The bike repairman: "Mr. Dai taught us what kind of person we wanted to become."

“Mr. Dai taught us what kind of person we wanted to become.”

At the age of 18, Nguyen Hong Vinh went to study abroad in Russia. With two degrees in Economics and Business English, he did not choose the “air-conditioned desk job” path as his parents had planned.

The young man quietly quit his job after his first day at work to start pursuing his greatest passion: Cars.

Nguyen Hong Vinh recounted that many people at that time thought he was a crazy person, even though he had a proper education but all day he just hung around with vehicles.

“But I know what I want. I feel happy doing what I want,” he replied frankly.

So he persisted in buying books to read, gropingly research and apply. From disassembling his own car to his friends' cars, over time he became a good mechanic.

Experimental school students like him always imbued with the philosophy that Professor Ho Ngoc Dai imparted: If you love, you must pursue it to the end.

Because of his passion for this field, Vinh opened his own garage specializing in car repair and tuning.

He also founded the first offroad racing group in Vietnam. Up to now, Nguyen Hong Vinh is known as the number 1 racer in the country. He is also famous in the Vietnamese car enthusiast community for his prestige and knowledge in the car industry.

However, he refused to say much about himself. He said: “I am just one of the many lucky people who are Mr. Dai’s students. I do not dare to say that I am the teacher’s pride. Mr. Dai always taught us that we must know what we want and what kind of person we want to become without caring about other people’s opinions.”

"Teacher Dai never scolds his students"

What I admire most about teacher Dai is that he never scolds his students.

“Once, I went out with his son, who was also a classmate, and came home at 3:30 in the morning. When we got to the door, I saw him waiting there. He asked:“Where are you going so early? Is there something important?”He always turns what should be a criticism into such a caring concern."

Because of his gentleness with children, at Experimental School, students at Mr. Dai felt happy instead of scared when they met him.

“Just as my teacher said, the students came to school excitedly on a happy day, we students at that time played together very happily and harmoniously. Punishment was really rare in the school. With teacher Dai, the students were always right. What I remember most is that at school there was no ranking or grading. The nature of scores and rankings, in the end, only made students live separately and created an uneven environment.

We students are free to express ourselves and do what we like without any jealousy or envy. For Mr. Dai, if any student is good at soccer, he will encourage them to play soccer, whatever they like to play. He always encourages us to do what we want. The most important thing for him is “how to make the children happy”.

Mr. Vinh said that his greatest "asset" at the Experimental School until now is his classmates. After more than 40 years, we are still close to each other like brothers" - Mr. Vinh recalled.

Students freely express their personality

Mr. Vinh was in the first batch of high school students at Experimental School. He recalled that in 10th grade, his class had two students who were very excellent students.

In a math class, the teacher gave a difficult problem. Both of them disagreed with the teacher's solution and tried to defend their own opinion.

That day, Mr. Dai was visiting the classrooms, saw it and stepped in to judge. He said:

“If the two children are really good at studying, they may not need to go to school anymore. They only need to come on test and semester exam days.” “So the two friends stayed home. But only 1.5 days later, because they were so bored at home, they both had to ask to go back to school,” Vinh recalled.

“Experimental students are like that, they like to argue and refuse to compromise with things they don't accept.”

Among the two students at that time, there was also a student like him, although he graduated with a major in Information Technology and had good job opportunities, he changed direction to follow his passion for martial arts.

“We – Mr. Dai’s students – are always imbued with his educational philosophies. We always feel lucky for that. Even though we may follow different paths, the final destination, as Mr. Dai said, is still to create happy people.”