The story of teacher T.P.H at Chuong Duong Primary School (District 1, HCMC) asking parents for support to buy a laptop in the past few days is truly a sadness for everyone.
As a colleague of the teacher, I also feel sorry and sympathize with her, because just because of a laptop that is not worth much, she has to exchange the trust and respect of parents for her in particular and teachers in general. It is heartbreaking, just because of the laptop that she was forced to temporarily stop teaching.
As humans, especially teachers, self-respect is always a lesson we must remember in life, in our daily relationships with people and especially with parents.
The moral of “Starving to be clean, ragged to be fragrant” has remained the same for generations, although poor in material things but rich in self-respect. If she needs a laptop for teaching but does not have the financial ability, she can petition the school, the union… for support.
Maybe everyone has a different view on the teacher asking parents for support with a laptop (maybe agree or not). However, according to many teachers and me personally, the teacher should not ask for support like that for many reasons:
First, she asked for support to buy a laptop for her personal use (even for teaching), not for her parents to give her.
Second, after the parents were dissatisfied, she had a "sulky" attitude and did not prepare the outline and review for the students - this is not in accordance with the ethics of a teacher. Because teaching in general, preparing outlines, guiding review, testing, grading, returning papers... in particular, are professional tasks that she must perform according to regulations, not doing or not doing as the teacher said.
In fact, in many schools, there is still a situation where homeroom teachers encourage parents to "voluntarily" contribute money to buy air conditioners, televisions, etc. for their children's classrooms. This is not in accordance with the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and the Department of Education and Training's guidelines for collecting fees at the beginning of the school year. Therefore, this practice must be stopped so as not to be known as teachers "begging" for support from parents.
I still remember, when I was the homeroom teacher of class 9/4, Trinh Phong Secondary School, Dien Khanh (Khanh Hoa), at the parent meeting at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year, a parent commented: "I suggest that the parents of the class pay to buy a TV for the class with a reference price of about 7 million VND".
Upon receiving that offer, I thanked the parents for their kindness and declined to accept the gift. I suggested that if the parents of the class wanted to donate, they should contact the school to donate it, and donate it to the school for common use in the technology room so that all classes could benefit from it when they entered the school.
Through the story of the teacher asking for support with a laptop, there are many lessons for teachers and us teachers, that is to keep a pure heart, not to seek personal gain to have a bad reputation for life.
As a teacher, in every situation, you need to have standard behavior and words. The way you speak "sulking" like a teacher is irresponsible and disrespectful to parents. This is also a lesson that teachers must remember, there is no need and should not ask for personal purposes.
