The Italian Culture Crusade: a New Jersey Success Story

THE ITALIAN CULTURE CRUSADE: A NEW JERSEY SUCCESS STORY

By Gilda Rorro Baldassari

At nearly 2 million strong, Italian Americans are the largest ethnic group in New Jersey, but school children there learn nothing about Italy’s history, culture and contributions. That is about to change, thanks to a determined group of Italian Americans, including New Jersey State Senator Anthony Bucco; Salvatore DaVino, president of Fidelity Land Management; Paul DiGaetano, former majority leader of the New Jersey Senate; Angelo Moressi, Esq.; Larry Paragano, president, Paragano Enterprises; and Frank Vecchione, Esq.

THE CULTURE CRUSADE In the late 1990s, they formed a committee of concerned citizens and educators, who lobbied state lawmakers and the governor to establish an institute dedicated to promoting the heritage and culture of Italian Americans. Part of that institute’s mission would be to develop a curriculum on Italian studies for all public and private schools in the state. In 2002, acting Governor Donald Di Francesco signed legislation creating the New Jersey State Commission for Italian and Italian American Heritage, the first such commission in the U.S., and allocated $135,000 per year to fund it. The commission is dedicated to strengthening the cultural identity of Italian Americans in New Jersey through public education programs that preserve and promote an accurate understanding and awareness of their history, contributions and accomplishments.

DEVELOPING A PLAN To accomplish this goal the commission formed the Curriculum Development Committee which would create lessons plans on Italian subjects for children from kindergarten through high school. The author of this article is its chair. Of invaluable assistance was Dr. William Librera, then-New Jersey Commissioner of Education, who allowed his staff to serve on the committee and permitted the group to meet at the New Jersey Department of Education. Working with teachers and other experts, the committee created a Curriculum Infusion Model, consisting of 29 lesson plans on Italy’s contributions prepared for each grade. The lessons plans were designed to be “infused” or easily inserted into the curricula that teachers were already using to teach literature, history, writing and other subjects required by the NJ Department of Education. They also would have to meet the state’s curriculum standards and assessment requirements. For example, young children would learn about Pinocchio in a literature class or Marco Polo in a history lesson while high school students would study Filippo Mazzei as part of American history or Galileo and Meucci in science classes. The lessons are collected in the curriculum guide, The Universality of Italian Cultural Heritage, which covers the contributions of Italy from Ancient Rome to the present, including Italian American history in New Jersey.

TESTING THE PRODUCT In 2004-05, the Commission tested the new curriculum in a pilot program for grades 6-12 with 7,000 students in both public and private schools in 11 school districts throughout the state. Afterwards they surveyed the teachers and found that over 90% rated the lessons “valuable and enjoyable” and over 80% said they would use them again. In 2005-06, the pilot program added Kindergarten through Grade 5 and offered it to 18 state school districts and one in Sicily with an estimated 20,000 students and 70 teachers. The new curriculum program is now available to all the schools in the state’s 650 school districts. The final hurdle is now to encourage schools to use it, since adoption is purely voluntary. To do this, the New Jersey State Commission for Italian and Italian American Heritage is working with the New Jersey Department of Education to develop a statewide distribution plan.

WHAT YOU CAN DO Free copies of the curriculum can be downloaded at www.njitalia.nj.gov (Hit the “curriculum” tab.) To have the curriculum taught at your school, contact the New Jersey State Commission for Italian and Italian American Heritage at 732/932-0670 or email Carla Guerriero at [email protected].

Gilda Rorro Baldassari, Ed.D, is the honorary vice consul for Italy in Trenton, NJ and chair of the Italian Heritage Commission’s Curriculum Development Committee. Contact her at: 609/587-7000. Email: [email protected].