Rossana and Fabrizio have been living outside Italy for more than 13 years, except for a brief return to the base for about 24 months. He, a manager of a multinational company, happily welcomed the opportunity of the transfer to offer a different view to the family and she, employed in the same company, has temporarily left the job to devote herself full time to the management of the family and the education of children . After a few years in Switzerland, since 2013 I am definitely in New York and their two boys, who are now 16 and 5 years old, have grown up in different environments, always attending international schools.
Their experience is common to that of many families who are facing a privileged emigration condition, linked to professional and life choices. But if two adults who elect another country to their home take their roots with them, making diversity an added value and assimilating from the new culture the best for them, what happens to the new generation, which is suspended between a culture family acquired through a third party and an international education?
Beyond the character and the ability to adapt individually, the bond that the young have with their culture of origin is obviously filtered by the new context in which they grow up and in which, in a certain sense, they risk remaining “foreign”. A condition that obviously has pros and cons, but which seems to determine at least one privilege over all: the freedom to live without conditioning. Provided that growth has been led by parents who are strongly aware of their role.
So we have told Fabrizio and Rossana how they have faced and managed the education of their children in the melting pot of New York culture. Starting from the assumption that “the etymology of educating is e-ducere, that is, ‘pulling out’. Every culture inevitably adds, puts a uniform on you and rules; education, on the other hand, understood in an absolute sense, should not ‘add’ or worse inculcate but on the contrary let children ‘blossom’, help them bring out the best in them “.
Is there an “absolute” way of educating that is not strictly linked to the culture of a particular country?
R: “I would say yes, the nice thing is to take the most interesting things, the best, from each culture. We are Italians, we brought Italy to America, but we also try to make our own to a certain extent the American way of conceiving the education and growth of children “.
F: “Let’s start by saying that babies are born without education, for them one culture is worth the other and therefore the very first training can be absolutely free. It is growing that cultural aspects become important, and an idea is to integrate in the training method the most interesting aspects of various cultures. The fact that in America is greatly appreciated the Montessori method, born in Italy, is proof of this “.