I am a child in a 31 year old body or I am an adult still commute to my childhood weekly, in either way.
Just like most of Vietnamese families in 1990s, it was not easy for my parents to adequately support three young mouths a bowl of rice everyday, let alone a quality education. My dad has been working 365 days a year since I was able to memorize, my mom tried all her efforts to earn some extra and help my dad with his work-a heavy job. Even when I was only 6, I could see my parents were literally scraping pennies to make ends meet.
I remember my aunties, once, talked to my mom: " If you have to struggle that bad to get them (my sister, my brother and me) to school, then just drop it, girls don't need to study much anyway". I was sitting right next to them, the 10 year old girl started to worry not seeing her classmates anymore. And my mom's reply is the most beautiful thing that holds my life up, she said "I know, our life is hard, but to me, it's harder to give up on my children's education. I have nothing to give my kids an easy life but knowledge, then they will be able to make their own life". Three of us ended up graduated university and able to take mom and dad to any restaurant in Vietnam, if they want. But usually they say no. Home meals are the best!
More than any things, I believe that miracles will happen, especially when we know how to light up a potential in a young soul or give a nudge at a right time, that kid will thrive.
The more I travel back to my childhood, the more I love kids and desire to help them be the person they want to be with their abilities fully nourished. I cannot make life for any kid, and I definitely should not, but I would love to spend educational memories with them.
My grandmas, both side, have 16 children. It means I happen to have a lot of cousins then now, I have 11 nieces and nephews altogether. All of those kids, some times or most of the times, get complaints about being"uncooperative" by their parents. One time, I had a week off, suddenly an idea came to me, I ran up to my cousins' houses and asked them to let me experience those hard times with their kids, let me gather them for some activities and see how stubborn they are. My cousins wished me luck for my program.
The first hours were unexpectedly challenging and extremely tiring: 2 girls constantly cried for their moms, 1 boy kept running to wherever caught his interest, the rest was so confused and quiet. I wanted to go home, but my mom's saying appears in my head, again "don't give up on educating a child, we will see the reward". Okay mom, I will try.
Then, patiently I explained to my young team why they were there with me without their parents, what activities I wanted to do with them, and ultimately, I tried to encouraged them to have the "I can do" attitude.
5 days of the program, our class included: protecting environment actions, reading club, baking, planting veges, basic traffic rules, music and sport.
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The kids gradually got involved and eagerly come back the next day. They became excited with lots of questions and ideas, they wanted to "cooperate".
One of the parents told me later that she asked her son what he had learned from my class; the son-6 years old answered neatly: "learned to be a good person".
You know what, that answer surprised his mother, and I was surprised too.