for teaching Italian to Italian Americans, but it’s hard to invest the time and energy into it when an entire class of students freely admits to not reading even one book in the past year. Not only is there little interest from young people in learning (Italian); basic economic survival draws my attention elsewhere. That’s why we lost our language and culture in the first place. Assimilate or die.
While it pains me to say this, many Italian Americans today are extremely apathetic about their heritage. They see it as irrelevant, once again because of economics, or just about food and wine. Their minds and hearts (and stomachs) are ruled by what’s in it for them. Sure, there are those like me and a few of my acquaintances, who upon hitting middle age, regret the loss of language and culture because we see the value those have. There isn’t a career or salary you can offer a person that can replace the loss of culture and identity through language. Ironically and unfortunately, most Italian scholarship programs won’t even consider awarding money to the age group most interested in pursuing Italian Studies. I know because even with a 4.0 and years of demonstrated interest in preserving our heritage, I’ve never been awarded those I’ve applied to. The folks “in charge” don’t respect older Italian Americans enough to listen to any advice we’d give them about the curriculum being offered either. We lack the “credentials” to warrant even voicing an opinion. We are the Italian American version of terrones.
Italian/Americans have a nasty self-destructive streak, I am sorry to say. Even most of my Italian/American relatives don’t respond to my queries about our collective family history when I make attempts to gather information about it for a book. They’ve made it here, and for the most part don’t look back, or if they do, it is from the back of a tour bus every now and then. The pretty Italy (or the Godfather Italy) is the only one most Italian Americans are interested in these days too. It’s a disease without a cure. Pour yourself a cappuccino, (forget the espresso), and book a trip to Jersey Shore. That’s about as Italian American as you’re gonna get because that is where the money is my friend.
Terroni
Clarification: I subconsciously either Anglicized or applied Spanish morphology (quite apropos in both cases given my background) terroni, I feel compelled to correct it although I don't know why. There are not droves of Italian Americans coming to this website to read these kind of articles and comment on them. Most wouldn't even know what the term meant. More evidence of one of the reasons said programs are not doing well. No one gives a s... How about a new recipe for veggie lasagna? That should elicit some interest.
And speaking of terroni
I'm really enjoying this conversation I'm having with myself about this all important topic that no one else knows about:-) Since I've already gone out on a limb, I may as well as go for broke and mention that as a female, I also was not interested in studying in programs which listed several pages of required reading material and did not have one female author on the list. It's not just a north/south bias problem that makes the curriculum dated and irrelevant to at least 50% of us.
A simple question
Not a comment but a question, please: what is meant by "AP"? (see the last paragraph above, "smiling faces at the AP Italian celebration party ". Thank you.
Prospero