The seven-years journey to bring knowledge to students of Ban La school site

This is what teacher Hoang Thi Thao shared with us on her seven-year journey to bring knowledge to students of Ban La school site (Thai Son Preschool), Bao Lam district, Cao Bang province.

The journey begins with Ms. Thao’s first motorcycle trip to the school on the day she obtained her appointment. The road was long and rough, so when she followed students’ parents to get to the main school, she fell off her motorcycle about a dozen times. “I still remember one parent said that ‘Whenever I realized that Ms. Thao was not following me, I came back to find her falling off her motorcycle,’ recalled Ms. Thao. “Since I kept falling off, I decided to take my backpack and go to the school on foot. Now, every time I see the parents, we all recall the trip. One of them said that ‘Now Ms. Thao is such a skillful rider, no matter if it’s rainy or sunny!’ These are the things that I could only experience when I came to Bao Lam and Ban La.”

The first motorcycle trip seems to have forecasted a difficult journey ahead for the young teacher. Her house is more than 100km away from Bao Lam town, and she needs to travel an additional 26km to get to Ban La school site. Because of the long distance and difficulties in traveling, Ms. Thao cannot go home regularly. However, the school site does not have an official residence, so she has to stay in the classroom. Every weekend, she travels to the town to buy necessities, stationeries, and food for herself and the students.

Ms. Thao told us that the biggest challenge in her first days at work is the language barrier between her and the students. At home, students mostly communicate with their parents in Hmong and Dao ethnic languages, so when they first met her and listened to her speaking Vietnamese, they could not understand. Therefore, she decided to learn Mong and Dao languages to explain words for the students and then translate them to the Kinh language. Since then, both she and the students have been trying to practice speaking Vietnamese. In addition, Ms. Thao encourages parents to communicate with their children in Vietnamese more to help them acquire knowledge more easily.

After 7 years working at the school site, many students have left lasting impressions on Ms. Thao, two of whom are Hoang Thi Minh Hang and Hoang Van Trong. Both of them first went to study at the school site when they were less than 2 years old.

“Minh Hang gets on well with all of her friends and teachers, but she’s only close to and allows people she loves to carry her and tie her hair,” said Ms. Thao.

“For Trong, although he came to school when he was less than 2 years old, he didn’t cry on his first days at school and plays well with all the students older than him. The special thing is even though his house is nearly 3km away from the school site, he walks to school with his mother and sister because his father works far from home and cannot take him to school.”

Ms. Thao and other 11 teachers in 5 other school sites under the “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project have always been committed to the noble work of bringing knowledge and taking care of the students, which plays  an important part in the success of the project after 2 years of implementation. The “Growing up with mountainous preschool students” project is proud to be by the teachers’ side in the students’ studies and development!