Proposal to eliminate handwriting practice and quick mental calculation

According to a study by a doctor at Hanoi Pedagogical University, practicing beautiful handwriting and quick mental calculation only helps children perfect one skill but is very time-consuming, so this content should be removed and other useful parts added to the curriculum.

Dr. Vu Thu Huong, a lecturer at the Faculty of Primary Education, Hanoi National University of Education, has spent a lot of time researching primary education. She believes that practicing beautiful handwriting and quick mental calculations is a burden for students and should be eliminated because it is time-consuming and not really useful.

In fact, Ms. Huong noticed that Vietnamese people write beautifully and calculate very quickly. The female doctor believes that, no matter how sloppy her writing is, compared to her friends in Europe, her handwriting is still "as beautiful as printed letters", and her mental calculations make them admire her. However, all her friends told her: "We will not study like you, we just need to write correctly and know the principles of calculation. If we need to be accurate and fast, we use computers to calculate and type documents".

Through a survey of educational programs in England, Germany, Hungary, France... Ms. Huong found that they do not attach much importance to the two subjects of Math and mother tongue. First graders are taught to add and subtract within 10 using devices, but rarely write down numbers. Math from elementary to high school has very few exercises, but a lot of theory. Therefore, learning Math is not too heavy, and writing is not considered very important.

European education researchers say: Writing beautifully or doing math quickly is just a complete skill. "It can be seen that science subjects such as Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry are taught a lot in many countries. Children learn about ethnic cultures, living cultures, life skills... This is really necessary because it creates knowledgeable people," said Ms. Huong.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, primary school students have little understanding of the world around them. The imposed way of educating children and the disease of achievement are two issues that are deeply ingrained in every family, from those who are both parents and education officials to other parents. Asking for grades after school is considered a natural thing to do to show concern for children.

Beautiful handwriting classes are springing up nowadays and attracting the attention of many parents.

Even in primary school grading, neat notebooks and beautiful handwriting are also a criterion. Too much time is spent practicing beautiful handwriting and quick mental calculations. Teachers also put high expectations on students when there is a handwriting contest, which puts them under great pressure. Students who write badly feel ashamed.

According to Dr. Huong, the rather serious problem of Vietnamese education is that it is lopsided, with too much theory and few exercises, emphasizing Literature and Math, and disregarding arts, life skills, and living culture (Biology, History, Geography, etc.). This is evident at all levels, but most clearly in primary school. Students study too many Math classes (5 classes/week), Vietnamese (8 classes/week), while other subjects considered secondary only have 1-2 classes.

In addition, the evaluation is also very biased. At the end of the semester, only the scores of Math and Vietnamese are considered to calculate the good or advanced scores. Subjects such as Natural Sciences - Society, Fine Arts, Music, Physical Education, etc. are just for show. From then on, teaching these subjects is considered redundant, leading to a situation where teachers often cut down on these subjects to practice Math and Vietnamese for their children.

"Compared to other countries, I find that the overloaded content is mainly practicing beautiful handwriting and quick mental calculation. These are two relatively difficult skills so it takes a lot of time to teach," said a teacher with 20 years of experience training primary school teachers. He suggested that if these two contents were removed, the pressure of learning Math and Vietnamese would be reduced. Thus, teachers would respect the study time of secondary subjects more and certainly the learning quality of those subjects that are considered secondary would be much more guaranteed.

After cutting out unnecessary parts, the Ministry of Education comprehensively evaluates all subjects. Primary education does not need to be evaluated as excellent/good/average. Students only need to be evaluated for promotion to the next grade. The evaluation for promotion to the next grade must consider all subjects from Math, Vietnamese, Natural Sciences - Social Sciences, Fine Arts, Music, Crafts, Physical Education...

Thus, the lopsided learning will end, teachers will spread their attention to all subjects, and from there, students' knowledge will be more widespread, and the interest of every family in their children's subjects will also be more even and reasonable. According to Dr. Huong, the next step is that primary education needs to add life skills and living culture to teaching students.

"Handwriting reflects character" does not mean that people with "bad handwriting" have "bad character". The positive aspects of beautiful handwriting cannot be denied, but they are just two human skills that "won't kill anyone" if they are a little lacking. Therefore, teachers only need to require correct spelling, cleanliness, and no mistakes with other words.

According to VNEXPRESS