9X teacher and the first international Physics medals of two close friends at Phan Boi Chau School

This is also the first "sweet fruit" of teacher Le Xuan Bao, a young teacher of the 9X generation after more than 3 years working at the school.

Classmates

Phan Quang Triet and Nguyen The Quan both grew up in Vinh city. When they were in middle school, they were in the same class at Dang Thai Mai Middle School. Originally specialized in Math, they both later “changed” and chose to pursue Physics for a simple reason: “to increase their chances of getting into Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted.”

Before passing the entrance exam to Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, Triet's most outstanding achievement was the first prize in the provincial Physics competition. Meanwhile, Quan, although he won the first prize and was the city's top student in Physics in grade 9, only won the Encouragement Prize at the Provincial Excellent Student Competition. Four months after this competition, Quan affirmed his strengths when he was the joint top student in the specialized subject and the 10th grade Physics class at the entrance exam to grade 10 of the specialized school.

Class 10A3, K51, school year 2022-2025 of Triet and Quan is also the first class that teacher Le Xuan Bao is in charge of. At that time, teacher Bao had just graduated and had been working for 2 years. Being in charge of a specialized class, which is the most traditional subject of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted, the pressure on teachers and students is not easy.

After a short time of studying, Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted selected a team for the national competition for gifted students. Although not allowed to participate in the official competition, Mr. Bao still boldly let his students try. The result was not surprising when Quan failed to complete his exam. Triet admitted that he was "worse" because he was not chosen by the teacher to participate with his classmates.

From this first failure, in the following period, to officially be named in the national excellent student team of Phan Boi Chau High School, Quan and Triet had to participate in many other tests, lasting until the end of the 10th grade. In the tests, Quan was always a highly rated student because in most of the tests, he was in the top 3 of the class.

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Since entering grade 10, I have set a goal for myself to be in the national excellent student team. However, in the beginning of my studies, I was often distracted and did not put all my heart into studying. Later, when teacher Bao reminded me "not to follow in the footsteps" of my seniors, I became really serious.

Student Nguyen The Quan

In contrast to Quan, Triet is a student who is considered intelligent but he is quite talented. To join the national team, Quan accepted to trade many other subjects and devoted all his time to his major. Triet is multi-talented, he loves sports and once had the opportunity to be selected for the provincial table tennis team. Before joining the team, Triet also had an IELTS score of 7.5 and studied for the SAT and achieved a score of 1540.

Speaking more about this, Triet admitted: At first, I didn't try hard and had the mentality of just taking the test for the sake of it. But Quan and many other classmates showed me that if I don't study hard, I can't succeed. My homeroom teacher also reminded me about my learning attitude, but then he gave me a chance to try my best and I didn't want to disappoint him.

Why do they love Physics? Both Quan and Triet said that it was because their homeroom teacher "inspired" them, even though Mr. Bao was a really "strict" person. Besides, they also found joy in being able to use Physics solutions to explain natural and scientific phenomena. In addition to learning from their teachers, Quan and Triet trained themselves to be self-studyers, to refer to documents, and to seek out seniors to learn from.

With much effort, in grade 11, both of them were able to participate in the National Excellent Student Competition with their seniors in grade 12 and achieved excellent results. Among them, Quan was one of two students who brought home the first prize for Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted. Triet, after much effort and breakthrough, did not disappoint his teachers and brought home the second prize for the school. Both of them also had enough points to be selected for the second round to participate in the Vietnam Olympic Team Selection Competition.

On the international arena

Recalling the Vietnam Olympic Team Selection Exam, Quan and Triet both said that it was an extremely difficult exam as the 40 contestants were all students with high scores in the National Excellent Student Exam. Before coming to this exam with the disadvantage of only being 11th graders, both of them had determined that they would "try and compete" because there were not many opportunities.

Accompanying the students, despite knowing the difficulties, teacher Le Xuan Bao and other teachers in the Physics team of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted always encouraged and actively trained and tutored them.

The day Quan received the news that he was the youngest member to be selected for the national team to participate in the Asia-Pacific Physics Olympiad, both teacher and student were extremely happy. Even happier, Quan replaced teacher Le Xuan Bao to fulfill the dream that the teacher had missed.

As for Triet, although he was sad about failing the National Team Selection Exam, he never thought that he would have to “stop”. Therefore, after the Vietnam Physics Association selected the team to participate in the European Olympiad, Triet participated and tried his best to be named in the official team.

The first time Quan and Triet were able to join the national team to “bring the bell to strike in a foreign land” was also the first time they went abroad. Talking about the Asia-Pacific Physics Olympiad in Malaysia, Quan said that it was an exam that left him with many unforgettable impressions when he competed with more than 200 other candidates from 28 countries and territories.

This is also an exam that is considered to have a difficult level of questions with many highly applicable questions. Quan himself said that he received this exam quite calmly and confidently solved the questions entirely in English with the hope of getting a high score. After completing the exam, Quan was quite satisfied with his exam but the result was not as expected, which made him quite sad. He only won a Bronze Medal and missed the opportunity to join the Vietnamese Team to participate in the International Olympic Competition.

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I did pretty well on the practical and theory exams. But I took the risk of choosing to solve the exam.
English didn't seem to be the right choice so I lost quite a few points on the theory test.

Although the result is not as expected, I consider this an exam for me to test myself and will try harder in this new school year.

Student Nguyen The Quan

Attending the European Physics Olympiad 1 month late, Phan Quang Triet also shared that he was quite pressured when coming to this exam. Unlike the Asian Physics Olympiad, the questions of the European Physics Olympiad are shorter but require candidates to think and consider carefully. After 10 hours of taking the exam (including theory and practice), Triet shared that he was quite satisfied with the result and success in bringing home the only Silver Medal for the Vietnamese team.

Orientation and respect for students' differences

After two years of working with class 11A3, teacher Le Xuan Bao said that it was “fate and luck”. He himself always thanks the school board, because although he is a young teacher (born in 1996), and has been working for less than 2 years, the school has trusted him to be the head teacher of the specialized class and co-head of the school’s excellent student team.

Previously, teacher Le Xuan Bao was recruited to the school through attraction. He himself was a former student of the school, won second prize in the National Physics Competition twice, and participated in the National Team Selection Exam twice to participate in the Olympic Games.

After graduating from high school, teacher Le Xuan Bao was directly admitted to the Physics Department of the University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. After that, he continued to receive a scholarship and studied for 3 years at Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University - Russian Federation, majoring in Nuclear Power.

Due to personal reasons, teacher Le Xuan Bao later did not continue to pursue this major and chose to study Physics Pedagogy at Vinh University. In 2020, teacher Bao was recruited by the Department of Education and Training to Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted. At that time, when he returned to this special school, teacher Le Xuan Bao's greatest wish was to participate in the work of nurturing excellent students.

Accompanying the students in the Physics class, Mr. Bao said that he saw himself from many years ago. However, he also realized that there were many differences between the two generations.

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In the past, we mainly learned from our teachers, and the sources of information we searched for were quite passive. But today's students are more active in their studies and proactive in accessing many sources of information.

From this favorable premise, teachers only need to do well the role of a guide, imparting knowledge, respecting the uniqueness of each individual and creating opportunities for students to shine.

Teacher Le Xuan Bao

As a young teacher, in addition to imparting knowledge, Mr. Le Xuan Bao is also a friend and an older brother to his students. Therefore, during his time as a homeroom teacher, he is sometimes very strict but at the same time always knows how to encourage and motivate his students.

In his story, teacher Bao confided that, although he had achieved certain results, that was not the final goal of teachers and students. Ahead of them was grade 12 and they still had a long school year to demonstrate their abilities...