Hue is a fifth-grade head teacher in the northern province of Ha Nam.
Recently, around 9 p.m., she received a phone call from a relative.
The parent informed Hue that their son had hit his head on a table at school that day and that, although it was not serious, they would take him to the hospital for an examination.
From the parent, Hue learned that the boy and two other friends were playing together in the classroom earlier in the day when he accidentally slipped and hit his head. Hue was unaware of the incident until the phone call.
“The boy only said he felt tired during class, and since I didn’t know he had fallen earlier in the day, I just called his parents to come pick him up, thinking that ‘Maybe he was sick.’
The 50-year-old teacher then told the school principal the whole story.
The principal told him to immediately go to the boy’s home that evening and apologize “before posting the story online.” He also criticized him for not closely monitoring the students.
“I was very upset and I didn’t think I deserved to be criticized,” Hue said.
But she also said she “understands the pressure the director is facing.”
So, at 10 p.m., she rushed to buy fresh milk as a gift and came to the boy’s house, which is 5 km from hers, to make sure that the parents would not criticize her and the school online.
Thanh, a teacher at a private kindergarten in Hanoi, said she was “scared to death” every time she saw a student with a scratch or bruise.
Tasked with looking after 30 three-year-olds with another teacher, the 28-year-old says it is impossible to stop all children from harming themselves at all times.
Many children are active and often bump into each other or hard objects, or fall while running or jumping, causing scratches or bruises, she said.
“But when parents see their children a little scratched, they are often suspicious. Even if I explain the situation to them, I always worry that they will not believe me and post it online, and that I will lose my job.” Thanh said.
Speaking at an education workshop on October 20, Vu Minh Duc, head of the Office of Teachers and Education Administrators at the Ministry of Education and Training, said: “If just one behavior deviates from the norm at school today, the entire social network Learn it tomorrow. Teachers these days are under immense pressure.
According to the Ministry of Information and Communication, Vietnam has more than 77 million Internet users, or nearly 80% of the population.
Thanks to social media, many online posts generate tens of thousands of interactions in just a few hours.
Want to solve problems
Nhai, a 29-year-old parent from Hanoi’s Ha Dong district, said posting on social media is the “most effective solution” to prevent a problem from being ignored or left unresolved.
Nhai’s experience includes writing a post in which she complained about the ineffectiveness of her son’s class parent fund on Facebook.
She said that six hours after it was posted, her boy’s homeroom teacher and a representative from the class’s parent committee came to meet with her to resolve the issue.
“The representative promised to make all income and expenses public, and the teacher also explained them in detail. Only then did I find the explanation reasonable and decided to delete the post,” Nhai said.
“Parents don’t have a voice, so we need pressure from the masses,” she said.
A school principal in the central province of Quang Tri, who requested anonymity, said it was now “too common” for parents to post everything on social media, forcing schools and teachers to be too careful with every word and every action.
“There is no need to know what is right or wrong, as long as the stories are published online, teachers must write a report, explain themselves and be criticized by their superiors,” he said.
So, when teachers are informed of an incident, they must act quickly and tactfully to handle it as quickly as possible.
He admitted that in several cases, teachers have not been open enough to communicate directly with parents, leading to situations in which parents have been rightly disappointed.
However, he said there are cases where parents have taken a disagreement too far or failed to thoroughly research an incident and/or intentionally posted false information online.
He said some teachers got in trouble because a parent complained about a school meal that turned out to never have been served at school.
Text messages from other teachers were screenshotted and then cut and pasted out of context in order to misinform and mislead readers.
 |
|
Two teachers welcome parents and students to school on the first day of the 2022-2023 school year at an elementary school in HCMC. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran |
Communication
Nguyen Thi To Quyen, acting director of the Faculty of Sociology at the Academy of Journalism and Communication, said that accurate feedback from parents helps school administrators quickly deal with mistakes, and that this feedback can provide lessons for schools and teachers.
But, she added, many comments lack the objectivity needed to be useful.
According to Hoang Trung Hoc, head of the psychology and education department at the HCMC National Academy of Educational Management, when teachers feel insecure, they withdraw and are reluctant to contribute.
“When teachers lose enthusiasm and passion, students will lose the most,” he said.
In Vietnam, there is currently no research on the specific impact of teacher harassment.
In South Korea, a total of 1,133 teachers were victims of online harassment between 2018 and 2022, according to data released by the country’s Ministry of Education.
In a survey conducted by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) in 2022, 93% of teachers said they fear being accused of child abuse. Of the teachers actually charged, only 1.5% reported being ultimately convicted.
Teachers’ fear of parents is so severe that the South Korean government is considering a series of education policy changes, including limiting parents’ contact with teachers.
After seeing one of his colleagues criticized for pointing and shouting at students, Trung, a middle school mathematics teacher in Hanoi, said he gradually lost his enthusiasm.
Well aware of his angry personality, Trung reminds himself every day at school that he just needs to finish the lesson and go home, instead of fiercely urging students to study hard or yelling at those who don’t. didn’t do their homework.
“I’m not proud, but at the end of the day, I’m still doing this job for pay. If I’m not careful enough, I could lose my job and create a bad reputation for myself,” he said.
Hue, in Ha Nam, said she was “tired of this work” and had already submitted documents seeking permission to retire ahead of schedule.
“I think if I make one mistake, my 30 years as a dedicated teacher won’t mean anything,” she said.
Educators said that while it is impossible to avoid problems between schools and parents, these issues must nevertheless be approached in an objective and civilized manner.
Nguyen Van Ngai, former head of the HCMC Education and Training Department, advised parents to do thorough research and consult other parents, as well as other children, instead of just listening to what say their children.
He told them to talk to teachers first to find out more about the situation, and only when teachers fail to resolve issues should parents contact the principal.
As for schools, he suggested creating a specific channel intended to receive complaints from parents.
“I really hope that parents and teachers will think carefully about every action they take to see what impacts it might have on students, because after all, it is the students who are most affected,” he said. he declares.
