A Samaritan's Purse program gives kindergarten instructors in Vietnam tools to help their students
With the encouragement of my parents, I decided to go to college to become a kindergarten teacher. After finishing my education in 2006, I was assigned to work at Pa Tan Kindergarten.
The first years at the school were hard for me and other teachers due to poor facilities and the lack of a proper kindergarten curriculum. We taught based on a method in which teachers talked while children just listened and acquired the knowledge passively. I have minority students who couldn’t speak the language we use in school, and they were timid. This led to low teaching outcomes and poor education quality.
In 2011, there was a change in kindergarten education all over the country. We were introduced to a new curriculum. Some teachers and staff from Pa Tan Kindergarten attended a training course to learn how to apply this new method and impart it to other teachers. Although the education quality improved, many of our questions were still not answered.
Then in August 2014, all the teachers attended a capacity building workshop conducted by Samaritan’s Purse. It was the first time we had a clear understanding of the new curriculum. We also learned many new flexible and active participatory teaching methods.
The training changed us a lot. I applied what I learned in teaching my students. I tried to be more patient with them and encourage them better. And I was amazed that my students appeared happier, more relaxed and active, and loved to go to school.
The assessment of the child is no longer a difficult and stressful task. The trainers taught me to integrate it in my lessons. Now I can assess my students at any time and in any lessons.
Samaritan’s Purse not only equipped us with new teaching methods and skills, but also provided us with equipment and classroom materials, which reduced the teachers’ workload.
It’s wonderful that Pa Tan Kindergarten received help from Samaritan’s Purse. I’m grateful to the project for enhancing my teaching capacity and giving my students new tools to learn. I hope that the project will continue to help our school and other kindergartens so that many more teachers and children will have an improved teaching and learning environment.