 A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples. His first challenge is to increase attendance, collaring his students one by one from home, jobs, or delinquent idleness. Then he must convince his students that classroom learning has real-world payoffs. Meanwhile, Sperelli s students draw their gentle, self-deprecating teacher into their gritty lives outside the classroom. North-South contrasts abound, including an hilarious soliloquy on the nature of Switzerland.