Italian Diplomat Visits Walt Whitman High School In South Huntington

SOUTH HUNTINGTON, NY — Walt Whitman High School welcomed the consul general of Italy in New York, Fabrizio Di Michele, to its school, the South Huntington School District announced.

As consul general, Signor Di Michele is the highest ranking diplomat in the Italian Consulate in New York. He has 30 years of experience in the field of international relations. Di Michele was given a tour of the high school by principal Dr. John Murphy, School Board President Nicholas Ciappetta, and Superintendent Dr. Vito D’Elia.

They visited an AP Italian class and an Italian 3 class. Accompanied by Dr. Daniele Castellani, the Italian Consulate’s education office director, and Dr. Berardo Paradiso, president of the Italian American Committee on Education (IACE), the March 13 visit was part of Walt Whitman’s World Language Week.

For the last several years, Paradiso and IACE have worked with the South Huntington School District in securing a grant from the Italian government that helps fund the district’s Italian language programs.

Board of Education President Nicholas Ciappetta met the Italian consul general at an event in New York City and invited him to visit Walt Whitman to see how the grant money is used.

"We’ve used it for materials and the [Italian language] curriculum at Whitman, Stimson, and Silas Wood with the goal of keeping the Italian language alive in the schools, and promoting and growing it," Ciappetta said. "We wanted him to come to South Huntington to see what a suburban school is like and to show him how our Italian classes are operating and what they're learning."

In the Italian classes, Di Michele easily conversed with the students in his native language. He was happy to see that they were not only learning about Italian grammar but also Italian pop music, art, traditions, and customs.

"It’s a nice way to also learn the culture," Di Michele said. "And I explained to [the students] that they are lucky because learning languages opens up your mind and makes you a citizen of the world."

He noted that it also helps families in the district with Italian ancestry to identify with their past.

"It’s a way for them to reconnect with their parents’ or grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ country and discover their cultural origin," said De Michele. "So for us, it's very important to support this process, but we also promote the Italian language as an instrument to get to know Italy better."

In addition to their language classroom visits, the special guests got to observe classes in science research, cybersecurity, and automotive technology.

Di Michele was very impressed with the high school and even commented, "I would like to study here."

The Consul General’s hope is that knowledge of the language and culture leads to more travel to Italy — which is exactly what a group of Whitman students did during the February break. Accompanied by teachers, they visited Florence, Pisa, Verona, Venice, Assisi, and Rome.

A consulate is a smaller diplomatic mission than an embassy, and is usually based in a country’s major cities that are not the capital city. Their main role is to provide support and assistance to their citizens in the host country, especially in cases of emergency. They also work to promote education, trade, and economic relations between the two countries.