'I feel exhausted, frustrated and desperate when I hear the word STUDY'

A 10th grade female student, an excellent student from grades 1 to 9 in Ho Chi Minh City, sent a heartfelt letter to “leaders, parents, and teachers”, saying that she hates studying.

Talking to reporters, this student said she had intended to write a letter for a long time. But it was not until the beginning of this school year that the idea really came to her.

“I wrote this letter over several evenings, doing my homework while writing. I didn’t expect much change when I sent this letter, but at least, finishing the letter made me feel more comfortable because I had expressed all the things I had been feeling for a long time” – this female student shared.

Below is the content of the letter:

Illustration photo (Dinh Quang Tuan)

"Dear leaders, parents, teachers!

I would like to pour out all my hidden feelings and I, like many other students, look forward to receiving sharing and opinions from leaders, parents and teachers.

For many years now, our student life has been just waking up, going to school, going to extra classes, coming home and repeating. Over the years, my passion for learning has gradually faded away. I began to feel exhausted, frustrated and hopeless when I heard the word STUDY.

I don't know since when, the time we spend in school is more than the time we sleep. For me, the higher my education level, the more meaningless knowledge becomes.

I know it is ungrateful to say this. To have the knowledge today is the result of the hard work of those who came before. But I wonder why teachers can only teach one subject but a student has to learn dozens of subjects?

Not only that, we are also under heavy pressure from teachers, parents and society. A class must have at least 40 students who are excellent or good and cannot have any average students. Once in school, the final score for the whole year must be 8 points or higher, or even higher. The school's graduation rate after one year must reach 90% or higher, some schools must maintain the target of 100%.

I have thought many times about what we are learning. The more I think about it, the more frustrated I feel when I realize that I am barely able to grasp the knowledge taught in school.

The brain of an adult weighs only about 1400 grams, but people of the previous generation expected us to study regularly and well a huge amount of knowledge from more than ten different subjects.

Illustration photo (Dinh Quang Tuan)

I'm scared! I'm scared every time the sun rises, signaling another school day has come. I'm scared when the first thing teachers do when they enter the classroom is to test our lessons and check a mountain of homework they've given us. I'm scared when the bell rings, which doesn't mean we can go home to rest, but it's simply a break between regular school and extra classes. I'm scared when I see my peers hastily eating a bun and their eyes are dull, distant, and lifeless as they sit on a motorbike in the middle of a traffic jam at 5pm.

Dear uncles, parents, teachers!

There are so many untold stories about the invisible pressures that people are unintentionally putting on our shoulders.

“Every day at school is a happy day” – That was the first thing I learned when I entered first grade. And until now, at the age of 15, I hate this saying terribly.

I'm sorry to say this, I know this will make my seniors uncomfortable but please allow me to speak my mind: I hate going to school.

I hate the feeling of walking through the school gate, opening the textbook, copying each page. I feel lost… Every day at school, we are caught up in studying and taking tests. The years gradually pass meaninglessly under the pressure of studying, teachers, and family.

The current curriculum does not allow us students to be creative. Everything is bound by certain rules and we, the students, are forced to follow them and cannot change them.

We ourselves do not understand why we are studying and for whom!

Studying for the expectations of people around you, studying for grades, studying to pass a test? And then what?

Finally, after more than 20 years of hard and stressful study, we still have a very long life to live and when that time comes, we will have to apply the knowledge we have learned to life. But I have often wondered, how can I use “Uniform circular motion”, “Increasing and decreasing direction of functions” or Vectors in real life?

We just learn and then forget, teachers just rush into teaching, giving homework but they never tell us about the application of this knowledge in life.

Since some point, people have been judging each other through grades. Because of these worthless grades, many students have been pushed to the brink of death, causing the relationship between parents and children and teachers and students to become tense and suffocating.

The lives of students nowadays almost revolve around STUDYING. We do not know the concept of rest and relaxation. We almost do not understand the value of family meals because we spend almost the whole week studying until dark.

The friend who sits next to me is a very good student and the teachers love him very much. But he is very miserable. His house is in District 12 and he has to take the bus to District 1 to study every day. His school days start from 5:30 am to 11 pm. He is exhausted, you know that. His face is pale, his eyes are hazy, he lacks sleep and has a stomachache. There is no shortage of people like him right here in Ho Chi Minh City.

We students are apathetic, indifferent, insensitive and have no life skills. We do not know what to do if there is an earthquake, a tsunami or if we see someone having a stroke in the middle of the street. Adults are disappointed with the way the younger generation behaves while we, the younger generation, are disappointed because we are being educated without direction.

Dear Sirs, as a student, I was deeply moved when I heard the policy of no extra tutoring. A feeling of joy suddenly ran through me when I thought about the scene where we no longer have to hunch our backs to study at 11pm.

But the harsh reality of studying did not let me be happy for long. Seeing the university entrance exam questions change every year, seeing our math teacher secretly advertising her tutoring classes, I realized that things would not get better, would never get better.

And then, after all, when we leave school and face real life, we are bewildered and confused because we completely lack the necessary life skills.

I beg you, my parents, my teachers: Please let us LIVE. Please allow us to live our school years as fully as possible. Please don't expect too much from us, or those expectations will disappoint everyone. Please don't criticize us when we get bad grades. Please understand that each person only has certain abilities and we are not geniuses."

According to Vietnamnet