The 'three-talented' teacher both teaches and raises cows in the Mong village

(Baonghean.vn) - People in the border village of Pha Noi mention Mr. Lau Ba Xenh not only with pride but also with gratitude. He is not only a son of the Mong village who strives to study hard to bring back knowledge to teach the children of Pha Noi, but also a typical example of good people's movement and economic development, opening up a way to help people escape poverty and backwardness...

Teacher Lau Ba Xenh (wearing a hat) and people build rural roads.

Up to now, teacher Lau Ba Xenh has been in the profession for over 23 years. After graduating from the Pedagogical College, he became a teacher at Muong Tip Primary School. For all the years he has been working in the profession, teacher Xenh has forgotten the worries and hardships of everyday life, devoting himself to each page of his lesson plan every day, devoting himself to the children of the village.

Since the 2009-2010 school year, Mr. Xênh was assigned to be a Mong language teacher for children at Pha Noi school (which is also his hometown). Commenting on Mr. Lâu Bá Xênh, Mr. Nguyễn Quốc Trí, Principal of Mường Típ 1 Primary School, said: "Mr. Bá Xênh is a local, has professional competence and enthusiasm for his work, and is always loved by his colleagues and students."

Pha Noi village point, belonging to Muong Tip 1 Primary School, is a separate facility nearly 20km away from the main school. This is the school with the largest number of students and the most difficult situation in the school, consisting of 5 classes, with 93 students, most of whom are Mong ethnic students.

Not only is he a teacher passionate about his profession and takes care of his students' education, Mr. Xênh is also a very active and perceptive person in developing his family's economy. Every day, in addition to his work at school, when he comes home, he rolls up his sleeves with his wife and children to work on 1 hectare of rice fields, reclaiming more than 2 hectares of bare hills around the village to grow ginger, taro, squash, and hybrid corn. The income from farming each year is up to 30 to 40 million VND.

Mr. Xênh also boldly invested in enclosing more than 10 hectares of forest land to graze nearly 60 cows. The once barren, wild, rocky land in Pha Noi is now a farm, bringing in an income of 120 to 150 million VND per year for his family.

Mobilized by Mr. Xênh, many people enthusiastically participated in contributing their efforts to build rural roads, solidify classrooms and schoolyards, etc.

“With a meager teacher salary, it is inevitable that we will be stuck in poverty forever. Thinking that I have to escape poverty to make it easier to talk to people, to students, and first of all to make my family less miserable, I always struggle with improving my family's economy. At first, I tried raising cows, from 5 cows, after 2 years they gave birth to 10 more. Currently, the cows reproduce very quickly. Every Saturday and Sunday, I take the time to go home to take care of the cows, with my wife and children helping me on the days when I am busy with class,” Mr. Xênh shared.

From the barren, wild rocky land of the past, it has now become a farm, bringing high income to Mr. Xênh's family.

What is more remarkable about Mr. Xênh is his "talent" in mass mobilization. In the 2015-2016 school year, Muong Tip 1 Primary School had a policy of promoting the socialization of education, wanting to concretize the school yard at Pha Noi village. Mr. Xênh was the one who mobilized the whole village to enthusiastically bring baskets to transport materials and participate in building the school yard. "What seemed difficult suddenly became a simple task" - Principal Nguyen Quoc Tri recalled.

Mr. Ba Xenh is taking care of the cows.

Not only mobilizing people to build a school yard, teacher Xênh is also the leader in mobilizing people to build rural transportation, mobilizing many people to contribute labor and transport materials to build the school campus. He is also the one who knocks on the door of each villager, mobilizing them not to listen to bad people, illegally migrate to Laos, and instructing them on how to stay in their homeland to develop the economy. Being a poor and difficult border village of Muong Tip commune, with 100% poor households, now the poverty rate of Pha Noi village is only over 60%.

Taking advantage of his spare time outside of class, teacher Lau Ba Xenh goes to each house to mobilize and share ways to develop the economy.

Mr. Lau Cho Xong, Party Secretary of Pha Noi village, Muong Tip commune, proudly said about his son: “Teacher Xenh is the one who brought education to the children in our village. He also knows how to do business well, has many buffaloes, cows, pigs and chickens. In addition, he also hired a road digging machine to go to the village, showed our people how to raise cows, grow rice with high productivity and worked with our people to build rural roads into the village. Everyone in the village wants to learn from his way of doing things, so that our people can escape poverty. Our village is proud to have that "three good" teacher.”

Lu Phu