A teacher excels in three areas: teaching literacy and raising cattle in a Hmong village.

(Baonghean.vn) - The people of Pha Noi border village mention Teacher Lau Ba Xenh not only with pride but also with gratitude. He is not only a son of the Mong ethnic group who strived to learn to read and write to pass on his knowledge to the children of Pha Noi, but also a role model in community mobilization and economic development, paving the way for the villagers to escape poverty and backwardness...

Teacher Lau Ba Xenh (wearing a hat) and the people are building a rural road.

To date, teacher Lầu Bá Xênh has been in the profession for over 23 years. After graduating from the Teacher Training College, he joined Mường Típ Primary School. Throughout his years in the profession, Mr. Xênh has forgotten the worries and hardships of everyday life, dedicating himself wholeheartedly to each lesson plan and the children of the local community.

Since the 2009-2010 school year, Mr. Xenh has been assigned to teach the Hmong language to children at the Pha Noi school (which is also his hometown). Commenting on Mr. Lau Ba Xenh, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Tri, Principal of Muong Tip 1 Primary School, said: “Mr. Ba Xenh is a local resident with strong professional skills and enthusiasm for his work, and is always well-liked by his colleagues and students.”

The Pha Noi branch school, part of Muong Tip 1 Primary School, is a remote branch located nearly 20km from the main school. It is the most crowded and disadvantaged branch school, comprising 5 classrooms with 93 students, mostly from the Hmong ethnic minority.

Not only is Mr. Xenh a passionate teacher dedicated to his profession and caring for his students' education, but he is also very dynamic and astute in developing his family's economy. Every day, in addition to his work at school, he and his wife and children work on 1 hectare of rice paddies and reclaim more than 2 hectares of barren hillside land around the village to grow ginger, taro, green squash, and hybrid corn. The income from farming amounts to 30 to 40 million VND per year.

Teacher Xenh also boldly invested in cultivating over 10 hectares of forest land to raise nearly 60 cows. The once barren, rocky mountainous land in Pha Noi has now become a farm, bringing in an income of 120 to 150 million VND per year for his family.

With the encouragement of Teacher Xenh, a large number of local people enthusiastically participated, contributing their labor and resources to build rural roads, reinforce classrooms, and improve schoolyards…

“With a teacher's meager salary, being trapped in poverty is inevitable. Thinking that I needed to escape poverty to make things easier for myself and my students, and most importantly, to ease the suffering of my family, I was always concerned about improving our family's economic situation. First, I tried raising cattle. Starting with 5 cows, after two years they gave birth to 10 more calves. Currently, the herd reproduces very quickly. Every Saturday and Sunday, I make time to go home and take care of the cows, with my wife and children helping out on days I'm busy teaching,” shared Mr. Xenh.

What was once a barren, rocky mountain land has now become a farm, bringing high income to Mr. Xenh's family.

What's even more remarkable about Mr. Xenh is his talent for community mobilization. In the 2015-2016 school year, Muong Tip 1 Primary School had a policy of socializing education, aiming to concrete the schoolyard at the Pha Noi village site. Mr. Xenh was the one who mobilized the entire village to enthusiastically carry materials and participate in building the schoolyard. "What seemed difficult suddenly became a simple task," recalled Principal Nguyen Quoc Tri.

Teacher Bá Xênh is taking care of the herd of cows.

Not only did he mobilize the villagers to build the schoolyard, but teacher Xenh also took the lead in mobilizing them to build rural roads, enlisting many people to contribute labor and effort to transport construction materials for the school grounds. He also went door-to-door in the village, persuading them not to listen to bad influences and avoid illegal migration to Laos, guiding them on how to stay in their homeland and develop the economy. Pha Noi village, a poor and disadvantaged border village in Muong Tip commune with 100% of households living in poverty, now has a poverty rate of just over 60%.

Taking advantage of his free time outside of class, teacher Lau Ba Xenh would travel to each household to encourage and share ways to develop the local economy.

Mr. Lau Cho Xong, Party Secretary of Pha Noi village, Muong Tip commune, proudly spoke about his village's teacher: "Teacher Xenh is the one who brought literacy to the children in our village. He's also a skilled businessman, owning many buffaloes, cows, pigs, and chickens. Furthermore, he hired an excavator to build roads in the village, taught the villagers how to raise cattle and grow rice efficiently, and worked with them to build rural roads. Everyone in the village wants to learn from his methods so that our village can escape poverty. Our village is proud to have such a 'three-excellence' teacher."

Lu Phu