Teaching is like sowing a seed. Planting a green tree, we have a sprout of happiness.

"Teaching is like sowing a seed. Planting a green tree, we have a sprout of happiness." That is the sharing from Ms. Maria Cravioto - TOK subject teacher - Global Citizen Bilingual System at Greenfield School when sharing about her teaching work. Maria's journey to TOK, to her students, started from a dream of creating change, helping students reach out to the world. But she does not consider herself a hero, because sometimes great things do not come from supernatural abilities ...

Rejecting a consulting job to choose teaching because of love for students

Many people often wonder, for foreign teachers, what is the real reason that makes them stick with teaching in Vietnam? For Ms. Maria, choosing a teaching job was a bold decision but stemmed from her passion for doing work related to children.

Before coming to Vietnam, with a background in psychology, Ms. Maria worked as a consultant in a non-governmental organization and a part-time teacher. When she came to Vietnam 4 years ago, Ms. Maria started working as a full-time English teacher and immediately fell in love with this job. Therefore, although at that time Ms. Maria received an invitation to work as a consultant in a large hospital with a rather attractive salary, she still refused and chose teaching.

Being a teacher is already difficult, being a teacher in a country where English is not the main language is even more difficult. "When I taught in Mexico - my hometown, we used the same language. So, I can easily understand my students, especially when they discuss in class. But when teaching here, the biggest challenge is the language barrier as well as cultural differences. When you don't understand what the people around you are saying, you can miss many important things in conversations."

Challenging as it is, looking at it from another perspective, each challenge is also a potential opportunity. "Being a foreigner makes me feel like I attract more attention from the kids. That's why I often get a lot of questions like: Where do you come from? How old are you? Are you married yet? ... I would never receive those questions when I was in Mexico. Therefore, being a foreign teacher is a challenge but also brings me a great advantage when I receive a lot of attention and excitement from my students."

A big turning point with TOK and a journey called nurturing happiness

After 4 years of teaching English, Ms. Maria realized that being a teacher was still the job she wanted to stick with, but teaching English was not really suitable for her.

"When I teach English, I feel very happy, but frankly, I still feel that I don't have many opportunities to share with students interesting and relevant topics. With my background and experience in psychology, I want to not only stop at transmitting purely academic knowledge to students, but also hope to equip them with the necessary skills to become global citizens and be able to reach out to the world."

A major turning point came to Ms. Maria when she received an invitation to develop and teach the TOK (Theory of Knowledge) subject in the Global Citizen Bilingual program at Greenfield School. "I seriously thought about what I wanted to do and what I could do. The idea of the Global Citizen Bilingual System came from the fact that we wanted to develop a generation of citizens who understand and respect different cultures, have multi-dimensional thinking skills, and analyze problems thoroughly from many different perspectives."

In fact, TOK is not a new subject. This is a compulsory subject of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. "At Greenfield School, TOK is a combination of life skills and academic knowledge. Students will be able to choose to explore different situations from family, friends to self-esteem, sustainability ... From topics related to life, students will ask questions to explore that knowledge. For example, with the topic of the Human Body in the grade 1 curriculum, students will learn about the parts and organs of the human body. From there, they will explain why they have to wash their hands before eating, why they have to have personal hygiene every day? ... ".

New things often come with challenges. Teaching TOK is no exception. Ms. Maria has ability, has ideas, but not all students can easily access them. Even, in the early days of teaching, some parents wrote emails to Ms. Maria expressing concern because they did not understand the content of the subject and had difficulty supporting their children to study at home.

Faced with the challenges of the teaching profession, Ms. Maria chose to face them instead of giving up. "I am not a superhero, so there are times when I feel really bad and want to give up. At that time, I told myself that if I gave up, I would go against what I was teaching. In the end, I thought I needed to be responsible for my students and needed to find a solution to overcome that obstacle. I want to be a role model for students to follow because students will learn from what they see, not from what they are taught."

Understanding the difficulties that students encounter, all of Maria's teaching methods and teaching ideas come from her own experiences. "The content and topics in TOK are not always easy to understand, but I always try to convey that knowledge to my students by thinking back to the days when I was young, how I learned and absorbed knowledge. Therefore, I often organize many activities and games in class to encourage them to learn.

At Greenfield School, I have a deep connection with my students because we have time. 3 periods/week is not a lot, but we have used them effectively. That time is an opportunity for me to help them change their lives, or even just change a day of theirs by creating a space for them to feel safe and understood. TOK has created a deep connection and it reminds me of my previous consulting work."

Along with changing teaching methods, Ms. Maria is also open to communicating with parents to better understand their wishes and thoughts. Teaching for a while in Vietnam, Ms. Maria realized that students are used to the method of rote learning and doing tests. If students get high scores, parents will think that the student is studying well. But TOK is not like that.

"TOK has aspects that we cannot measure. Of course, the subject also has a theoretical part and tests to assess students' abilities. But along with that, I also offer certain tasks for students to show their progress and apply knowledge in a more interactive way. I also guide parents to support their children when needed. Just paying attention to small details in daily life, parents can encourage their children to develop critical thinking and make their own decisions. Learning in this way, students do not think they are learning, but in fact they have learned a lot of things."

Until now, after nearly a year with challenges that are not easy, students have been more active and excited about the subject. They actively ask questions when they have questions about an issue and also boldly participate in activities. "It will take a lot of time to achieve what we want, but teaching is like sowing a seed. Planting a green tree, we have a sprout of happiness. Just having students enjoy my lessons, just seeing the smiles of students, for me there is no greater happiness!" - Ms. Maria said.

Professional knowledge is not enough, teachers must be great friends of students

Sharing about her plans with her education career, Ms. Maria is not sure whether she will pursue teaching for life or not because the future always holds surprises. But there are two things that Ms. Maria is sure of, that is that she loves her students very much and wants to do work related to them.

For Ms. Maria, to become a good teacher, professional knowledge is not enough, teachers need to be a great friend of students. When understanding the thoughts of the children, teachers will see the advantages to encourage them to change in a positive direction.

"Grade 1 students often feel easier to say what they need: "I need this, I need that", "Please help me". But with grade 6 students, they cannot always express their feelings or ask for what they want. However, I think that at any age, in the end, they are still students, they still need love and need adults to care about them. What we need to do is learn to understand the messages that they send.

Now, students are more open and share with me more about their friends, family - things that we think are childish and trivial. But for me, that is definitely the happiest thing I have when I am here."

In particular, students not only open up to Ms. Maria but also open up more to their parents. Ms. Maria still remembers that, in the final meeting of the first semester, a parent of a grade 6 student was moved to say that, since participating in Ms. Maria's class, from a child who was quiet and introverted, their child has become more comfortable and shared more with his parents.

"What I teach has contributed to changing people's lives. That is the most wonderful thing for a person who works in education. Although the journey ahead has many challenges, I am sure that I can go and go very far. The students have their own dreams, so I will try my best to help them develop and make them come true!"

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