Teachers of Quoc Hoc High School guiding students in class. Photo: Huu Phuc
Back then and now
The teacher retired a long time ago and some students no longer work, but in Hue there are still groups of students specialized in Maths who regularly visit him. Together they share memories and encourage each other when things in life got tough.
On some occasions, especially Tet holiday, there are often students and friends from other cities coming back to Hue, visiting the school, including the famous student, Le Tu Quoc Thang. And the teacher, he is a teacher specialized in mathematics, Mr. Le Van Quang.
Having been devoted to Quoc Hoc high school since the Reunification Day and having retired for around ten years, Mr. Quang helped many generations of Quoc Hoc math students making the name for themselves over the past few decades.
Quoc Hoc high school has been a famous school for the gifted with many experienced teachers such as Mr. Quang, Mr. Khai, and Mr. Hoan ... There have been generations of qualified and inspired teachers who devoted to teaching profession.
Mrs. Truong Thi Doan Trang (born in 1968), Head of Physics section, said: “Being a teacher of the varsity team of the school is being placed under a lot of pressure, it requires the teacher knowledge, skill and experiences to teach them”.
There are a lot of physics reference books available on the market, but very few of them focusing on national and international exam preparation. Mrs. Trang had to spend a lot of time collecting books and valuable resources for students. Every time she found a good book, she took it as a reward for students who had good academic results.
Mr. Tran Van Toan, who specialized in literature, said: Teaching the varsity team is both interesting and full of responsibilities. The head teacher of the team would usually be the one who followed the students for 3 years. The quality and results of the team depend on many factors which associate with the plan, the syllabus, and the content of the training program ...
With literature subject, it is even more difficult, because it also depends on the quality of the writer, the "taste" of the examiners ... The pleasure is to be specially encouraged by the administrators. All the teachers are passionate, doing their best in teaching students. Specialized teachers always spend time to approach new materials, doing research on those materials and preparing homework.
As difficult as teaching gifted students
Many young teachers shared that they really felt under pressure to teach in specialized schools. Graduating with a good diploma at a pedagogical university was not enough when they had no specialized training program for teachers for gifted students, so they lack experiences and skills in teaching.
Meanwhile, students in schools for the gifted are often smart, together with the effective support of technology, if teachers lost their agility in innovating methods of imparting knowledge, they might have difficulty in teaching.
In those first years of the career, many teachers were toilsome. They had to both teach and improve their skills at the same time, especially when their students took part in national and international contest.
Mr. Tran Van Toan confided that some students were not excited and determined to enter the team due to the pressure from university entrance exams with 3 difficult subjects. Meanwhile, being in the team, students had to get at least the 3rd prize to be admitted to some universities. Therefore, some students and parents did not want them to join the team, making the teachers both have to teach and also encourage their students.
Quoc Hoc High School has 140 teachers; among them, there are 82 teachers having master degree. The goal is that by 2020, the school would have 60% of teachers with master degree or higher. Most teachers are young. They have a good "input" and a high-qualified pedagogical university diploma. After one year of apprenticeship, young teachers had to undergo another test to prove their ability, if they were good enough then they can be officially accepted.
On evaluating his staff, the Principal of Quoc Hoc High School said that: “Not only being enthusiastic, passionate about searching for knowledge, researching and teaching materials to improve their lectures, they are also talented teachers who show their enthusiasm and ability in teaching students”
For many years, the majority of good students, after graduation, did not choose to study pedagogy. This was considered a difficulty of the school when recruiting teachers. The desire of Quoc Hoc was to have many good students winning national and international prizes in various subjects enrolling in pedagogy to join the teaching staff.
“How to train, how to show passion and enthusiasm in each lecture, each lesson to students is a problem requiring early solution ... Soon, we will invite teachers who were teaching in Quoc Hoc throughout the periods of time to go on encouraging students to participate in national and international excellent student teams.” Mr. Nguyen Phu Tho expressed his desire to strengthen several subjects that were previously the leading majors of Quoc Hoc.
By Hue Thu