My teacher

During a business trip to a remote mountainous district, I encountered an elderly man with a long, white beard and hair. He walked with a slight hunch, but was still agile, his skin rosy and radiant, and his eyes shone with intelligence and sharpness. Having been introduced by colleagues from the district, I recognized him immediately, especially when he invited us into his home – his voice remained unchanged after 60 years.

He was an outstanding teacher, my teacher during my middle school years (1965-1969). More accurately, he didn't teach me directly; he was the principal during those years. However, he was directly involved in training and coaching the school's gifted math team. When he extended his hand to me, I felt a warmth, love, and affection spreading through my body, and from that moment, a flood of memories rushed back.

I don't remember exactly when he came to teach in my hometown, but by the time I entered junior high school (nowadays called middle school), he was already the principal. He was very young, only 24 or 25 years old, and hadn't started a family yet. Some of my classmates and older students were afraid of him, but everyone respected him. He was very strict, but he was also very good at math. In the eyes of us students on the math team, he was an idol.

During the subsidy period, when hunger and poverty were rampant and salaries were insufficient to feed everyone, our teacher still spent money buying materials, especially subscribing to the magazine "MATHEMATICS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE," to gain more resources and knowledge to teach us. At that time, because of the subsidy system, materials were scarce, and perhaps only one or two teachers in the entire district subscribed to "MATHEMATICS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE." To us, these were unattainable things, only available to noble individuals like our teacher.

I recall my memories with my teacher from my middle school years. My house was 2.5 km from the school, but due to a shortage of classrooms, class 5A had morning classes and 5B had afternoon classes. Therefore, our group of gifted 5th-grade math students had to attend evening tutoring sessions. I had a habit that wasn't bad, but not good either: I didn't sleep overnight in unfamiliar places. So, after each evening tutoring session (around 10 pm), I would grab my flashlight and walk home, even though I was the only one whose house was furthest away.

We studied in the afternoon, and after class, I stayed to study late into the night. The teacher was kind to me and cooked dinner for us to eat together. Those were difficult times, and even he had to eat rice mixed with potatoes, but on the nights I stayed, he would roast potatoes outside so I wouldn't have to eat mixed rice.

Many times, the teacher tried to persuade me to stay overnight because I walked home late at night, but I refused. One day, after class, the wind suddenly picked up, signaling a heavy rainstorm. The sky turned pitch black, and at 9:30, the teacher dismissed us early. As I was getting ready to leave, he called me back, got on his bicycle, and offered to give me a ride home. I was both happy and embarrassed, but the rain was already coming.

The teacher and his student were riding home on the teacher's old bicycle when suddenly, with a swerve, the bike lurched forward and the teacher's sandals flew off his feet. They stopped and fumbled around looking for them (they didn't have flashlights like today). After searching for a while, they finally found them. Because the bike had climbed onto a large rock, the sandals had landed quite far away.

There are many stories about the teacher's strictness. One day before class, he ran around the classrooms and found two older students from the grade above me drawing on the wall with bricks. He came over, first pinching their ears until they turned red, then he demanded that after class, the two students clean up the area they had drawn on. He only said that, but back then, we students were very disciplined. After school, those two students had to borrow brooms, rags, and buckets of water to clean the wall they had drawn on. We students still went to school with them, felt sorry for them, and wanted them to go home with us, so we helped clean the wall and the classroom.

While we were wiping, the teacher came up and said, "What? Me! (I said 'me,' but in a very affectionate way) I didn't punish you guys, only the one who drew had to brush it off." We stood there scratching our heads like statues, afraid he would punish us again. But no, he smiled and said, "Okay, now go down to my office!" As students, it was rare to go down to the teacher's office, especially the principal's office. We exchanged worried glances, wondering what punishment he would give us next time, but we still had to go down. When we got to his office, he had already prepared a pot of water with sugar and a packet of lemon candies, enough for each of us to have two. He told us to eat them, saying we were hungry at lunchtime, and that next time we shouldn't draw on the floor again!

Returning to our meeting today, the teacher offered me a drink. I snapped back to reality, the cup of fresh tea from his garden hot and flavorful. He looked at me and slowly said, "I suppose you want to ask about my life in the years that followed?" Then he recounted: After you all entered high school, he joined the army until after the liberation of South Vietnam. In 1976, he returned as a student at the Hanoi University of Education I, and the school arranged for him to study at Lomolosov University. However, he then switched to studying physics. After graduating, he returned to the teacher training college, and that's when he met you, a lecturer at the school, 14 years younger than him. They got married and had a daughter (who now works at the Institute of Mathematics).

After retiring, she returned to her hometown (leaving her 30m2 room for me) and built this place. With a small amount of capital, she went to the local middle school to build a bookshelf named after her – the NGOC TAM Bookshelf – and bought some books for the children to study and read. The emotion and admiration were clearly visible on the faces of my companions. Due to the geographical distance and the passage of time, we hadn't heard from her, but now, meeting her again at over 80 years old, I'm happy for her that she has a bookshelf named after her. Even after retirement, she continues her teaching career.

"Goodbye, teacher," we said, our eyes welling up with tears, "Some people call my job 'ferryman,' but I don't think so. My job is 'sowing seeds,' and your success today is truly remarkable. I am so proud that a ferryman like me has passengers who remember him fondly." Teacher and students parted ways with lingering affection and reluctance to leave.

Le Dung

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