【明報專訊】Though I live in a village I attend a secondary school in the centre of Belluno called I.S.I.S. "G. Galilei". In this school we can choose between two streams: Science or Grammar. I'm in the third year of the Science class, which means I have to study ten compulsory subjects, including Italian, Latin, Maths, Science, Art, Physics, Physical Education, English, History, Philosophy and Religion (an optional subject).
I have school from 8am to 1pm every day except Sunday. We have one hour per subject, and we have five subjects a day. My school is more demanding and I have to spend hours studying at home, especially when I have tests. But I will relax a bit when the tests are over.
We don't have school uniforms, and we have classes in the same classroom with the same classmates throughout the year. No rotation of rooms (like the way Hong Kong schools do) is required. Teachers will come to our classroom to conduct the class at 8am. They do have their own teaching style, but most of them would sit at the desk and conduct the lecture while students would keep themselves busy taking notes. They would then test our understanding through monthly quizzes and unscheduled oral tests. Since we are never told the date of the oral tests, we have to revise every day and be prepared.
Some teachers do not assign homework, and we would be lucky to be in those classes. But we usually take study very seriously, because if we fail more than two subjects at the end of the academic year, we will have to retake the same syllabus for another two years.
My school organises one or two school trips a year. Sometimes we travel on a support mission to Eastern Europe and donate money, clothes and toys to the less fortunate. I've been on these missions to Albania, Croatia (克羅地亞), Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia (斯洛伐克), Hungary, Serbia (塞爾維亞), Macedonia (馬其頓) and Romania.
