re: #180 A hollow Gandalfian voice says, VOTE, you fools!

As part of my adventures with Italian, I ran across a copy of a textbook for third graders for $1.00, so I picked it up, being curious about what they teach their kids (or taught, it’s 20 years old). I’m not sure how it fits into the normal curriculum — in particular whether it would be part of regular coursework or bought by parents as a supplement — but the history section starts with the big bang and how to get your head about the depth of deep time. A bit later, it starts on the three million years in which hominids become humans.

Italy is 80% Catholic (more than half of those not “active,” of course), but that appears to be the background they all start from.

It’s not just cosmology. Daughter2’s 7th grade art textbook (Scuola Media Dante Alighieri) required understanding of the internal workings of a single-lens reflex.