Green-uniformed teacher with 21 years of experience diligently maintains 'popular education class'

Captain Lo Van Thoai was born in 1981 in Muong Va village, Muong Va commune, Sop Cop district, Son La province. Being a Laotian, born in a poor village, from a young age, Mr. Thoai was determined to study to become a good cadre, who could help his fellow countrymen eliminate hunger, reduce poverty, and build and develop his beautiful homeland. That dream was cherished and gradually realized by him.

After graduating from Border Guard College 1 in 2003, Mr. Thoai was assigned to work at Muong Lan Border Guard Station (Border Guard of Son La Province) as a mass mobilization officer. From here, the journey of spreading knowledge in the highlands of the teacher in green uniform officially began.

The literacy class of teacher Lo Van Thoai in green uniform is lit up by electric lights every night. (Photo: NVCC)

Difficulty of literacy classes

Muong Lan Border Guard Station is located in Sop Cop District, in charge of 16 villages and 2 residential areas of the entire Muong Lan Commune, many of which are extremely disadvantaged. This place is mainly inhabited by Mong ethnic people, many backward customs still exist, and illiteracy is quite common.

Pitying the poor people who were illiterate and had difficulty accessing policies and laws, making them vulnerable to exploitation and incitement by bad elements, Mr. Thoai immediately proposed to the unit commander to open a class to teach literacy to the people.

“With the consent of the unit, in 2003 I started to open a class to teach at Nam Lan Primary School. However, when the class was established, it was very difficult to mobilize people to attend literacy classes, because according to many people's beliefs, "learning to read and write is useless, in the end you will go to work in the fields" , Mr. Thoai recalled.

To enlighten the people, the teacher persistently went to each house, explaining to everyone the benefits of knowing how to read and write to get rich and escape poverty. After many attempts to persuade people without the desired results, Mr. Thoai decided to change his strategy, applying the 4-together motto of "eating together, living together, working together, speaking the ethnic language together" to create intimacy and closeness with the people. With perseverance and dedication, he convinced the people to come to class.

Having never received any training in pedagogy, Mr. Thoai proactively sought out teachers who had many years of experience in literacy work, asking them to impart their experience and foster their pedagogical skills, and from there, he compiled appropriate lesson plans.

However, teaching is not easy when the students in the class are of different ages. Many old people have stiff hands and cannot hold a pen. It can take months to teach them to write.

“There were people who practiced writing for several pages but still couldn’t write. When I checked, they hid or tore their notebooks and threw them away. I had to encourage them for a long time before they would let me correct them. Then, when they learned to write their own names, everyone was very excited to learn,” said Mr. Thoai.

The students in the class are from the Mong, Thai, Lao ethnic groups... many of whom have never been to school. (Photo: NVCC)

According to the male Captain, motivating people to attend classes is difficult, keeping them until the end of the course is even more difficult. This makes him always remind himself to try to build interesting programs and classes to attract students. Because if they are bored, students will easily drop out of school halfway. At that time, motivating people to attend classes is considered zero.

During the day, he worked to mobilize the masses, but at night, he did not care about a minute of rest, continuing to teach and bring the light of knowledge to his compatriots. The literacy classes were lit every night waiting for the people to return from farming. Thanks to Mr. Thoai's perseverance, patience and sincere feelings, in just a few months, the students basically knew how to read and write.

Just like that, the class of the green-uniformed teacher was increasingly loved by the people, the class size increased, and students graduated regularly.

Happy when people can write their own names

In early 2022, Captain Lo Van Thoai returned to work at Nam Lanh Border Post, the management unit in Nam Lanh and Muong Va communes. These are also two communes with many difficulties, slow economic development, recurrent illiteracy and illiteracy, and child marriage constantly occurring, especially in the border villages. This situation once again makes the border guards wonder and worry endlessly about how to help the people here.

“People here do not have the opportunity to go to school, so their knowledge and farming techniques are limited, leading to low productivity from production activities. I really want to contribute a small part of my efforts to help people become literate, know how to apply science and technology to production to improve their lives,” Mr. Thoai expressed.

After making a list of cases of re-illiteracy and illiteracy, and advising the unit commander to coordinate with the Department of Education and Training of Sop Cop district to open an illiteracy eradication class in Pa Khoang village, Mr. Thoai continued his journey to fight against illiteracy in the border area.

Mr. Thoai's class. (Photo: NVCC)

Just like the first time, Mr. Thoai's work of mobilizing students to come to class also encountered many difficulties. After many times of propaganda and mobilization, the class had 7-8 students in the first few sessions, now there are 24 participants with ages ranging from 14-45.

Not letting down the hard work of the green-uniformed teacher, the students who were illiterate, had no numbers, and no phone numbers, after more than 5 months of studying, were able to read, write, save their relatives' names on their phones, and increasingly enjoyed going to class. Many people gradually realized that learning to read and write not only helps them read and understand books, but also helps a lot in their daily lives such as: taking care of their studies, taking care of their children's health, knowing how to raise livestock to make a living, and being more confident when communicating...

Since then, teacher Thoại has begun to incorporate propaganda content about the Party’s guidelines, policies and laws of the State on economic, cultural and social development in ethnic minority areas into his lectures. At the same time, he has also promoted the preservation and promotion of the cultural identity of ethnic minorities, and the elimination of backward customs, superstitions, early marriage and incestuous marriage.

Seeing that people could read and write, and understood the value of learning, Mr. Thoai was happy and proud. The soldier also expressed his emotion when people affectionately called him teacher Thoai, teacher in green uniform. Those feelings gave him more motivation in teaching, as well as guiding students and people to do business and develop the economy.

“I always hope that after completing the course, my students will know how to apply skills and business methods to develop their family economy. Pay more attention to studying, take care of their children's health, and contribute to the locality to build their homeland and village to become more and more prosperous,” the green-uniformed teacher advised.

With his achievements in education, Captain Lo Van Thoai was awarded certificates of merit by the Department of Education and Training of Son La province and the Son La Provincial Association for the Promotion of Education in 2021 and 2022. Captain Lo Van Thoai is one of 60 exemplary teachers honored by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Youth Union and the Ministry of Education and Training at the Sharing with Teachers 2024 program .

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/thay-giao-quan-ham-xanh-21-nam-miet-mai-duy-tri-lop-binh-dan-hoc-vu-ar907580.html