HÀ NỘI — Phan Huy Chú High School teacher Nguyễn Kim Anh has assigned her students the task of helping their parents with preparations for the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday.

The teacher told Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper that many grade-12 children did not even know how to fold a shirt or keep their closets organised.

“Some do not know how to sweep properly or how to arrange the food on the tray to make it beautiful,” she said.

Hence, Kim Anh used lessons to teach the children to do housework for Tết such as food decoration.

To have a tray of delicious Tết food, she said it must be full of harmonious colors with green vegetables, brown braised meat, dark yellow fish sauce, and so on.

Students who performed well during these ‘tests’ of ‘Vietnamese habits’ were rewarded.

"Children learn to do housework and think more for their parents,” said one parent. “Who doesn’t want that?"

The teacher has recruited the help of parents to organise activities and guide their children.

"I invited Hanoian parents to guide their children on how to cook and behave,” said Kim Anh. “The children really like it and I also find more sharing from parents.”

Kim Anh also asked her students for photos of their hotel rooms before checking out to see if they kept them clean.

“I want to give them a sense of neatness, even if it’s just for a night’s rest,” she said.

Parents have supported Kim Anh’s efforts to teach students about Tết chores because without them, children might never learn about traditions surrounding the holiday.

The high school held a spring festival themed ‘Tết Hà Nội past and present’. It included presentations of fruit trays, making bánh chưng (square glutinous rice cakes) in the schoolyard and picking and arranging flowers.

The school has also launches a programme to support students with difficulties, awarding scholarships to disadvantaged students with good academic records.

Yên Hòa High School in Hà Nội just organised a series of programmes called ‘City without doors’. The activities are based on the theme ‘A city is shared, connected and loved. The city will not have prejudices about gender, career or shape.’

According to Nguyễn Thị Nhiếp, principal of the school, activities at the end of the year bring joy and opportunities for the students to show different skills apart from in their academic work.

The message of the programme is that teachers want students to learn by experience rather than rigid lessons so students, parents and teachers can stand together. — VNS