Thank you for staying

Despite numerous difficulties, many teachers still stay with schools in mountainous areas. (Photo source: TT/GD&TĐ)

(PLVN) - They are teachers who have come and stayed in lands with countless difficulties. They have woven many fairy tales in real life, bringing the footsteps of students to reach distant shores.

"Teacher, please don't leave us"

Mr. Vu Van Tung (43 years old, teacher at Dinh Nup Primary and Secondary School, Po To Commune, Ia Pa District, Gia Lai) confided that over the past 10 years, he has often witnessed poor students going to school hungry. During recess, many students take advantage of the opportunity to skip class and go home to find food to ease their hunger.

“Our school is located in the two villages of Bi Giong and Bi - Gia, Po To commune, Ia Pa district, Gia Lai province, known as the poorest village in one of the poorest districts in the country,” Mr. Tung said emotionally. Therefore, the job of the teachers here is to teach in the morning and mobilize students to come to class in the afternoon. Each session, they visit several families. It is difficult to mobilize students to come to class, but it is even more difficult to prevent students from dropping out of school. In the first days when the teachers arrived, many parents refused, even chased the teachers away and asked: “What is the purpose of going to school? Is there money to go to school?...”.

Faced with the situation of poverty, Mr. Tung came up with the idea: to build a model of "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet". After listening to his story, a bakery owner decided to support 60 loaves of bread each week. But that number of loaves was not enough for more than 370 students, so Mr. Tung had to take a part of his meager salary to buy more bread. On December 5, 2021, "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet" was officially opened.

From that day on, every morning Mr. Tung had to leave home at 4am to go to the bakery 25km away to get bread to give to students at 6am and finish at 6:30am. Since the implementation of the "Zero-VND Bread Cabinet", students have come to school on time, and the number of students is guaranteed.

At the same time, Mr. Tung also built a livelihood fund, from the mobilized funds, he bought goats and cows to give to poor students in especially difficult circumstances, helping their families develop their economy, have enough food, and let their children go to school. In addition, he also supported taking students to get medical treatment. For example, in the case of a student who had a fungal infection, a strange fungus that ate deep into the skull and brain. The teacher took the student for treatment for 5 months before the disease was cured. Or in the case of a student who went to get treatment for congenital heart disease, thanks to the teacher's connections, 100% of the surgery costs were sponsored...

In the blink of an eye, it has been 16 years of being attached to the profession of sowing knowledge in this poor land. Teacher Tung shared: “After many years of being attached to this place, thinking of my wife who had to sacrifice to take care of the family alone, and the children who were disadvantaged because their father worked from dawn to dusk every day, in the summer of 2021, I wrote an application to transfer to a more favorable area. By chance, a student read my application, so he and his friends met the teacher and expressed: “Teacher, please don’t leave us!”, I was extremely moved and kept that file. For every teacher like us, the affection of students is a great motivation to help us overcome all difficulties”...

At the recent "Sharing with Teachers" Honor Ceremony, Mr. Tung unexpectedly met his student. Thuy Van, currently a 4th year student at the University of Foreign Languages, University of Danang. In Van's memory, during her junior high school years, Mr. Tung always taught wholeheartedly, instructed wholeheartedly in each lecture, took care of each student's breakfast with all the love of a mother and a teacher. Not only that, he also supported the students' family finances, gave them a cow so that they could have money to go to school. "The love and affection of teachers is the motivation for us students to overcome difficulties, determined to study hard, and practice even during our time at school. I really appreciate and am grateful for your sacrifice because to me, you are like a special mother to me," Thuy Van emotionally expressed.

Mr. Vu Van Tung, Dinh Nup Primary and Secondary School, Po To Commune, Ia Pa District, Gia Lai.

“I always instill in my students the spirit of effort and perseverance.”

Mr. Danh Luc (born in 1986) is currently a teacher at Ban Tan Dinh Primary School (Kien Giang). During his 15 years of teaching, Mr. Luc has wanted to quit teaching many times because of the difficulties and hardships of teaching in a place that still lacks many facilities. Since childhood, Mr. Luc has cherished the dream of holding chalk, but his family's circumstances did not allow him to pursue his dream, so after finishing 12th grade, he continued to work to support his family's finances.

After working for a while, Mr. Luc suddenly received a notice that he had received a full scholarship to study pedagogy at Kien Giang Pedagogical College. In 2008, after graduating, Mr. Luc went to teach at My Thai Secondary School in Hon Dat (Kien Giang): “When I had just graduated, my salary was only enough to cover my living expenses. With a salary of 1 million VND/month, I could not even pay for gas. The school at this time was often moldy and leaky. On days of heavy rain and storms, I often had to sleep overnight at school”...

After that, Mr. Luc asked to transfer to Ban Tan Dinh Primary School to take care of his father. Due to the lack of teachers, Mr. Luc was forced to teach a combined class for students in grades 1, 2 and 3. “Most of the students in the class were Khmer. That meant I had to teach bilingually because the students were not fluent in Kinh. Honestly, I was a bit discouraged at that time,” said Mr. Luc.

Sometimes when he wanted to give up, he remembered the times when the locals sent their children to him, the times when he saw the eager eyes of the students. Thinking of that, he continued to make efforts. There were cases where students dropped out of school to follow their parents to farm, Mr. Luc immediately went down to their houses to persuade and ask about them. Mr. Luc always advised his students: "You may not have studied well, but at least you must know how to read and write. In case you get lost, you must know how to read to look at the signs and find your way home. Or when you see a bottle of medicine, you can know whether it is poison or not...".

Ms. Quach Thi Bich Nu (born in 1987) is currently the Principal of Yen Hoa Kindergarten, Yen Hoa Commune, Da Bac District, Hoa Binh Province. She grew up in a poor rural area located along the Da River, where her ancestors gave up land to build the Hoa Binh Hydropower Plant.

Xom Nhap, Dong Ruong commune is a remote and extremely disadvantaged area of ​​Da Bac district, Hoa Binh province. People live scattered along the hillsides along the riverbank, so they mainly have to use boats to travel. Many families do not have boats, so it is very difficult to take their children to and from school. Therefore, she volunteered to take the children to and from school to reassure the parents.

Recalling the first days of her work, in 2005, when Ms. Nu was still a contract teacher with a salary of only 50,000 VND/month, the means of transportation for her and her students was a raft made from bamboo trunks, then mixed with cement and plastered on top to make a boat. It was no problem in sunny weather, but when the weather was bad, rainy, foggy, cold, traveling was very difficult, visibility was limited... At that time, she and her students slowly walked little by little or stayed close to the shore waiting for the wind to stop before continuing.

Just like that, quietly day after day, early morning and late afternoon, Ms. Nu both took care of the children and volunteered to row the boat, taking the students of Nhap hamlet to school. “Over the past 18 years, I don’t remember exactly how many children I have picked up and dropped off, how many boat trips. I only remember that in the school year, I picked up and dropped off at least 2 children, and in the year with the most, 18 children. I always consider those children as my loved ones”...

Up to now, in the new resettlement area after the historic flood in 2017, teachers and students no longer have to cross the river to go to school. Ms. Nu confided: “I have never thought that if it is too hard, I will stop this job, because if I quit, the children will not be able to go to class. Or if they do go to class, it will be difficult and tiring. I cannot help them with tuition fees and daily food expenses, but I always give them the motivation to persevere and try because with effort, all dreams will be successful”...

All over the country, there are teachers who have sacrificed silently and cannot leave because of the bewildered eyes of their students. As Miss Universe H'Hen Nie expressed, she grew up in the mountains with backward customs, meeting her teachers, she felt like she was a child. She was very touched and appreciated, because the teachers did not give up, to have her and many other children reach their aspirations. And above all, for the great things to stay, are the teachers like "mothers" forever cherished in the hearts of their students...

Source: https://baophapluat.vn/cam-on-thay-co-da-o-lai-post495969.html