The man running on the streets of New York on April 16, 2020 – Photo by Anthony Quintano/Flickr
Think of us as being at war with Covid-19, and this war may still last for a very long time. We absolutely must live a life worth living, rather than waiting for “the Covid-19 year to end” before continuing to live. Live like our parents did during wartime: Fighting with dignity, working with enthusiasm, and loving with composure.
THE STOCKDALE PARADOX AND THE DEATH OF OPTIMISTS
With only one week left before the new school year begins, I realize that some government agencies, schools, teachers, and student parents are mostly not yet truly ready for students to learn online as a serious and long-term form of learning.
During this time, studying online is almost the only choice for many provinces and cities. Teachers complain that teaching online is arduous. Meanwhile, parents worry that their children studying online will be ineffective and lead to nearsightedness.
Some people also fear that poor students will not have technological equipment to access online classes. The majority are not enthusiastic about online learning and hope that online learning is merely a temporary solution before the pandemic passes. But can anyone answer me: when will Covid-19 end?
When Covid-19 began surging in Wuhan (China) and spreading to other nations, there were expert opinions suggesting the pandemic would end in the summer, when temperatures warmed up, or when scientists found a vaccine to prevent Covid-19.
We waited until summer, through winter, then spring arrived and another summer prepared to pass, vaccines also became available, and many countries reached 80% population vaccine coverage, but Covid-19 is still right here, continuously challenging humanity with new variants, causing even countries with the highest vaccine coverage in the world like Israel to not say with confidence that they have achieved herd immunity. So when will Covid-19 disappear?
The answer may be a very long time from now, or never. When leaders of countries leading in vaccination have also begun speaking about a future where humanity will have to live alongside Covid-19 over the past many months, in Vietnam, the pet phrase I hear most people say is “let’s wait until the Covid-19 year ends first.”
We can wait for Covid-19 to end to share a meal with friends, but patients cannot wait for it to disappear before going to medical checkups, farmers cannot wait for Covid-19 to end before planting rice, students cannot wait for Covid-19 to end before returning to studies, and public servants cannot wait for Covid-19 to end before serving the public.
We must learn to adapt, to survive, even within a reality that Covid-19 remains right here on our land, present around our lives…
These days, whenever the press, friends, or colleagues discuss hopes that by next October or November Vietnam will end the lockdown situation, I often share with them about the Stockdale Paradox. General James Stockdale, former Admiral of the US Navy, was imprisoned for 8 whole years.
After gaining freedom, Admiral Stockdale shared with Jim Collins (author of the famous book “From Good to Great”) that in prison, the ones who died first were the most optimistic ones, because they always believed they would very quickly gain freedom. In the end, those people died in agony with broken hearts due to despair when reality was not as they had imagined.
The Stockdale Paradox reminds you that you must never confuse faith that you will prevail—which you can never afford to lose—with the courage to confront the facts regardless of how harsh they may be. That is the balance required to survive in a crisis.
In this crisis, I constantly remind myself of the lesson from the story of Admiral Stockdale and the paradox named after him. I completely believe that one day Covid-19 will disappear and we will survive through this disaster, but I also accept the reality that humanity will have to live alongside it for a very long time. And to survive, our organization and I personally prepare everything regarding mindset as well as skills and search for solutions to continue living normally.
TEACHING CHILDREN SURVIVAL SKILLS IN “NEW NORMAL” STYLE THROUGH ONLINE MEANS
A year ago, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who was then serving as Prime Minister, called upon and reminded the public to learn how to live with a “new normal.” But the reality is that a year has passed, and quite a few of us still do not truly understand what living in a “new normal” means and are not ready for a “new normal” life in the true sense of the phrase. Many of us still live hand-to-mouth and sit counting each day waiting for Covid-19 to pass before starting to truly “live.” Education is a prime example of that mentality.
If the Covid-19 pandemic ends in October, that would be wonderful, and young children not going to school will not suffer too large an impact, as schools will only need to conduct make-up classes. But what will we do if the Covid-19 pandemic takes another 2-3 years to end?
Or if variants continuously appear and vaccines cannot be researched fast enough to help humanity achieve herd immunity within the next 10-20 years, are we also going to let our children learn “roughly” throughout that entire time? Accept Covid-19 just as accepting natural disasters that still come to human beings every year.
Occasionally we will have to lockdown, then reopen, then lockdown again. But we must manage to find ways to live in a “new normal” even when that happens.
Unlike some parents or experts who worry about children’s ability to learn online, I completely believe in young children’s capacity to absorb new things and adapt.
A child on their first day at school will always cry before learning how to get used to friends, school, and teachers. A student learning online for the first week or two may feel unfamiliar but will soon grow accustomed to the new teaching method. Children’s brains always possess the ability to absorb the new and adapt to the new many times faster than adults.
Because those young children do not hold biases like adults that studying via computer wastes time or is ineffective. So instead of sitting and worrying that our children will lack focus when studying online, I think this will be a wonderful opportunity to train our children to become familiar with technology and form self-study skills.
HCMC students taking a mock online exam on the 789.vn platform
Alvin Toffler once said: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Right now, we can completely sit at home and discover humanity’s entire treasure trove of knowledge for ourselves. Cultivating the habit of online learning, looking up materials on the internet, and group learning are key skills to remaining constantly ready to learn new things.
Covid-19 may bring us many challenges, but an educator like me sees a tremendously large opportunity – an opportunity for Vietnam in general, and Vietnamese education in particular, to stand before a great leap forward in learning by applying technology and self-study.
In recent years, the cost to purchase a smartphone or an old computer ranges only from 1.5 – 2 million VND – an amount of money that perhaps over 70% of households in Vietnam right now can manage to provide for their children to participate in online learning. We will still have to accept the reality that there may be families lacking conditions to purchase devices for their children to learn online.
But that cannot be taken as a reason to deprive other children of learning opportunities. Just as we do not have enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone, but we cannot in the name of equality deprive millions of other people of their right to vaccination.
With the group of students lacking conditions to study online, or with the group of people unable to be vaccinated yet, our responsibility will be to find solutions step by step. For instance, at our group’s school system, we built a long-term online teaching plan a year ago and stand ready for it. For students whose parents face difficult circumstances and cannot pay tuition fees, we stand ready to support tuition.
We also thoroughly deploy online learning platforms with the best possible convenience for students learning at home. There are opinions suggesting that exposing children to computers or phones too much will make young people nearsighted. The reality is that right now children are already exposed to computers and phones one way or another anyway. What guarantees that your child will not use a phone or computer if they do not study online?
LESSONS ON THE “NEW NORMAL” OF VIETNAMESE PEOPLE IN WARTIME
Species on Earth and humans have gone through many disasters in history, and the surviving creatures are always those that adapt best, constantly finding new paths to survive.
I see that there are people who have learned how to adapt. For instance, F&B business enterprises, having no money to rent premises at excessively high costs during difficult pandemic times, came up with the idea of cloud kitchens – serving only those buying take-out.
In the past, to meet partners, I would have to fly to Hanoi or fly abroad for an entire week. But Covid-19 helped me realize that online meetings are no less effective. I can save travel expenses, save time, and connect with multiple people at the same time.
If in the past we wanted to organize a talk with the entire group of over 2,000 employees, we had to find a large auditorium. Now, with just a computer or phone with wifi connection, thousands of our employees can “meet” and talk with one another right inside their own homes.
It may not be that everyone or every sector has solutions to maintain operations during a pandemic, but anyone in any profession, if there remains any way to manage, if there remains any way to continue maintaining life and maintaining business operations, then we cannot accept acting like “hibernating” bears, eating down to the last reserved food and using spiritual victory methods to hope Covid-19 will end in a few weeks.
In the song “Remembering Hanoi,” songwriter Hoang Hiep wrote:
“Remembering when bombs fell in wartime
The ground shook, roof tiles shattered, bricks broke
You still rode your bicycle on the street
I still searched for new sounds…”.
Our parents’ generation lived with such a spirit, because if they had not continued living, had not fought the enemy while simultaneously working and creating art, how could the whole country have gone through several long decades of war? They certainly understood better than anyone the concept of a wartime “new normal.” So let us think that we are still at war (with Covid-19), and we absolutely must live a life worth living, just as our parents once did!
Nguyen Quoc Toan
