Historic Ybor: Elementary students get a taste of Italian
Philip Shore Elementary is now offering classes for the language to its kindergarten and first-grade students.
By ELISABETH DYER
Published October 1, 2004
Fidgeting with first-grade, early-morning energy, they parade into the classroom past a map of Italy, past a white board with block print: Buon giorno!! "It means good morning," 6-year-old Daniel Aristizabal tells a visitor.
Last week, Daniel and his classmates at Philip Shore Elementary divided into groups and asked each other their names in Italian.
"Ciao," says Korey Curry, 7.
"Come ti chiami?" asked Delroy Manderson, 6.
"Mi chiamo Korey" Korey replied.
"Bravissimo," teacher Laura Franco applauded.
Franco started Italian classes at Shore in August. She teaches kindergarteners and first-graders the alphabet, colors, greetings and names of family members and household items.
Shore is the first public elementary school in Hillsborough to offer Italian, said Dorothy Carregal, Hillsborough's supervisor of foreign language. Brandon, Plant City and Gaither high schools also teach it.
Florida high schools began teaching Italian in the 1970s. The Italian General Consulate, based in Miami, provides continuing education courses for the teachers and has shifted the focus to 5- and 6-year-olds.
"It is the better age to study a foreign language," said Giuseppe Tiradritti, director of the Italian General Consulate's education office. The consulate added the office two years ago to establish Italian courses in elementary schools. The consulate pays teachers' salaries for two years and supplies books and audio visuals.
The consulate started with two kindergarten classes in Miami in 1999. Last year, it launched the program in Naples. This year, they focused on Tampa.
"Tampa was one of the most important places in Florida where Italian immigrants went," particularly those from Sicily, Tiradritti said. "We decided to connect the roots of that presence with Italy now."
When Tiradritti approached the Hillsborough School District, they decided on Shore, a magnet for performing arts, visual arts and communications, with deep roots in Italian culture.
The school's namesake, Philip Shore, was an Italian immigrant, who left Sicily in 1891 for New York.
While the name Shore doesn't sound Sicilian, its Italian translation is costa. Before coming to America, Philip Shore was Philipe Costa.
After selling vegetables in New York's Little Italy for several years, he moved to Port Tampa in 1898 and opened a grocery store. Two years later, he established the Philip Shore Shipping Co. and, within a year, moved it from Port Tampa to the Port of Tampa near downtown.
In 1917, Shore was appointed to the Hillsborough County School Board and led an effort to build a school to serve the children of Ybor City, many of whom were working instead of going to school.
The school opened in 1922, at 1908 E Second Ave., a few blocks from the Italian Club.
To help establish the Italian course, the longtime social club donated $5,000 and plans to make the club available for field trips. The goal is to help revive the language, Italian Club president Joe Capitano Sr. said.
"We're just trying to get it back into the school system," Capitano said.
Shore students spend 1 1/2 hours a day learning Italian. Franco, 28, who grew up in northeast Italy, tries to teach not just the language but the culture of specific regions.
Learning Italian, like most languages, is best at a young age, she says.
"They are like sponges they remember everything," she said. "This is going to last forever."
