A letter criticizing extra classes shocked the principal with 34 years of experience.

"I'm in pain"

More than half a month has passed, but when recalling the letter, Mr. Thien sat absent-mindedly, his face heavy.

The teacher held the typed and printed letter and sighed: “The most painful thing is not forcing students to take extra classes. The pain here is that the teachers in the school do not have enough trust for the students to come to confide in. Because the school has a mailbox and a hotline where students can send their frustrations. But they have to use fake Facebook to express their frustrations, secretly expressing their anger for a long time.”

“Dear teachers. I know that speaking out on social media like this is not good and will hurt many teachers. But I cannot speak directly because no one will defend me, I would like to borrow Facebook to talk about the difficulties. Every day and night around the town (Nui Thanh), the places where teachers teach extra classes at their homes are always crowded with students. Among them, many students have the need, but some students do not want to study but have to go.

At the beginning of the school year, we were threatened in many ways to register for extra classes such as: some teachers told us who attended extra classes to raise our hands during regular class time. If we attended extra classes, the teachers would solve or suggest problems that would be put on the test. If we did not attend extra classes, the teachers would oppress us. In some cases, if we did not attend extra classes, we would never be good students.

Dear teachers, our school has many students whose families are in very difficult circumstances. Many of them have parents who work at sea and have been drifting at sea for months. During the stormy days, they had to wait anxiously with their mothers and sisters for their relatives to return from the sea. 300,000-500,000 VND for extra classes is a large sum of money for those students, not easy to earn. Many of them had to drop out of school to learn a trade or work as shop assistants to earn money."

While reading the letter, Mr. Thien suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “I am so shocked and hurt! I have been a teacher for 34 years and have also taught extra classes, but this is the greatest pain in the teaching profession. Many of the sentences you wrote were too harsh, but I cannot blame you, because I made a mistake somewhere” – Mr. Thien exclaimed, his eyes not looking directly at the person in front of him.

Sitting absent-mindedly, head bowed down to the table, somewhere in the old teacher's eyes was not sadness but pain deeply engraved in his thoughts.

After a moment of silence, Mr. Thien continued reading:

“Teachers only know how to collect money, teachers compete with each other to build houses and buy cars, but do they know that behind that money are a lot of sweat and tears. Do teachers know that at school we have to try to suppress our anger and be good students, but at milk tea shops and snack shops, teachers are always the topic of discussion, the villains in every student's frustration?”

While reading, Mr. Thien sighed: "Perhaps, you hate us very much and have had to endure this pain for a long time!"

“The words that we often hear people praising but rarely see in our school, even in literature teachers, the ones who teach us beautiful words and ideas” – reading up to here, Mr. Thien was silent…

Pause extra classes

After the letter appeared on Facebook with many edits, it received 500 likes and mixed comments about the content of the letter. Every day, Mr. Thien reads each comment from everyone: "Many comments are very harsh, but try to read them. It's better to suffer once and then try to change."

In the days after the letter was published, the atmosphere at Nui Thanh High School was filled with sadness. Classes were filled with an eerie silence. Many teachers looked at their students with unhappy eyes.

Immediately after that, Mr. Thien went to many classes and had a talk with the whole school.

"I am the leader, any mistakes will be considered later, but I have to do ideological work so that the students can focus on their studies, and the exams are coming soon," said Mr. Thien.

The letter caused the school too much damage. Many questions were raised by everyone, to find the owner. And 3 hypotheses are also 3 options to solve.

Firstly, the school will choose to remain silent because the online reflection is not legitimate.

Second, find the Facebook poster and have a rebuttal of the true and false content in the letter.

But Mr. Thien chose the third way.

A meeting was held on the afternoon of December 28, 2017 with 85 teachers and school administrators attending. Here, Mr. Thien read the letter before the meeting, each teacher, whether or not there was forced extra classes, would examine their conscience, and look back at what they had done.

In addition to "reflecting on what they have done", 85 teachers simultaneously signed a commitment to properly implement the code of ethics for teachers, to improve their love and care for students, not to force their students to take extra classes, and not to teach extra classes against regulations.

In addition, the school temporarily suspended extra classes in the school to reorganize teachers and extra classes.