Education starts with the most practical things

FROM THE HIGH SCHOOL GATE…

One morning, while taking my child to school, I witnessed an unforgettable incident. A schoolgirl sat on the back of her mother’s motorbike, in her neat uniform, with a red scarf, holding a carton of fresh milk, took a gulp, then dropped the carton on the ground, right in front of the school gate.

Bắt đầu từ những điều thực tiễn nhất - Ảnh 1. — Children learn lessons about environmental protection, politeness, and kindness first and foremost from their parents, the adults closest to them.

Above the gate was a large sign with the slogan "My school gate is green, clean, beautiful and safe". I reminded my niece to pick it up and throw it in the trash. She stared at me, surprised that there was suddenly a nosy stranger, but she still bent down to pick up the box. I drove away to make it to work on time, but through the rearview mirror I saw the girl drop the box on the ground after the mother said something. I don't know what the mother said to her child, but I'm sure it wasn't something that should be said to children.

Another time, also at the school gate, I witnessed a student sitting on the back of his father's motorbike, just getting off the motorbike, was hit and knocked down by another motorbike coming from behind. The woman who was driving the motorbike that knocked down the student was also driving her child to school. Before the boy could recover from the fall, the woman scolded him, asking why he didn't look behind him after getting off the motorbike. I was surprised to see that the woman didn't care about the boy's condition after she hit him, and her daughter sitting on the back of the motorbike also looked on without emotion.

Luckily, the boy only fell and was not hurt. The father calmly told his son to check for any scratches, then signaled the two children to hurry into the school. After the two children had left, the father turned back to tell the woman that she had behaved shamefully in front of the children, especially in front of her child… I admired the father’s composure, and even more so when he continued, saying that he was very upset but did not want to raise his voice because it would embarrass her in front of her daughter.

At the school gate, there are many stories worth pondering about the way adults influence children. It could be the story of parents loudly scolding their children right in front of the school gate. It could be the story of mothers asking their sons to kiss them on the cheek as a greeting ritual before entering the school without caring about the child's feeling of embarrassment. It could be the story of fathers taking their children to school, and every day taking out their wallets to give their children a hundred thousand dong bill as a "big spender" way of showing their love for their children...

Are such things ever considered in the educational considerations of parents?

Educating children is not far away in books, but is right in the behavior of parents, in every development of life around children. Whether they grow up to learn lessons about politeness, calmness, kindness, tolerance or not does not have to wait for the pages of teachers' lectures at school. Children learn the most from the adults closest to them.

Bắt đầu từ những điều thực tiễn nhất - Ảnh 2. — Students of Van Lang University visit and experience the *Thanh Nien* Newspaper office

C DISTRICT AT UNIVERSITY

I have often argued with my colleagues at the university about whether the faculty should find internships for students or let them find and approach internship agencies themselves. Many of my colleagues still believe that finding internships for students is something the faculty cannot avoid if it wants to show full responsibility to its students.

I am one of those who do not support that view. It does not mean that we do not want to help students in finding internship opportunities, but we believe that students need to be proactive and take care of it themselves. And if it is not easy, it is even more important to require students to do it themselves. I also do not allow myself to "lead" students to internship agencies.

When advising students before they go on internships, I also tell them that when they are really stuck, they should think about consulting their teachers, and not just pick up the phone, send emails, or send messages to ask for help from their teachers over every little thing. If students feel hurt, I ignore them. I understand the value of putting pressure on young people to help them mature and learn to solve their own problems.

Giáo dục bắt đầu từ những điều thực tiễn nhất - Ảnh 3. — Students looking for jobs at career fairs

In many places around the world , the educational philosophy of adults towards children is very clear, that we must let, must require, must create opportunities for children to "do things by themselves". Elementary school students at school have to practice self-service during mealtimes. There is no way that university students still sit around waiting for the fruit to fall into their laps, waiting for teachers to arrange an internship for them. It should be like many universities in the US, for example, where students have to find internship opportunities themselves so that they can write a line proving their ability on their resumes when they graduate.

I have a nephew who is an IT student in France and was asked to do an internship in a developing country. Initially, he asked me to help him find a company to do an internship in Vietnam. But later, his teachers recommended that he choose a country other than his motherland to experience himself. The final destination was Myanmar.

Honestly, I cannot help but feel disappointed when I see words like "peace of mind" permeating the language of young students as a trend in their outlook on life. Why are they so young and so quick to think about peace of mind? Then where will their aspirations, their will to progress, their courage to take risks be in their outlook on life?

Then there are other trending words like "healing"... Why don't young people allow themselves to take on challenges that can make them fail, but failure is to become more mature, not to hurt to the point of having to struggle to find a way to heal? Even our university teachers have meetings to discuss "healing" young people.

University education must truly focus on young people, in the sense of allowing them more opportunities, more space, more situations, more drastic challenges to experience themselves and mature on their own, knowing how to pursue bigger aspirations thanks to the experience of pursuing, realizing and paying for their own small aspirations every day.

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