Kindergarten 'fathers' in the middle of the jungle: A school from the sweat and tears of teachers

But in today's lesson, after more than 10 years in this profession, the teacher brought with him not only lesson plans and toys, but also in his backpack the dream of a real school.

Life is precarious and times when you want to give up

Volunteering to teach preschool children since 1990, without salary or support, but with love for the job and a fragile belief that words can change the fate of people in the rocky mountains, teacher Luong Van Sang - a teacher at Van Nho Kindergarten (Van Nho commune, Thanh Hoa ) still perseveres in class.

In 1992, Mr. Sang received his first support of 18kg of rice per month. The amount of rice was not enough to eat, but for him, it was like an affirmation: "My efforts are not meaningless, not forgotten." The day he held the bag of rice in his hand, he burst into tears because he felt recognized.

Then, he had a family, 18kg of rice was only enough to buy a few basic necessities. Every afternoon when he came home, his wife and children waited for the simple meal, but his heart ached: If he kept his job, he would be poor, but if he quit his job, he would feel sorry for his students.

Life was so difficult that there was a time when not only Mr. Sang but also many other teachers wanted to give up. Mr. Sang still remembers an afternoon more than 30 years ago: “That day it was raining, the road was slippery. I rode my bike home, soaked like a drowned rat. When I got home, I saw my wife mending our children’s clothes. Suddenly, I thought about quitting… I was so poor. Then at night, sitting by the dying wood stove, looking at the flickering fire and wondering: Do I still have enough strength to continue? But that night, when I heard the neighbor’s children babbling and reciting the poem the teacher taught that morning, my heart softened. I couldn’t bear to let my children drop out of school… so I went to class the next morning,” he said, his eyes reddening.

Mr. Sang has been teaching preschool children for over 30 years.

Building schools - building the future

Teacher Luong Van Sang is now in his twilight years, but he still clearly remembers the times he walked dozens of kilometers to the district to ask for permission to build a kindergarten.

“In 1992, I was assigned to be in charge of the kindergarten in the commune, but it was not until 1996 that I got the seal. My uncle, teacher Ha Van Hac, and I walked together to the district many times to submit a request to build a school and then mobilize people to donate their rice fields. The road at that time was a dirt road, each time we went to the district it took a whole day,” Mr. Sang recalled.

In 2002, the Van Nho commune government announced permission to build a kindergarten. That very evening, as he sat by the fire, he felt for the first time that the road ahead was a little brighter.

In the bitter cold, every morning when Mr. Sang came to class, he carried a bundle of bamboo, some coils of wild vines, and a crumpled old lesson plan. For him, building a school was never just about building a house - it was a journey through poverty and then standing up with love for his students.

The support fund was low, the parents were poor, there were no masons, so Mr. Sang and Mr. Hac mobilized other teachers and people to join hands.

In the morning, he taught the children to sing and hold a pen. In the afternoon, he mixed the glue, and sometimes he watched the children sleep while mixing the glue. Just hearing the children call him “teacher” made all his tiredness disappear.

After nearly half a year, the new kindergarten took shape with two rows of four rooms with simple but sturdy plaster walls and a flat dirt yard for children to run around. On the inauguration day, there were no banners, loudspeakers, or school drums, only the clear sounds of children singing in the morning. Mr. Sang stood leaning against the classroom door, his eyes red.

Teacher Hac accompanied teacher Sang to sow the first letters for preschool children at Van Nho in the early 1990s.

Welcoming students to the new class, the teacher lit a fire in the middle of the yard for the children to warm up, the smoke mixed with the early morning sunlight, in the classroom, the letters on the board were brightly lit. Parents held the teacher's hand and said emotionally: "Without you, this village would never have had a school."

Once the classroom was established, the teacher personally built tables and chairs, and together with the teachers, made toys from torn sandals, tree bark, vines, plastic pipes, etc. In the following years, he continued to ask to build more classrooms, and continued to light fires in the school every winter morning to warm the children's tiny hands.

There are schools where students flock to in greater numbers. The campaign to get children to go to class is no longer as difficult as in previous years.

“It was the years of hunger and cold, the mornings of seeing students shivering from the cold… that kept me here, so that today – the day a real school was built in the middle of the mountains and forests – could come to fruition. I looked at it and felt moved, not because of the effort I put in, but because I knew that from now on the children at the main point would no longer have to study under the empty stilt house. But then I wondered how to expand the school, so that children from other villages could gather here.

Many times I feel like I am sowing seeds, sowing them in rocky soil, but still believing that one day they will sprout,” Mr. Sang reminisced.

And indeed, every child's laughter, every pair of eyes eagerly waiting for the teacher, is proof that those seeds are quietly growing.

More than 20 years have passed, now Van Nho Kindergarten is spacious, has a playground, and full school supplies. There is still a single location, but in winter there is no longer the scene of children huddled under the stilt house; in rainy season there is no longer the worry of water splashing into the classroom.

Inside the spacious classroom, the chirping laughter resounded every morning like a harmony of change. The road to school was no longer muddy, the teachers’ lives were more stable. Few people remembered that this place was once just a rocky ground, a simple classroom built with the sweat and effort of teachers and people, and lit by a single oil lamp. Only Mr. Sang - who witnessed the first seedling - never forgot...

“In 2002, I was officially admitted to the staff after more than 10 years of teaching. That was when I started to receive a salary and insurance. The belief that if we give our all, the State will never forget us is true,” said teacher Luong Van Sang.

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/nhung-ong-bo-mam-non-giua-dai-ngan-ngoi-truong-tu-mo-hoi-nuoc-mat-nguoi-thay-post759286.html