Fifteen-minute rule

by Laura Hutchinson
Week two in Cagli has been a very different experience than week one. I feel myself adapting to certain cultural ways as if they are my norm. Discussing life in Cagli with other students it is apparent that we all may have a bit of culture shock upon returning home to the states, just as we did when we arrived in Italy. It is amazing how quickly a person can adapt to “Il dolce far niente” (The sweetness of doing nothing).

It has become easier to interact with the locals. Although my Italian has only mildly improved, my confidence in trying has increased. Patritzia, the woman I interviewed luckily speaks English, so we have been able to teach each other things along the way. Cultural dissonances have gone deeper than using the wrong word, noticing differences in food, and driving practices. They now are found by conversation and deeper interaction with those who live here.

Patrizia has been incredibly kind since the moment I met her. She has introduced me to her friends, invited me to dinner, and taken me outside the city walls to explore. In chatting with her, I realized that some basic educational practices are not only different than what I am used to, but completely opposite. She described an experience at her campus in Urbino, Italy. Each class is allotted one hour of class-time. However, in true Italian fashion, class starts late. There is a known fifteen-minute delay in starting class to give individuals a chance to arrive. Not only are students expecting this leniency, they will challenge the professor if he/she begins teaching class before these fifteen-minutes have passed.

As soon as she explained this to me I couldn’t help but laugh. “It is exactly the opposite in the US”, I explained. At my university, there was a fifteen-minute rule, but it meant something quite different than the rule in Urbino. If a professor was fifteen-minutes late to class, students were able to assume that the professor was not going to attend class for that day. Students would diligently watch the clock for one second past that fifteen-minutes, take a quick look around to get a visual consensus from other students, and leave class for the day. Professors could not reprimand students for leaving if they came late, because they had “wasted enough of our time”.

The cultural comparison was fascinating to me. It blatantly showed the difference in perception of time between the Italian way and that of the US. Differences like this can seem small, but truly show so much about the roots of our various cultures. Only by diving deeper into conversations with locals, and questioning norms and local practices, can we get greater detail about cultures around the world.