{"id":70,"date":"2021-07-09T08:34:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T08:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2025-04-22T04:45:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T04:45:46","slug":"4-the-bell-the-nuns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"4. The Bell &#038; The Nuns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My first English teaching job in Rome (or first \u201cmission, should I choose to accept it\u201d) was to go on assignment to a school where I\u2019d have two tasks: teach English to a class of seven year olds for an hour and then have a private tutoring session with the Mother Superior. It was a school run by nuns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I told them I didn\u2019t think the class would be a good idea since I really didn\u2019t speak Italian or have experience with groups of kids. Also, I did not consider myself a \u201ckid person.\u201d Unfortunately as a young woman, nobody believes this. You\u2019re female, you must be a kid person. Male English teachers got jobs teaching business English or running summer camps. Girls got kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.unlockitaly.com\/laurenissima-3-get-a-job-in-rome\/\">Daniela\u2019s belief that I couldn\u2019t teach one word of the English language<\/a>, I accepted the job. I really needed the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s when they told me the school was in Ciampino. Ciampino is not in Rome. It is a town about 16 kilometers south east where the cities second airport is located. I\u2019d have to take public transportation to the central train station in Rome then take the train there then walk about 20 minutes to get to the school and, to add insult to injury, that walk was entirely up hill. Overall it took me over 1.5 hours to get to this school. I was paid \u20ac50 total for the two lessons (one hour with the kids and one hour with the Mother Superior), the highest hourly wage I would ever be paid by a school in Rome. No payment for lesson planning and no transportation costs were covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDon\u2019t worry about the Italian,\u201d they told me. \u201cThere will be other teachers there so you don\u2019t have to be in charge of discipline.\u201d When I arrived in this school I realized that there were indeed other teachers there\u2026 in the school. Not in the classroom. They were teaching their own classes and of course would not be coming into mine to discipline anyone. Perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had only one lesson with the Mother Superior, in which she learned the words for \u2018man\u2019 and \u2018woman\u2019, before she disappeared for a two-week religious retreat. So that\u2019s the excuse nowadays. Without her lesson, I was only making \u20ac25 for the entire four hour expedition. I couldn\u2019t afford to not take it even if my first job in Rome was actually not in Rome at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of their teachers brought me to the room on the first day to explain where things were. The kids were already there. \u201cThis is the board! And the desk is here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI can see that,\u201d I said. \u201cAre there any supplies? How are the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou\u2019ll get used to yelling! A lot!\u201d she said with a crazed, exhausted smile. Then she showed me a small metal bell and said, \u201cThis we use to make them silent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cQuiet. To keep them quiet, yes,\u201d I said. I picked up the bell. There was no pendulum inside. \u201cBut, have you seen it\u2019s broken?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOh yes, it broke long time ago, you just do like this,\u201d she said, taking the bell from me and proceeding to bang it against the table with a raucous clatter which immediately caused all the kids who had been chatting or playing quietly to start yelling so they could hear each other over the sound of the bell. \u201cYou see! It works!\u201d I swear she was laughing maniacally while she did this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Terrified, I asked, \u201cWhat do&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>&nbsp;teach them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEnglish!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat? I thought I do English.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou do more. You are the mother tongue!\u201d she said. I realized why this was so disorganized. I was just there to expose them to the sound of real English and any qualifications beyond that were quite frankly more than they could hope to ask for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOk, so we could coordinate our lessons and\u2013\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBye now! Bye Bye! Ciao ciao ciao!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was left alone with the children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had about three seconds of believing that I would soon be teaching these kids English and perhaps even singing with them like in the sound of music. Maybe I\u2019d even learn guitar and we\u2019d sit in a field of flowers and we\u2019d change each others lives. That fantasy didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The yelling began immediately. Raising a hand to ask a question seemed to be a foreign concept so they came up to me holding their papers out with imploring looks on their faces, all yelling over each other to be heard. \u201cWhat are we doing???\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I started with number bingo. \u201cThe next number is two!\u201d They couldn\u2019t hear me of course because they were yelling in Italian, \u201cWhat\u2019s Next? What\u2019s next?\u201d Most of them were out of their seats, either not paying any attention to the \u201clesson\u201d or they were coming up to me, pointing to certain numbers and bellowing, \u201cIs it this one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo, sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCosa???\u201d What?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The girls were obsessed with bossily telling the boys what to do and then coming to tell me how Marco or Federico wasn\u2019t following the rules. Then they\u2019d try to steal the teacher\u2019s bell to restore order themselves. Somebody\u2019s got to do it. Answering one kids question, my voice was suddenly drowned out by some little girl hammering the bell on the desk and I\u2019d have to go pry it out of her hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDo your own coloring,\u201d I told one girl, which caused her to immediately burst into frustrated tears: \u201cBut Giuseppe isn\u2019t doing it right!!!\u201d while Giuseppe threw his hands up in the air, shaking his head like: screw this. And that basically sums up many a relationship between Italian men and woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One boy, after yelling at everyone and ripping another ones homework in half then proceeded to hide under a desk for the rest of the class and wouldn\u2019t come out. I wish I could have joined him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They figured out pretty soon that I was totally inept and literally couldn\u2019t communicate with them (exactly as I\u2019d told my boss who of course didn\u2019t care.) In fact, one of the only things I could understand was when they turned to each other, shrugged their narrow shoulders and said, \u201cLei non capisce.\u201d She doesn\u2019t understand. To this the other little ones would nod sagely as if to say, \u201cSo that explains it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the first lesson was bad, the second was absolute chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They cried, fell down, threw their pencils at each other, broke chalk on the floor, ripped each others\u2019 pictures in half after pokemon cards were stolen while the girls incessantly continued trying to control the boys. At one point I heard a tapping from the cabinet next to me and opened it to find Daniele inside (how long had he been there?) just as violent Flavio hurled a plastic dwarf across the room into Marcos head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lesson concluded with Flavio (the possible psychopath) chasing Daniele down in a corner of the room, dragging him to the ground and kicking him while I wrenched them apart in horror just as another teacher (remember they were nuns, making it somehow even worse) appeared at the door with one of the students gripped by the ear saying: I found him in the hall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After three lessons, I quit. For their sakes and mine. Then the nuns called to fire me. The only thing I could feel pleased about was that order of events: Quit and THEN get fired by nuns. Small, pathetic victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the last lesson I had hidden the offensive metal bell in my bag to prevent the over-zealous girls in the class from \u201chelping\u201d me restore order by banging it on every available surface and screaming \u201cAttenzione!\u201d In my haste to flee from the building I forgot to return the bell and found it in my bag later that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I tried to tell my Italian roommate about the bell. As I saw it, it was the only funny part of the story. I showed it to him and started to cobble together some phrases in my terrible Italian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor silence. For kids. But broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIs it a game?\u201d asked my confused roommate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t speak. So is stupid to use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYes, it is a stupid bell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo, not the bell. The teacher is stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is the teacher\u2019s bell?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYes!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, you stole it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo! No, it was an accident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou had an accident with the kids and something broke?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNo, I just\u2026 nevermind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOk. But you know that bell doesn\u2019t work, right?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The broken bell sat on my dresser for a few days before I buried it in a drawer, a reminder that without learning how to speak, I\u2019d be just as incomprehensible as it was, listening to the chant of \u201cLei non capisce! Lei non capisce!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My first English teaching job in Rome (or first \u201cmission, should I choose to accept it\u201d) was to go on assignment to a school where I\u2019d have two tasks: teach English to a class of seven year olds for an hour and then have a private tutoring session with the Mother Superior. It was a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenmouat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}