Basic life skills

(Baonghean) - A heartbreaking incident recently occurred in Hanoi. During a field trip, a primary school student fainted and died on the way to the hospital after bathing in mud with his friends.

The boy wouldn't have died so needlessly if his teachers or someone nearby had understood that mud baths easily lead to sulfur poisoning and quickly deplete energy. If he was unwell or hadn't eaten enough before bathing, he could easily become exhausted, faint on the spot, and if not treated promptly, it could be fatal. In fact, at that moment, simply pouring a spoonful of sugar water into his mouth or giving him a piece of candy would have revived him immediately without needing emergency treatment. Just such a simple, timely action could have saved a life.

We should teach children life skills (illustrative image from the Internet)

These specific emergency situations in daily life are referred to by a scientific and Western-sounding name: life skills. Therefore, for a while, schools saw a surge in teaching life skills to students. However, it seems they only taught students how to cook a few dishes, how to communicate and make friends, or public speaking and presentation skills, and how to swim, tie knots, and stake out outdoor campsites. They rarely taught students basic, common-sense knowledge and skills to protect themselves in life-threatening situations, or how to interact with others and handle incidents or crises in friendships. This has led to a rise in school violence and heartbreaking consequences that have shaken society, as frequently reported in the media recently.

To put it clearly, our schools are still stuck in traditional teaching methods. They remain heavily focused on equipping students with book knowledge while neglecting to equip and cultivate basic life skills. Furthermore, teachers themselves lack these fundamental life skills, leading to unpleasant and negative incidents in schools. For example, students fighting each other to the point of speechlessness, as seen in Phu Tho, or causing severe psychological trauma lasting for months without the school's knowledge, as in Vinh Long. If teachers had shown more love, care, and close attention to their students to promptly correct behavioral and cognitive deviations in adolescence, things would surely have been different. From this, we can conclude that the most fundamental life skill that everyone needs, not just students, is mutual love and support. That skill will govern everything from speech and action, suppressing all violent, evil, and deviant behaviors between people.

That's a fundamental life skill.

Confidant