For those of you who have followed along, my daughter got on a plane last August to spend her junior year of high school in Italy. She brought one jam-packed suitcase, an overnight bag, no knowledge of the Italian language, and a contagious excitement to explore.
While she had the opportunity for independence, she also had a wonderful host family who made her feel at home, helped her with her Italian, and made her part of the family. We are so thankful for them as they made her journey in Italy special, made her feel welcome and expanded her family.
While there were standard classes any junior at any high school would take like English and Math, there was a culture of exploratory learning. Instead of just reading about the Coliseum in Rome, they took the 64-mile trip directly to the destination navigating public transportation along the way. The school would take the classes “on the road” spending a week or more in Turin, Sicily, Milan, etc where the kids would immerse themselves in learning about a new region. They took an Applied Agroecology class combining biology, microbiology, ecology, chemistry, and organic chemistry with a focus on sustainability. They learned by bringing those creations to life – beer, wine, mead, and bread. And multiple courses in Italian were key – from traditional to conversational.
And at the end of May, she came home. Transformed. Once a little girl who was happy to be along for the ride was now a seasoned international traveler having spent 9 straight months in a country that is now not so foreign to her. She is now a fluent Italian speaker. A young woman who navigated independently through Roma, Florence, Sorrento, Napoli, Torino, Terracina, Milano, Genova, and Sicilia. A woman who had the freedom to travel with friends, have a cocktail with dinner, and make wine as a part of her curriculum.
Now we needed to learn a new family protocol. I vividly remember my first return home after my first college year. I thought my parents were crazy to want to know detailed information about my nightly plans and I thought they were insane to give me a curfew. Didn’t they realize I had none for almost a year?
We tried to approach our new family rules by combining the trust and freedom that she rightly earned along with what we found non-negotiable. You can probably guess exactly what those are (you can go to visit a friend’s family in New York, but you can’t go to New York with your friends), One thing that we love is that she matured from an independence standpoint, but remains the same amazing empathetic sweet person she has always been.
We celebrated her return home with a trip to the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita – which has always been our happy family place. She took a good friend from the program, which in hindsight was perfect as they got to readjust with an understanding of what it was like to land back in a familiar place, but with different rules.
It’s a new chapter for us as she prepares for her senior year. But she has a global perspective that comes with life experience, diversity, and living in another country. We appreciate the time she had and all the gifts that Italy and SYA Italy brought to her.
