Happy Schools: Our Future The 2022-2023 school year is identified as the key year of innovation. In that innovation, building "Happy Schools" is considered a major task of the education sector. Previously, Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW also emphasized the viewpoint: "Strongly shifting the education process from mainly equipping knowledge to comprehensively developing learners' capacity and qualities". The good news is that besides the dark sides of education in 2023 such as the problem of school violence, the widespread situation of extra teaching and learning that makes those who care about education feel insecure and even helpless, somewhere, there are still schools, teachers, and lecturers who are trying to create a happy educational environment for their students. The 2024 New Year issue of the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper would like to introduce a few of the efforts to create “happy schools”, models that should be summarized and replicated, because they not only heal confusion but also open up a promising future for the country's education. |
10 years for a path
Confiding to the reporter of the Journalist & Public Opinion Newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa - Principal of Nguyen Binh Khiem School said: In 1993, when he established the Nguyen Binh Khiem school system, he was wrong in thinking that a real school is a school that trains many good students, the success of education is training good students, talented people. At that time, the majority of parents wanted their children to study well. Many people were willing to beat their children, put pressure on them, and even use harsh words because their children did not study as well as their parents expected.
At school, teachers nurture the dream of training many good students, the dream of becoming good teachers, of being famous because many students have won many awards for excellent students at the provincial and national levels. " Pressure and school violence are born from there. Forcing students to study, thinking that any student can be good, if not, it is only because they are lazy and stupid. They are beaten, scolded, and humiliated just because of the above wishes" - Mr. Hoa said.
Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa - Chairman of Nguyen Binh Khiem School Board.
There are no bad students, teachers must have faith in their students. Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam - Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Educational Psychology , Chairman of the Education Council of Dinh Tien Hoang High School (Hanoi) stated that there are no bad students. Teachers and schools must have faith in their students. Building a happy school must be for the progress of people, the development of teachers and students; in which the principal has a particularly important mission. |
Nguyen Binh Khiem School is a private school, even a principal like Mr. Hoa has the desire to recruit many students and recruit many quality students. He once had the ambition to build his school according to the model of public schools, only then would parents feel secure enough to send their children. It took 10 years for this private school to struggle to find its own way but the results were not as expected.
“ Learning and doing according to the teaching and management methods of public schools is not stable. There are too many problems arising such as school safety and school violence. Organizing all-day schooling is becoming more and more complicated. Meanwhile, students from private schools are “below standard”. They are lazy, playful, naughty, quarrelsome, form gangs to fight and fall in love... Teachers have to struggle with students from morning to night, especially in classes with many “problem students”. Teachers are stressed, many teachers cannot hold on and have to leave school and their profession” - Mr. Hoa confided.
Everyone tried their best, but every day this principal had to witness many scenes of students "disrupting", refusing to study, fighting, arguing, and cursing with the teacher. The teacher was insulted, sued the principal, demanded to restore her honor, and resigned. The principal was sued by the parents, becoming a "sinner" in front of the parents' expectations of their children. In that mess, Mr. Hoa had to exclaim many times "why is the life of a principal so miserable!".
To deal with the pressure from parents who want their children to be good and successful at school, schools and teachers have implemented measures with too many strict rules and regulations, harsh discipline because they follow the concept of "spare the rod and spoil the child". Children at school are under pressure, bored, and disruptive. " I have to deal with difficult situations every day. My hair quickly turned white" - Mr. Hoa confided.
To the effort to "make children happy, love school, love teachers"
Faced with so many seemingly hopeless problems, Mr. Hoa began to realize the limitations in the school's approach to education, so he began to change.
He persuaded teachers not to complain or criticize students, not to look at students based on their scores, not to put more pressure on students, but to be happy, creating a friendly and loving atmosphere in the school and in each classroom.
He encouraged teachers to make every student, no matter what, progress better than themselves, and to make their parents happy and confident. " I console myself and my teachers, my students are like that, our school is like that at the moment. We should not torture ourselves, the problem is to make the children happy, love the school, love the teachers, and have joy in going to school, then their studies will progress " - teacher Nguyen Van Hoa said.
Gradually, teachers in schools have realized that studying is just one of many human abilities. It is possible to study poorly - now called "having difficulty in studying a subject..." but no child is weak. Students also have many other abilities, which are hidden gold mines in each child that education has not yet discovered . Teachers and schools need to find a way for students to reveal and develop that ability so that they can become bright spots. This is the duty of teachers, the mission of educators.
Education for the progress of each student has brought unexpected results to Nguyen Binh Khiem School, Cau Giay, Hanoi.
Since then, at Nguyen Binh Khiem school, students are no longer forced to study. On the contrary, teachers love children, understand each of their students, listen and understand their feelings, create inspiration for learning, and persevere, day by day, month by month. Everyone understands that we teach children for themselves, to help them progress. Every teacher tries to help students understand that studying is no longer a "fear", no longer a "torture", looking at teachers is not like seeing "horror", on the contrary, only seeing joy, children will study, learn new things, they like to study. Then, the school's students have gradually improved.
In Nguyen Binh Khiem School, teachers no longer look at children with the eyes of “classifying students, weak, average, and special”. Therefore, the same teachers, the same children, but now teachers see them as lovable and are willing to give them love and care. The starting point for the change in the school is the desire to “teach students to be good people”.
It's simply a matter of making sure students go to school every day, not hanging around, not being street kids, not becoming bad people. Learning depends on each student, learning as much as they can, not forcing every student to be good. Just like that, with perseverance, each day the students have improved, they like going to school, study harder, and make more progress. At some point, the school's students, despite having very low entrance requirements, have results comparable to other famous public schools...
Mr. Hoa emphasized: “ A happy school is our future. Fortunately, that reality makes us realize the true goal of education. We realize that the educational goal of the school must first of all be “for the progress and development of each child” and not scores and achievements. The educational motto “Caring for each student, helping each student to progress” of my school was born right from the most difficult times at the beginning.”
From the initial successes of schools like Nguyen Binh Khiem, the concept of happy schools has been recognized and from there, many good practices and good models have appeared, changing the face of education in many localities.
Trinh Phuc
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