Teacher Truong Thi Mai has just won first prize in the writing contest "School health, quality of the country's human resources" organized by Citizen and Encouragement of Learning Magazine.
Notably, Ms. Mai is 60 years old this year and is a retired preschool teacher.
The article Ms. Mai submitted to the contest and was awarded first prize by the judges was entitled "The importance of preschool children's health charts". It was a carefully researched topic based on practical teaching experience over 20 years of work.
Ms. Mai was originally a pianist. After graduating from music school, for personal reasons, she became a nun in Ho Chi Minh City. In 1997, she was sent by her superiors to Thanh Lich Kindergarten (District 9, Ho Chi Minh City) to assist the teachers there in taking care of the children.
From her role as a nanny, Ms. Mai gradually became interested in raising children. She went to university to study preschool education when she was nearly 30 years old and stuck with this job until her retirement.
Former Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan - President of the Vietnam Association for Promoting Education - presented the first prize certificate to Ms. Truong Thi Mai (Photo: Hoang Hong).
What is special is that, during her time working, Ms. Mai was often assigned to take care of disabled children.
Her first disabled student was a child with a congenital heart disease. After carefully studying the child’s health condition and family, Ms. Mai determined that she could not care for the child alone and needed all the children in the class to care for him.
"I talked to my children about your illness, asked them not to play games that were too strenuous, only play gentle games so that you could play with them. After each class, my children reminded me to drink water to avoid blood clots. Whenever I showed any unusual signs, they had to call me immediately so I could help you.
The 4-year-old children are still very young, but their souls are extremely kind. When they received a request for help from me, they were willing and cooperated very well with me to take care of and protect their friends," Ms. Mai shared.
Another special disabled student of Ms. Mai is Thien Nhan - a baby abandoned at birth, had one leg and genitals eaten by cattle, and was later adopted by journalist Tran Mai Anh.
Thien Nhan was assigned to Ms. Mai's class when she just transferred to Hanoi and had been in the class for 2 days. He studied here until he entered 1st grade.
Ms. Mai confided that for a normal child, the most important things are food and sleep. For a disabled child, food and sleep are many times more important. Because those are two factors that determine the physical and mental health of an unfortunate body.
"Every day when I meet parents at drop-off time, I tell them what their children ate. Although the school menu has been distributed since the beginning of the month, not all parents pay attention.
The reason I have to remind parents what their children are eating today is so that they can cook different meals for their children at home. Nutrition at school is 70%, at home is 30%, neglecting either aspect will cause children to not receive enough nutrition necessary for development," Ms. Mai shared.
Ms. Mai added that on days at the beginning of the week when children eat poorly, she will immediately ask the parents what they ate to find out the problem. Usually, the reason is that on the weekend the children ate too much fast food or ate the same food as the school menu.
"There are stages called the golden stages of development, which if parents and caregivers ignore, cannot be compensated for later.
Therefore, I carefully record what my children eat. Every month, I measure their height and weight, then take advantage of their nap time to take out the notebook to calculate how each child is growing.
For those who gain weight quickly, I take notes so that at mealtimes I can remind the nannies to feed the children a bowl of soup first, then rice, to reduce their appetite.
For those who gain weight slowly, I will text their parents to adjust their home menus," Ms. Mai recounted her meticulous way of working like a researcher.
Similarly, Ms. Mai also takes good care of the children's sleep. For children who have trouble sleeping or often toss and turn, she will let the child lie next to her to rub their head and back to help them fall asleep easily.
Music is also a therapy that Ms. Mai uses regularly to help children function more effectively during class and playtime, as well as eat well and sleep well.
Ms. Mai once admonished a colleague for scolding a child when she saw that he did not take a nap. According to Ms. Mai, scolding the child not only prevented him from sleeping, but also kept his eyes closed out of fear of her, and also woke up other children.
Ms. Mai's valuable experiences in taking care of each meal and sleep of preschool children have been digitized into elaborate charts, clearly showing in detail each channel of children's development and practical solutions.
Journalist Huynh Dung Nhan, a member of the jury, was extremely surprised when reading Ms. Mai's entry by the solid, scientific and attractive data drawn from this empirical evidence.
In addition to the first prize for the 60-year-old former kindergarten teacher, the organizing committee of the writing contest "School health, quality of the country's human resources" also awarded 2 second prizes, 3 third prizes, 5 consolation prizes and 2 encouragement prizes for the most read articles and the collective with the most entries.
Also at the award ceremony, Citizen and Encouragement of Learning Magazine launched a new contest with the theme "Learning Family".
The contest aims to reflect the beauty of learning in families, honoring examples of families with a tradition of studiousness; expressing gratitude for the contributions of grandparents and parents to the education of their children and grandchildren; connecting and spreading learning inspiration to the community; contributing and proposing practical solutions for the learning movement in Vietnamese families...
The time for the organizing committee to receive entries is October 2, 2024 - May 1, 2025.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/co-giao-mam-non-chuyen-nhan-tre-khuet-tat-gap-phu-huynh-la-hoi-tre-an-gi-20240926153943641.htm
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