Kindness Class, 1st course in summer 2022 left many positive emotions and impressions on participants, both in terms of quality and program content. Building on that success, Kindness Class for Summer 2023 came back with the theme: What do you learn in high school?, aiming to create an open space for learners to approach familiar subjects with newer perspectives. The second course received more than 100 registrations varying in age. The candidates showed genuine interest and an open-minded attitude towards social issues, which the Admissions Committee really considered during the application review process. After a week of review, the Admissions Committee selected 30 excellent students for this year’s class.

First day – July 6th, 2023: Class activities & Opening lesson: Learning kindly – Right and Wrong

To start off the first day, homeroom teacher Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thao and class president Mr. Nguyen Trieu Trung went over the class rules with students. They also introduced the content of the four-day Kindness Class, 2nd Course. Next was the first session of the morning, under Mr. Hoang Minh Thong’s guidance. With the goal of leading students to approach Kindness scientifically, Mr. Thong divided his lecture into 4 sections, including:

• Understanding what “kindness” is
• Understanding what “learning kindly” is`
• Portrait of a “kind learner”
• Learning kindly: a journey or a destination?

In each topic, Mr. Thong proposes a variety of concepts and approaches to help students observe “kindness” in many dimensions to form their own definitions of “kindness”. 

The afternoon class started at 13:30, with the subject of Civic Education led by Mr. Le Nguyen Duy Hau. During the class, Mr. Hau opened up a lively discussion space by engaging the students in discussions related to morality and ethics, using daily debated topics as starting points.

“People are more than one thing”

Before making statements, it’s important to delve deeper into an issue, because “when a person opposes a viewpoint, they want to support something else”. By doing so, you will feel more sympathetic to others’ choices as well as develop more objective judgments. During the teaching process, Mr. Hau avoided imposing any fixed thoughts on students, instead, he tried to expand the issue and ask more questions, helping students gain a deeper understanding of the issues they are concerned about. 

Second day – 07/7/2023: History – Art

The students had History in the morning and Art in the afternoon. During the morning class, Mr. Phan Khac Huy brought the students back to history with a new lens when analyzing the way history is being taught. According to Mr. Khac Huy, history was approaching learners in three forms:

• History: A comprehensive list of details and categorize them into different historical periods, along with the corresponding events.
• History by topic: History is taught through the form of meeting and visiting places and individuals associated with events or found historical documents.
• History goes upstream: From a previous historical document, researchers delve into the past, retracing the steps outlined in previous documents to verify the reliability of that historical document.

For each form, Mr. Khac Huy clearly states the advantages and disadvantages as well as the problems that history learners face. Regardless of which form is applied, historians need to pay attention to two core factors: (1) Historical document and (2) Methods of data analysis. If learners do not develop critical thinking in these two factors, they can easily absorb false information or have unnecessary arguments in historical issues.

In the afternoon, the students continued with an Art class led by teacher Le An and the teaching assistant. Ms.Le An was integrating healing lessons into the art class, giving students the opportunity to listen to themselves and their classmates. “Yes… and” incarnation activities, and note-writing helped them experience a variety of emotions when listening to others.

Third day – 08/07/2023: Steam – Local Education

The third lesson started in excitement from both students and organizers. STEAM/STEM is an educational model being widely applied in Vietnam during the integration period. The Teacher, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hai, guided the students to better understand this educational model through specific experiments, thereby giving them certain takeaways about STEAM/STEM. Many interesting shares were expressed by the students to the teacher and classmates, contributing greatly to the flow of teaching and studying in the class.

In the afternoon, students experienced local class with the guidance of teacher – Mr.Nguyen Huu Loc. With extensive experience and wide knowledge, Mr.Nguyen Huu Loc brought the students back to the ups and downs of the history of Vietnam and the world. During the process of “reading the museum” at the Vietnam National Museum of History, students had the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Loc questions about events and historical moments in Vietnam. Mr. Loc helped them access the exhibits at the museum through visual descriptions and direct discussions, helping them keep in mind and be more interested in activities at the museum in Ho Chi Minh city in general as well as the Vietnam National Museum of History in particular.

Fourth day – 09/07/2023: Literature – Class summary discussion

On the last day of class, the students learned Literature under the guidance of Dr. Nguyen Nam, currently working at Fulbright University Vietnam, Faculty of Vietnamese Studies. With extensive knowledge and in-depth research experience, Dr. Nguyen Nam has led students to approach “kindness” through various aspects, from ancient to modern, from East to West. According to Mr. Nam, “kindness” is not a great dignity, regardless of culture or literacy. When we talk about kindness, it means that we are attentive, caring and focused on the smallest things in our lives, or it can be understood as how we behave with surrounding people. When we concentrate on those things, we act in the most thoughtful as well as most thorough way in which we have put in our best effort.

During the program summary session, the students reported on their major assignments, which the class committee assigned to each group from the first lesson. The students had the chance to evaluate the material covered in earlier courses and obtain a fresh perspective on kindness for themselves during the presentation.

The Luong Van Can Fund would like to sincerely thank the sponsors and speakers who gave of their time and enthusiasm to teaching the  students. Hopefully, students can form and equip themselves with appropriate knowledge and skills for the future through the program.

Source: LVCF Media Team