My son is in elementary school, prima classe, and I guess I'm just adjusting to the culture of school in Italy. It's been hard for me to take and I'm not sure if what bothers me is cultural and I just need to adjust, or if I should be pushing to make changes. This is our first year in Italy and I've mentally written off the year as our year to get fluent in Italian. My son had a really good grasp on all the things they are covering this first year anyway, just this time around it is in Italian. I'm just really disappointed that the primary focus of the teachers seems to be getting the children to be obedient (their words). It's April (not October) and they are still sending letters home to the parents, instructing us that we must tell our children to obey them. They seem to be having a hard time directing the class. Their reaction to this is that they don't allow the class to do special things, like gymnastica, arte, and musica... but it seems like they have gone most of the year, missing more than 50% of these "special" classes. My son is bored and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find things for him to look forward to in his school day. Fortunately, he has started reading on his own and that has helped, but everyday he comes home to tell me that, no, they couldn't do X today because the class wasn't behaving. I can understand a time or two... but this is too much. Is there a way to address the approach that the teachers are taking with the class? I'm not sure how to go about it here?

What kind of school does he attend? Private? Public? Catholic?

I went to elementary school 20 years ago and we had 1 or 2 ours of gymnastic per week. But now children go to school also in the afternoon, so I believe they have time to extra activities such as music, art, foreign language courses,...

Since children don't go to school every afternoon, in the free one they play extra activities on their own (i.e. soccer, volleyball, dance, swimming,...) and you should arrange this. Try to speak with the mothers of his classmates and get to know what kind of activities are available for 6 y.o. in the area.

My son also moved here in time to start first grade in the little village where we live. I was shocked at first by what I saw and heard! First, I saw a completely bare classroom, except for the desks and a closet and maybe a crucifix. No colorful charts, library of books or rug for the morning meeting!

Then, my son came home to tell me stories of how the teacher yelled so much! The children have come from the asilo just a few months before. Many can't even write their names yet and most just wanted to play. In order to get the children used to sitting in their seats and listening (without talking and jumping about so much) his teacher would bang a large stick on her desk! That was her only method of crowd control. More like an exasperated mother than a professional, in my opinion.

I think it's cultural or at least traditional, as it didn't seem to upset any of the kids (so she'd yell even louder!) and parents seemed to expect and accept it. In other words, it wasn't her fault that she couldn't control the class easily, but the kids' fault. She never tried blinking the lights or whispering, or using those subtle psycological ploys that an American teacher would use to get cooperation.

Much of first grade is, unfortunately, given over to teaching the class to behave (in addition to reading and writing and penmanship). It's to everyone's advantage, as the teacher and students usually stay together right through fifth grade and in our case it has gotten MUCH better over time. In third grade now, the entire class works hard for hours on end, at least for their main teacher (the Science teacher who comes in twice a week is still having control problems).

My son has very few specials--physical education is once a week (when it isn't cancelled), music consists of learning songs for a Christmas and June show for the parents, and art is copying pictures from their books! They take on some more importance I think as the kids get older and can actually study an instrument or learn art techniques (middle school?). At least that's how it is around here.

I've supplemented with karate, swimming and boy scouts. And we go to NY for the summer, some other fun, enriching stuff.

What he learns in school is systematically taught and is giving him a solid foundation in the basics of reading, writing, math, history, and geography, but without the fun and creativity you'd find in an American school, IMHO.

Sounds like an identical experience. How sad. My son is in a public school and attends from 8-4 except for a half day on Wednesday. We are doing things outside of school with friends and he also takes tennis lessons twice a week. They are supposed to have gym twice a week as well as art and music weekly... and he will have this class and teachers for the course of elementary school. I don't think I have the stomach to re-enroll him. Fortunately there is a Steiner school nearby that I'm going to check out as a serious option. I'll also talk with the Mom's of the second and third graders that he plays with to try and assess if things might dramatically improve.

Such a sad and familier sentiment. We too have found that with my daughters class (4th elemetare) the whole class is punished for the mis behaviuor of one child and o they may miss gymnastics for example.
I also dislike the fact that the children from start o end of school do not have outside play time and then the teachers wonder why the children are climbing the ceilings.
I would love to change things but there is little chance of me penetrating the parent represenative group which I would imagine an excellent way of achieving little by little change, in my view all they seem to achieve or be interested in is arranging the annual school trip.
From what I understand it is only some few years that elementary school teachers have had to have teacher training qualifications and and I do wonder what they cover in their training as they seem to have little grasp of behaviour management etc, etc.
I know that I must not generalise as I am sure there will be some that have excellent experiences of the system, but like many things here I find it a bit behind the times.

I also find the school system very "different" -
I think the only thing you can really do is just shut up/cover your ears and remember that a lot of smart kids come out of this "different" system so at the end of the day it can't be that bad.
Luckily for me my ex does all the school stuff because I simply can't deal with it (parent/teacher conferences where you have to wait in line for 3 hours ...for example)

I am truly shocked at your experiences. The girls will prob be ok(ish) with this system but I am not sure how my son would take to it.