Welcome to ISF!
“When I first saw ISF on the tour, I didn't really like it. I didn't want to leave my school in Sydney and the whole move wasn't something I wanted to do...” admitted Henry Hunt, a junior who moved from Australia to Florence over the summer.
It’s a feeling that I could relate to. Leaving behind all of your friends and having to start anew is a huge transition--whether it happens halfway through high school or at the beginning of middle school. During my first few weeks at school, I was so focused on who to sit with at lunch, how to find my way from classroom to classroom, and when to catch the bus that I did not notice much else. After a few weeks at the school, however, it is easier to notice the great things that make ISF special.
Like the fact that it is located in the gorgeous rolling hills of Tuscany, for example. It’s “very different from the big, modern schools I've been to,” said Henry, and I definitely agree. Instead of crowded, dirty parking lots, we are treated to an elegant view that could easily be a computer screensaver. Of course, a repurposed villa does have some downsides-- like the huge hill that students are forced to climb every morning, Henry’s least favorite part of the school. “It’s such a pain, especially in mornings.”
Some perceptions of the school vary based on previously attended schools. Antonio Luca, a sophomore, thinks that ISF is “not too strict” compared to the harsher rules at his German school, about when people could talk and how they had to sit. I, on the other hand, think that the school’s cell phone policy is a lot more enforced compared to the lax, seldom followed rules in my American high school. Similarly, I find the rules about where we can sit during lunch to be far more rigid than at previous schools I have attended. Lunchtime seating reveals another unique aspect of ISF: its lack of cliques.
“On the first day I found everyone really nice. Even though everyone has people they prefer, there were no super unfriendly cliques, like where no one talks to anyone outside of their small group of friends.” Henry is not the only one to notice this. One of the first things to stand out to me was how everyone talked to everyone else--and in so many languages! It was so different from the exclusionary teenage peer relationships I had experienced at my American high school. And it was a very welcome change.
Malaika Handa