On a sunny morning, the sounds of the Italian national anthem drifted in the air as a group of well-dressed men and women stepped off a bus in front of Ridgewood High School, greeted by applause from students.
The group featured a delegation of Italian politicians, including Attilio Fontana, president of Italy’s Lombardy region, and Raffaele Cattaneo, the Italian undersecretary of European and international public relations, who visited the Norridge high school and met with students, teachers and administrators.
The visit on May 23 took place thanks to a virtual educational partnership between students of Italian at Ridgewood and students of English at Istituto Carlo Dell’ Acqua, a high school in Legnano, Lombardy.
Started in 2022, the partnership has resulted in joint learning, intercultural exchange and even friendship, student and adults said in a series of speeches — some in English, some in Italian, and some in both languages. The event was held in the high school’s modern “collaboration center,” with students and teachers from Istituto Carlo Dell’Acqua participating via Zoom on a huge screen flanked by the Italian and U.S. flags.
The Italian and American students described some of the projects they worked on, such as surveying young people’s attitudes towards sustainability and the environment; studying Lombardy’s Lago di Como, known as Europe’s first “electric lake” thanks to its electric vehicle charging stations and rental electric boats and bicycles; and learning about notable people from Lombardy, such as film director Luchino Visconti, novelist Alessandro Manzoni and Nobel prize winner Camillo Golgi.
Fontana said he was impressed by the American students’ fluency in Italian and touched by their love for the language. Besides leading to a deeper understanding of Italian culture and history, “studying and learning a new language is not only useful for your life (…) but through the learning, you open your brain. You open your brain in(to) another world,” Fontana said.
The educators praised the multifaceted benefits of the partnership between the two schools.
“This educational path has favored the promotion of intercultural dialogue and the
development of cross-disciplinary skills, hard and soft skills, allowing every student to access a high-value international and intercultural education,” said Vittoria Zingari, English teacher at the Italian high school.
Zingari also said she developed a deep friendship with Dolores Pigoni-Miller, an Italian teacher at Ridgewood. Zingari and Pigoni-Miller are the exchange program coordinators at their respective schools.
Pigoni-Miller praised the Italian consulate in Chicago for helping establish the partnership between the two high schools, as well as offering educational avenues for students and professional development opportunities for teachers.
Ridgewood Community High School #234 Superintendent Jennifer Kelsall said the school’s longstanding Italian language program includes about 200 students. “We have been very fortunate with our Italian teachers, who really create those authentic learning experiences for our kids,” she said.
After the speeches, Fontana made a round of the room and took photos with students, who said they enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of the Italian delegation’s visit.
“It was definitely an eye-opening experience,” said senior Adam Kot, who’s been studying Italian for four years. “It was really cool to see everybody come together for the Italian language, and it was really nice to see President Fontana.”
Freshman Caterina Slukhinska, a native of Ukraine, said she almost felt like she was back in Italy with her grandparents, where she spent her summers growing up. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of her home country, Caterina moved to Italy for a time before settling in the Chicago area.
The Italian delegation’s visit was arranged by Thomas Botzios, consul general of Italy in Chicago, and Marina Lenza, director of education for the Italian consulate. The delegation made the stop in Norridge as part of a multi-city institutional mission that included Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.
The event also marked the official kickoff of a partnership between Union Ridge School in Harwood Heights, a K-8 school that feeds into Ridgeland High School, and the elementary school Istituto Comprensivo Alessandro Manzoni, also in Legnano, Italy.
Union Ridge School District 86 Superintendent Mike Maguire said he hopes his students will get “a love for the language and the culture of Italy” out of the new partnership.
