Education reform - A long and arduous revolution!

(Baonghean) -Reading the news online, it seems that general education textbooks are about to have a major reform!I'm skeptical. Reforming even textbooks means changing the education program from the root, it's no joke!

When I first went abroad, I had to carry a whole set of Vietnamese textbooks with me, just in case I didn’t understand anything, I would have something to refer to. The result: I put them away and let them get eaten by termites! I spent an hour flipping through chapters of the book without finding any connection between the order of lectures in Vietnamese books and foreign books, so I looked them up in the dictionary to save time. You can see, the way our textbooks are distributed and organized and those of foreign countries have a big difference, which is the difference in the method of knowledge transmission and the model of education.

A prejudice deeply ingrained in the Vietnamese people's perception: Vietnamese education is somewhat rigid and dogmatic, more theoretical than foreign education. So the plan to reform Vietnamese textbooks in a direction closer to the open and liberal educational style of developed countries is understandable and easily accepted by society. The problem is, Vietnamese people often exaggerate things belonging to foreign cultures, forgetting that applying an imported model to Vietnamese society, thinking and lifestyle is not always easy and effective.

What about abroad? I was surprised when the teacher said that unless he announced in advance, students did not need to bring textbooks. Why? Firstly, their textbooks are organized by topic, not by lesson, so the teacher's leading role will be much greater, because they have to proactively decide on the curriculum instead of relying on the content and order of the textbook. Thus, textbooks only serve to provide additional information and evidence instead of being the "skeleton" supporting the lesson.

Therefore, “jumping” from page ten to page one hundred is completely normal! Another reason why foreign students do not carry textbooks everywhere, all the time is because… foreign textbooks are printed on high-quality paper, with extremely thick covers, so they are heavy, how can they carry them! At first glance, it sounds like a trivial reason, but in fact, it reflects the long-term vision of foreign education: good printing quality means a long shelf life of the book, which is both cost-saving and requires stability and comprehensiveness of the book’s content.

Thus, for students and teachers to get used to and keep up with the new learning method, new textbooks are not obvious. Lessons where students do not need to study but know the content, teachers do not need to prepare lessons but only need to pick up the textbook to dictate will no longer exist, when textbooks are no longer organized into lessons with sections of one big, one small, two big, two small, from beginning to end. I think that training courses on new teaching methods for teachers will be necessary to ensure the full exploitation of reformed textbooks. Because if we give farmers a plow without showing them how to use it, it is better to let the buffalo go first and the plow follow!

I almost forgot to include parents in the list of people affected by the textbook reform. When I was in school, my parents used my textbooks as bedside books to study and explain to me. But there were still times when they argued and got angry with each other because of different methods. Isn't that terrible? If the textbooks are reformed, parents will also have to give up on the new textbooks. Who will solve the students' exercises then? Oh, what a dilemma!

Hai Trieu(Email from Paris)