My little boy was in the third grade when there was some big family gathering in Italy for a special occasion. We let the school know that we were going to take the children away for a week; given the grades they where in, you would think it wasn’t a big deal. Wrong! My third grader’s teacher chased me down the hallway to tell me, “Mrs B, you can’t do that to me!” Do what to him?! Apparently the teacher was of the opinion that my little boy should’t miss a second of school, let alone a week. I informed him that we were going to Florence, not exactly a remote deserted Pacific island.

After an eventful week in my beautiful native Florence we went back home to the U.S. and the kids went back to school. In the third grade they had just started History and the teacher was talking about American Indians. During our week abroad, between festivities my children had been at the Ufizzi Gallery and the Stibbert Museum. My little fellow let the teacher go on for a while about the American Indians after which, perplexed, he raised his hand and asked, “Have you ever heard of Mesopotamia?”