Friday 3rd September 2010 09.35

Ok now it really does feel like I’ve been here for at least two weeks. Literally.

Actually for today’s post it’ll probably help if I describe how the IB works in terms of academic subjects. Basically you choose 6 subjects to study. Three of these will be at higher level and three at standard, although occasionally you can do 4 higher and 2 standard, depending on your options. The subjects are broken into groups: group 1 is your mother tongue. So for me English. Group 2 is a secondary language. Slightly frustratingly, due to the fact that English is my mother tongue the only language available as a secondary (due to budget restraints) is Italian. Since we are in Italy, for students who have neither Italian or English as their mother tongue, they can choose English as their secondary language and do Italian as a seventh, certificate option. So really that’s what I’d have liked to do, English, another language and then Italian as a seventh. But that’s life, as they say. Apparently Spanish and Portuguese are going to be on offer as extra afternoon activities so hopefully I’ll be able to learn a bit of at least one of these. Anyway. Group 3: Humanities and societies. This includes History, Economics, Philosophy and world arts and cultures. Also, Environmental systems and societies (E-Systems, as it’s more commonly known) can be group 3 or group 4 (the sciences). I’ll talk more about group 3 below. In group 4, as I mentioned above you can choose one of the sciences, Biology, chemistry or physics, with the addition of E-systems. Group 5 is maths and Group 6 is music or visual art, or you can choose any from group 3 or 4.

This is a link to the IB site: http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/group3/

and this is a link about the world arts and cultures at my school: http://www.uwcad.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=184:group-3&catid=44:description-of-courses&Itemid=73

After breakfast yesterday morning we all had to get our photo taken (photos taken by a seconda) for the college address book, which is basically where all the students and all the teachers have their photo taken and put in the book, along with their name, address and telephone number. I imagine it’ll be quite useful for names… This was followed by a science taster session, where we got to find out about each of the sciences, as well as E-systems. Both biology and chemistry look interesting although so far I’m probably going to do biology. Although I could take two sciences I think I’d rather take two group 3 subjects (see below). E-systems did look interesting, combining some of the science and environmental issues with the political, social and economical issues. However it’s only available at standard and it seems like a lot of people do it if they want to avoid taking a traditional science.

Then at 11.30 we had an introduction to all the group 3 subjects, which, I have to say, all look really interesting. Economics surprised me, although I suppose as it’s taught on the IB it’s always going to have a different outlook, looking at issues such as whaling in Japan, unemployment and environmental impacts on practices such as mining. History also looked fascinating, focusing on the 20^th century, for example the cold war, the arab conflicts and the rise of single party states. Philosophy looked quite interesting, looking at different ways of thinking, and the teacher seemed ok, but the course didn’t appeal to me as much as the others. Finally world arts and cultures was quite a surprise, although it looked interesting, the teacher made it much more so. He managed to link artefacts from ancient Benin to the Aztecs through to modern Europeans and managed to make us think in different ways about ourselves and the people around us, all in a ten minute presentation. In the second year you also do a course unique to each individual college studying world arts and cultures, where you look at the history of the surrounding Trieste/Slovenia/Croatia region, and other parts of Italy. So really I’ve got to choose two from History, world arts and cultures and economics.

In the afternoon we walked up this big hill that is near the college for a couple of hours. It was a really nice opportunity to talk to people: on the walk I spoke with a prima from Germany, a seconda from New Zealand, a primo from East Timor, a primo from Afghanistan (we had a very interesting discussion about the war, what he thinks of it and what he thinks of the Taliban etc), a primo from Ukraine (who was rather loud) and finally a primo from the Maldives (we talked about the rising sea levels issue, as well as football-in fact, I’ve found that most people know Newcastle, simply because it has a football team). Oh yeah and I also spent a while talking with Francesco and a seconda from Italy called Rosalba about the mafia (very complicated). If you like, I could try and talk about the mafia in a bit more detail some other time…

About a third of the way through the walk, we went through a UWCAd tradition (well not really a tradition), which is to play games on this field in the middle of the forest. The most interesting one was where the secondi read out statements (e.g. I feel comfortable asking people who don’t live in my room to leave if I want some privacy, and, I am comfortable with people breaking UWCAd rules) and then we placed ourselves on a ‘scale’ (two secondi were the midpoint) on whether we agreed or disagreed. Then if you wanted you could talk abut why you were in the place you chose. Also, we placed ourselves on a ‘world map’ showing which countries we come from.

After the walk we all ate dinner outside, as we were having a picnic, lit by light from Fore (my residence) but more romantically (seeing as we are in Italy) candles. Really weird for me was seeing the head teacher Peter walking across the tightrope (assisted, of course) some of the secondi had constructed between two trees. Obviously it’s really nice, but completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before so slightly disconcerting.

Actually the whole thing about addressing teachers by their first name is really weird for me. I think it’s partly because I’m so used to addressing teachers by their second name, but also because to me, teachers aren’t friends; they can be friendly, but not friends, otherwise it’s too hard to impose discipline. Although on the other hand being at a UWC, you would expect students to be more mature and not have to be disciplined… I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

After that we had an ‘open mic’ session in our day room (as I said yesterday, being in Fore really does have it’s advantages: nearly everything happens nearby). This was mainly second years performing (usually singing, but actually a lot of poetry, too) in their native language, or in the case of many songs, American. Overall the second full day was a lot more enjoyable. As Lydia said to us on Wednesday, the first day is always the hardest. 

Robin

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