Postcard from Italy

Where in the world have you traveled to conduct your work?
Rome, Italy

What type of work or partnerships have you engaged in (research, teaching, training, outreach, a keynote)?
I have been twice, working with an international school in Rome to help them use inquiry-based professional learning communities to improve practice at their school. These were two-day trainings, for two consecutive years.

Who has benefitted from this work?
Faculty, leaders, and students from the American Overseas School of Rome (AOSR) benefited.

What is the most interesting aspect of the work you have done?
International teachers in Rome can live cheaply in Italy for two years. After that, they are charged Italian taxes which are quite high, like in all of Europe. They do get great benefits with those tax payments (health, dental, all the socialized care) but these teachers are typically young people who do not really care about those benefits and are just trying to travel and have fun while overseas and need to maximize their income. Anyway, this situation of paying taxes after teaching there two years and beyond creates a revolving door of faculty, almost all of whom are young and fairly inexperienced teachers. The strategies I brought them were selected because once set up in the school, they help to personalize and customize learning for each teacher who uses inquiry to examine and improve his/her own practice. The PLC component helps with school culture and collaboration and also works well if you have a revolving door of faculty coming and going each year.

What type of global work are you currently doing? What’s next?
Nothing at the moment, but I would love to go back to this school in the future for a booster shot of this strategy to help them deepen their skills in inquiry-based PLCs.