The special class of 81-year-old teacher Ho Huong Nam in An Duong (Tay Ho, Hanoi) is perhaps the most special class in the capital. For 16 years now, she has diligently taught pupils with intellectual disabilities.
A one-of-a-kind class
We visited Mrs Nam’s special class, set in a small corner of the grounds of An Duong Secondary School, on a late autumn day. During class time, the whole class was silent. The pupils bent over their writing practice, while the old teacher sat marking their work. Seeing a stranger enter the class, the class monitor stood up and said loudly: “Stand up, everyone”, and the whole class stood up to greet the guest.
This is quite normal in other classes, but for pupils with intellectual disabilities and other disabilities to fall into such order is the result of a long, arduous process of teaching by the old teacher Ho Huong Nam.
Now over 80 years old, Mrs Nam still works tirelessly at her special class
Although she is 81 years old, with a slightly stooped back and grey hair, the old teacher still looks lively, with a kind face and bright, keen eyes. Still keeping the gentle, warm voice of a person from Hue, she said thoughtfully:” I am originally from Hue, and I taught in Quang Binh for two years. In 1957, I followed my husband to live in Hanoi. My husband was a Chinese language teacher, while I taught primary school. We had three children, and Mrs Nam soon had to shoulder the family alone when her husband died early”.
Having been a teacher, when she retired in 1979 she felt lost and missed school. Moreover, with the sadness of her husband’s death and her children grown up, staying at home felt sad, so she wanted to work to ease her grief, and she became a population collaborator in the ward.
For 16 years, teacher Ho Huong Nam has “sown words” for children with disabilities all over Hanoi
Each time she visited people’s homes and met children with disabilities who were not going to school, she felt very sorry for them. Born already disadvantaged, and then not going to school or playing with friends, they were disadvantaged even more. From that, she wanted to teach these children with disabilities and intellectual disabilities. But, surprisingly, when she went to ask their parents and urge them, they objected, partly because she had touched on their pain, and partly because their parents thought that even if they studied, it would make no difference.
For many months, she went to each house and patiently persuaded them, promising that if within a month they made no progress she would send them back to their families, before they agreed.
Sowing “words”, treating children with disabilities as her own grandchildren
It is hard to tell all the difficulties of the early days of founding the class 16 years ago. After urging parents for so long, only two children came to school, but she still taught them. Only a few months later, four more children joined the class. There was no fixed place for the class; one day she borrowed the ward patrol headquarters, the next a nursery. Many people in the neighbourhood looked at her with pitying eyes, thinking she was foolish to teach “foolish, simple people” instead of teaching clever ones.
After a few years of study, the patrol headquarters was demolished to build a cultural house, and Mrs Nam led her pupils to study at a kindergarten, but the school had no room left for the children. Undeterred, she knocked on doors everywhere, and in 2002 the Board of Management of An Duong Secondary School lent her a small classroom. From then on, the class had a stable, spacious place.
Mrs Nam’s pupils in a lesson
Word spread, and the number of pupils in the class kept growing. At the opening of the 2013–2014 school year, the class had 15 pupils, the youngest 8 years old and the oldest over 30. Of these, 11 pupils were children of the ward, and four pupils were from other districts.
In the class there is a pupil, Luu Hong Duong, who has to use a wheelchair and cannot go to the toilet by himself, so every time he has a “need”, Mrs Nam pushes his wheelchair to take him to the toilet.
Every day, Luu Hong Duong’s father patiently pushes his wheelchair to take him to learn to read and write
Mr Luu Van Ba, Luu Hong Duong’s father, said with emotion that Hong Duong has been paralysed and has had an intellectual disability since childhood. Before, Duong was very bad-tempered, but since joining teacher Nam’s class, Duong has become gentle and obedient. Now he can express his thoughts so others understand, knows letters and numbers, and can do simple addition and subtraction. “In this world, there are very few people like teacher Nam; she is like a fairy godmother to the children” – Mr Ba said.
Ms Nguyen Thi Thuy, 24 years old, is a long-standing pupil of teacher Nam. From knowing neither how to read nor write, the girl who is paralysed down one side and comes from a difficult background, her mother having died early, has found joy and faith in life in this charity class. Thuy is also the pupil who, after 16 years of study, has reached the highest level in the class, grade 4, reading fluently, writing well and quite beautifully, and doing mental arithmetic quite quickly.
What is special is that for all these years, the teacher has taught without taking a single dong in payment from parents. Not only that, for these special pupils she also spends her own money on pens, books, sweets and crisps to coax them into studying.
Mrs Nam said that the pupils in this class are of all ages, each child has a different kind of disability and a different level of understanding. She cannot apply her previous teaching methods to this special class. Depending on each child’s physical condition and level of awareness, she finds a suitable way to teach them.
Teacher Ho Huong Nam guides each stroke of the pen for her special pupils
In the class there is the case of Phuong Anh (9 years old), who is deaf and non-speaking and has only recently joined the class, but is learning quite fast. Fortunately, she took a course for this group, so she can communicate and teach. Teaching these pupils without patience is impossible. There are children she taught for months who could not even write the letter O.
Not only does she teach them letters, she also teaches her pupils ordinary manners, such as knowing how to greet parents, siblings, relatives and acquaintances, and how to look after themselves… Before long, her class has existed for 16 years now. Some pupils who have followed the class from the first day are now over 30 years old. She regards these pupils as members of her own family.
“On days when I cannot go to class and see them, I am very sad; they are simple-minded, but their feelings are so sincere”. Mrs Nam confided that on Vietnamese Teachers’ Day, 20 November, seeing pupils in the school buying flowers for their teachers, they too saved their breakfast money to buy flowers for her. Some brought her a sweet or a packet of crisps as a gift. Receiving gifts from her pupils with intellectual disabilities and other disabilities made her eyes fill with tears.
With her white hair, kind face and quick step, teacher Nam truly is a kind “fairy godmother” to the children in the charity class, and to anyone who has once witnessed her quiet, noble work.
Nguyen Hoan – http://www.petrotimes.vn