Info for Parents and Teachers (original) (raw)

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The Peoples of Sicily: A Multi­cultural Legacy. Full of Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Germans and Jews, the most signif­icant general history of Sicily ever pub­lished is about much more than an island in the sun. Can the eclectic medieval experience of the world's most conquered island be a lesson for our times? Find out as you meet the peoples! (368 pages on acid-free paper, ebook available) Read more.

Women of Sicily: Saints, Queens & Rebels. Meet a time­less sister­hood of pious Roman maidens, stead­fast Sicilian queens, and a Jewish mother who faced the horrors of the Inquisi­tion. Find an island's feminine soul in the first book about Sicily's historical women written in English by a Sicilian woman in Sicily. (224 pages on acid-free paper, ebook available) Read more.

Parent/Teacher Guide to Sicily for Students
Sicily for Students is published by Best of Sicily, one of the web's most popular regional travel and destination guides. It is a useful study guide oriented to the interests and instruction of young students over the age of 12, but most of the linked pages are published as part of our general site, intended for readers of all ages.

While Best of Sicily is in most respects more reliable than certain "open-source" sites (such as Wikipedia) which any visitor may edit arbitrarily, it is not editorially oriented exclusively toward young people. Some topics: the Inquisition, Fascism in Sicily, the Second World War and its effects in Sicily, organized crime, political corruption, the economy, social issues, life in Sicily including marriage and romantic relationships, literature and cinema (including references to Lady Chatterley's Lover and a review of a bestselling erotic novel based on the experiences of a 15 year-old girl). Such topics are usually presented from a sociological or journalistic perspective.

Considering the wide range of material presented in this publication, please bear in mind that some of the content on Best of Sicily - though highly informative - may not be appropriate for children under 13 years of age.

This site utilizes the PICS standard. Best of Sicily's SafeSurf ® Rating is:
Age Range: Teens • Nudity: Non-Graphic Artistic • Other Adult Themes: Subtle Innuendo.
The ICRA description of this site's content is: No violence, No potentially offensive language, No potentially harmful activities, No user-generated content, No sexual material, Exposed breasts appearing in an artistic context.

As a parent or teacher (or both), you're probably interested in this site's perspective and background.

This site presents information on various topics in the context of Sicilian, European, Mediterranean, north African and western Asian history and society, most often from a multicultural point of view reflecting Sicily's unique heritage as a place colonized by many peoples. Best of Sicily is not an ethnocentric 'Italianist' site, nor is it sectarian or political. For example, the historical faiths of the Sicilians are all treated equally as religious denominations, even though Roman Catholicism has been the majority religion in Sicily since the Late Middle Ages (by 1300 there were no Muslim Sicilians and after 1493 no Jewish ones).

Best of Sicily was launched in 1999 as a destination and travel guide which rapidly grew to become Sicily's most popular website internationally. Early on, we became aware that students - typically over the age of 12 but also a few bright ones who were even younger - were consulting the site as a reference. Sicily for Students represents our effort to present information of interest to these students in a simple way and on a single link page.

This website is a private (but commercial) publication which is not affiliated with any organization, foundation, public agency or travel bureau. (We do, however, sponsor the publication of books about Sicily.) Most of the advertising on the site is tourism-oriented material which does not under any circumstances contain anything unsuitable for children.

Because students from around the world make use of sites like this one, it is important that our editorial perspective remain universal - traditionalist in some ways but never narrow-minded. This calls for certain editorial policies. For example, in indicating ancient dates we usually use the abbreviation BCE increasingly popular in the United States and Canada, but not in preference to the more common BC preferred in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. We believe this "neutrality" to be the best approach in presenting accurate information which will positively influence readers' experiences. The site is independently published in Palermo (Italy) by several historians and professional educators who have studied in English-speaking countries but lived in Sicily for years. The index page of this website intended specifically for young students contains no advertising of any kind, and no editorial promotion of commercial services.

As a travel guide, we have a page describing things to do in Sicily with children, and the page for students is a good introduction that can get young teens interested in coming to Sicily.

We don't have any materials (such as study guides) that we can email or snail mail to you, but feel free to contact us with questions, suggestions or comments.

-- Vincenzo Salerno and the Editors of Best of Sicily