In September a new experience began for me and other nine boys and girls from my school.
We were chosen to work on a European Comenius project called MOM (Media On the Move ) dealing with the theme of “Beauty”. We were told that we would work with other ten boys and girls from Outukumpu (Finland) and our job would be initially theoretical because we attend a grammar school (Lyceum), while Finnish people would do the media part.
BEAUTY IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
The project task consists in creating films on the theme “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder”. Brainstorming about beauty, comparing different emotions and ideas, connecting and expressing them was not an easy job.
Talking about beauty means talking about an infinite world where different and often opposite ideas and feelings coexist. We can think about Beauty as a universe of stereotypes or personal feelings or just as the wonders of Nature: and these are just a few ideas.
So imagine twenty people with different ways of life, different experiences and different thoughts: what could happen if all of them thought about “Beauty”??? I will tell you: CHAOS!!!!
But don’t worry! Discussions and organization can help to put anything in order: in fact, we spent seven months on discussing, exploring and sorting out something that joined all of our ideas, but, in the end, we hit the mark and what we realized looked to us satisfactory! Good? We hope so …
MOODLE.
We asked each other questions . Working on line we organized our answers in four topics:
1) Nature: don’t you feel your heart fills of joy and enthusiasm in the sunshine? Aren’t you amazed when you think of Nature, her power and perfection? Isn’t Nature the very picture of Beauty?
2) Stereotypes: is a Barbie doll (or a Barbie-looking top model) the symbol of Beauty? Or is your mother’s smile or your baby or anyone you love just more beautiful? Are blue eyes only beautiful? Can’t ordinary brown eyes be wonderful? Aren’t the eyes which go deep into your heart the most beautiful eyes in the world? According to you, which is more beautiful a face with or without make-up?
3) History: shouldn’t Beauty be considered in History ? Isn’t it part of our lives? Isn’t History part of any city and country? Isn’t heritage a precious treasure?
4) Art: when you see a classical Greek sculpture, don’t you think: “What perfection!” And so, can’t we say that Beauty is Art? Don’t you feel wonder looking at Raphael’s paintings? Don’t you get dizzy walking through Athens or Florence or Venice or any other beautiful city?
So workshop activities began. How hard it was you can’t imagine: we had so many questions and so few answers! That was the first part of our adventure, which we carried out on a MOODLE (Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) under Merja Karvinen’s wonderful supervision.
MEETING OUR PARTNERS
At last, the long-awaited April 15th arrived.
I perfectly remember when we Italian students were waiting for their arrival at the airport… the atmosphere of expectations, nervousness, wonder… you could feel all the emotions and, looking at us in the distance, you would see how we were fluttering about. They arrived. There was someone who recognized his or her partner and others who couldn’t , like me. I was looking at them, searching for someone who might be my Jutta… after a few instants, I followed my instinct and I promptly spotted her out!
She looked so nice with her blond hair and blue eyes and so enthusiastic to be in Venice. I perfectly remember when my father drove us home: she looked out the window all the time! She was curious and wondered how green the fields were and how sunny it was… She told me that in Finland it is almost always overcast and rainy and the dominant colour is grey: “Everything looks grey to me” she said. And so I started thinking how places are different and how our lives can change in different places. We are used to seeing flowers, green fields, the rainbow, the blue sky and sunny days and sometimes we forget about how wonderful these things and our land are… We lose sight of our “Beauty”. But, in the same breath, I thought of my cousin Anna who has moved to Finland. Of course she misses Venice, but, every time I talk to her she tells me that Finland may be beautiful: it is totally different from Venice, but it is beautiful anyway. It is beautiful because it is her home now, because it is the place where she fell in love. You don’t need anything else to say that a place is beautiful!
CULTURAL SHOCK
The day after their arrival, Merja talked to all of us, both Italian and Finnish students, and she told us about the so-called “cultural shock”, which happens when travellers think that nothing is better or worse than the place they are visiting for the first time, but it isn’t so: our home is better than any other place, even though we may appreciate other countries with their people, traditions and customs. When we criticize foreign places or think that they are better organised than our city or country, what we mean is city, not hometown: We think of our state, not homeland: our country is our heart’s home and nothing is better than the place where we grew up! That’s why my cousin misses Venice.
MY PARTNER JUTTA
I’m not going to tell you what happened every day of my partner’s stay. I’d rather talk about the difficulties we sorted out.
As I expected, we had totally different ways of life. She is used to eating in the morning and then at five o’clock. Even though she is attending high school like me, her school courses are totally different… her life routine is quite different from mine. I am always in a hurry: rushing to school in the morning, studying in the afternoon and then dashing to training sessions in the evening. Sometimes I eat at 1:30 pm, other times at 2:30 pm; sometimes I have dinner at nine, other times I skip meals because training is my priority. I am always talking and smiling: anything makes me curious !! On the contrary she rarely spoke and seldom smiled… I was afraid that nothing was good to her and I didn’t know what to do. She was so polite and withdrawn that I felt quite embarrassed to do anything. But “Finnish people are like that” – Merja had told us – and so I tried to go over this problem of communication and I showed her my world, my life, I shared everything with her. I was sure that teenagers’ lives couldn’t be so different from each other: we are all teenagers, even if we come from faraway countries. What’s more, I remembered Monika, my Polish partner from our first exchange: two different countries, Poland and Italy, two different girls, but a unique language and a unique world: teenagers’ world. And the same was with Jutta in the end. Perhaps it was more difficult with her to build up a friendship as I did with Monika (we are still e-mailing each other!!!!!!!!!) and I don’t know if I totally succeeded in it, but I am sure that we understood each other and, as she could see my world, I could start imagining hers : I asked her a lot about her family, her life and her country and so I could try to understand what her world is like.
The ten days were full of work: we were divided into five groups, one for each topic as I said before.
MY TEAM
I worked with Chiara, Tiina and Jutta. Our lock line was :“Can a tradition be a problem?”
That was the question we asked ourselves and each other, before starting to develop our topic.
We took lots of photos and recorded voices in Saint Mark’s Square. It wasn’t as easy as it can seem. I had never been good at taking photos: I hated cameras!! But, due to the fact that we were in a hurry and it was rainy, we had to help each other and so Chiara and Jutta recorded, while Tiina and I took the photos. I really enjoyed doing so: it was funny to think of which kind of photos I should take to show MY VENICE to foreigners’ eyes who don’t know the real Beauty of the city…
It was one of the best days we had indeed!!!! But I can’t forget the first day after their arrival or the moments when I joked with Jutta or the long talks with Gift or the good-bye pizza… and those are just a few happy memories among the many I’ll treasure in my heart.
Our Finnish partners left Venice a few days ago and I am still enthusiastic and excited about those ten days spent together!!!! It seems to be yesterday that we were laughing and joking during the good-bye pizza or I was trying to learn how to use a camera!!!!!!
THAT’S BEAUTY!
In conclusion, after these ten days with our Finnish partners and my Polish experience, I can say that Beauty is the world and its people: the world is beautiful because it is different, original and unique in each of its parts; the world is beautiful because people are all different and unique; the world is beautiful because, beyond its differences, it has a common language, the language of Beauty. Beauty is how men and women communicate to each other, live together and try to build up a better world. We are all equal and by our characteristics we are all similar. That is Beauty.