TP – Storm No. 3 and the resulting flood swept away schools, homes, and the lives of many students… But above all, teachers tried to encourage each other to stay strong, go to class every day, and care for each student, especially the disadvantaged.
Overcoming adversity
Until now, Ms. Luong Thi Trang, a teacher at Tan Duong Kindergarten, Bao Yen District (Lao Cai), is still in shock. The beloved house where the whole family lived peacefully in Pho Rang town was swept away.
Ms. Trang said that when the whole family woke up on the morning of September 9, they saw floodwaters rising everywhere. Leaving their children with their grandmother, she and her husband rushed to where the water was deeper to help other families save their belongings. When they returned, the family's level 4 house, along with all of their land and property, had been swept away.
“I was shocked and burst into tears. I lost my house on my son’s birthday. That day, my son asked me, ‘Mom, where are we going to celebrate my birthday?’ I didn’t know what to tell him,” Ms. Trang recalled.
In a moment of being left with nothing but not defeated, Ms. Trang reassured herself that she had to put aside her worries to continue her work of teaching and taking good care of the children. She and the teachers rolled up their sleeves to clean up the school, check the families of the affected students, and called on benefactors to support them to ease their difficulties. Thanks to that, teaching was not interrupted, and the students had full meals.
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Teachers of schools in Bao Yen district (Lao Cai) clean up classrooms after storm No. 3. |
Currently, Ms. Trang’s family of four is still living at her husband’s sister’s house. Since July 1, the government has adjusted the salary regime, and the income of preschool teachers is stable but only enough to cover living expenses and education for two children. Ms. Trang’s husband is a freelancer with an unstable income. Thinking about the future, she cannot help but worry about where to get the money to buy land and rebuild the house.
Since childhood, she dreamed of becoming a Literature teacher. After graduating from high school, she took the university entrance exam but failed the first year. She packed her bags and returned to Hanoi to work part-time to earn money to study for the exam with the determination to pursue her dream. Wanting her child to live near home, Trang's mother called her back to study at a preschool teacher training college. Graduating in 2010, Trang has been in the profession for nearly 15 years now.
“Teaching preschool is harder than other levels of education because the children are still young. All the hygiene, eating, sleeping, and daily activities require the teacher’s care and guidance. Sometimes it is very tiring, but when I see the children’s smiles and innocent eyes, I seem to forget all the hardships. The more I do the job, the more passionate and attached I feel,” she confided.
Second father, second mother
Until now, whenever he recalls the landslide disaster in Lang Nu village, Mr. Pham Duc Vinh, Principal of Phuc Khanh Primary and Secondary School No. 1 (Lao Cai), still cannot hold back his tears. The 13 students of the school have forever stopped their innocent school years. He said, when he went to Lang Nu and witnessed the muddy scene, he quickly decided to take all the children from the satellite school to the main school to take care of them.
The main school had about 100 students before, and welcoming over 100 more, life was already difficult and now it was even more lacking. The temporary functional classrooms were arranged as accommodation. During those turbulent days, Mr. Vinh asked teachers, in addition to teaching, to play the role of second fathers and mothers to their students to encourage and comfort them who had lost loved ones. He went to each class to talk and motivate them to overcome adversity, study hard to grow up and become useful people to society.
This year, November 20, the joy of Teachers' Day for Ms. Luong Thi Trang was not complete because her family still does not have a roof to protect them from the rain and sun. She hopes that preschool teachers will receive more attention so that they can confidently devote themselves to their profession.
Teacher Vinh said that up to now, teaching activities have been put into order. The school in Lang Nu will be revived in a new location with two classrooms for first and second graders. Two seriously injured students who had to be treated at Viet Duc Hospital and Bach Mai Hospital have been discharged and returned to school. “As for Bao, a second grader who lost both his parents, when he returned to school, he was sad, spoke less, and smiled less. The day before, I asked my grandparents to let me go to town to visit Phuc (Bao's older brother), but he hesitated for a while before agreeing to go,” said teacher Vinh.
Ms. Le Thi Bich Lien, Principal of Coc Lau Kindergarten, Bac Ha District (Lao Cai), said that on this occasion, the school, teachers and students are enthusiastically practicing performing arts to celebrate Vietnamese Teachers' Day, November 20. "After the storm, flood and loss occurred, the school and teachers quickly returned to teaching so that parents could feel secure in doing their jobs," Ms. Lien said.
During the charity trip to give savings books to orphans organized by Tien Phong newspaper in Bac Ha district (Lao Cai) in October, Ms. Lien was present, sad because the school had orphans "receiving the books". She said that the storm and flood caused the schools to be flooded with mud, in some places most of the fences, kitchens, and toilets were damaged. The school has 243 students, dozens of students in the remote school had to evacuate with their families because they were in an area at risk of landslides. Some teachers had their houses flooded, one teacher had a house built many years ago that was no longer safe when it was flooded, and had to stay with someone else.
Despite the difficulties and hardships, the school and teachers have made every effort to clean up and support students from the remote locations to the main study locations to ensure safety. In some places, students have to study together, but up to now, teaching and learning have been stable, the children come to school happily, and have been able to eat at the boarding school without missing a day. "Fortunately, the school has a team of teachers who are always dedicated to their profession and always devoted to their students," said Ms. Lien.
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