Have we ever asked each other: Why is (the majority of) being a teacher, a profession considered noble in Vietnam, so miserable? If it is a noble profession, shouldn’t people be truly proud and genuinely able to make a living from that job?
As a former teacher myself, I was stuck forever in this contradiction. Why is a “noble” profession so poor? And after a prolonged period of thought, I answered myself as follows: The teaching profession is generally not a “noble” profession in the way we usually think.
Teaching is a profession with an income belonging to the low tier in Vietnam currently. The average salary of a schoolteacher ranges from 5 to 10 million VND/month, on par with the salary of normal manual workers such as industrial zone workers, security guards, house helpers, motorbike taxi drivers, hotel doormen, and restaurant servers (even lower, if taking commissions into account).
Opportunities to increase income exist only for teachers who are very talented and teach important subjects like mathematics or English, or teach at famous public schools, private schools, or for educational managers. For the vast majority of teachers, the salary is only temporarily enough to eke out a “wearing” existence. Thus, it is clear that the teaching profession today is not a profession that brings a temporarily adequate life.
Then why was the teaching profession in the past so revered and desired? In ancient times, being a teacher was a desirable profession. The teacher back then might not have received much money, but was actually not poor at all.
The teacher’s profession back then was one of the professions with a high degree of “monopoly”; sometimes an entire village had only one master. If not studying with the teacher, then with whom would one study? So naturally, society had to respect the teacher. To study, one had to pay tuition, not necessarily in money but possibly in material goods like rice and meat.
In addition, the teacher also enjoyed quite a few special privileges and benefits in the village and commune. On Tet and holidays, parents always had to have gifts for the teacher. No wonder Nguyen Khuyen once satirized:
“Studying is no laughing matter
Mornings carrying books, evenings drilling, gutting the child to cram in words
Raising the teacher is no joke
When the year ends and Tet comes, chopping the father’s head for money”.
Whichever teacher had talented students who passed exams and achieved accolades, that teacher was all the more respected, because the teacher’s educational “product” had its quality proven. For a village or commune with only one teacher over many years, somehow there would be people passing exams there. The teacher was all the more respected. The teaching profession was all the more “noble.”
Everything has changed in modern society: being a teacher is no longer a “monopolistic” profession within a small geographic scope, and passing exams to become a mandarin is no longer the ultimate goal of students.
The “monopoly” in providing educational services of the past was lost, and along with it, the “nobility” of the teaching profession accompanied by “perks” also gradually faded. The value of the teaching profession according to the mold of ancient society has decreased significantly, so thinking about the “noble” nature of the teaching profession remains only a nostalgic feeling about ancient values.
So when does being a teacher become “noble” again? I questioned myself, reflecting on the times I went to teach to see what happened? After each time teaching, when seeing the students I taught become more knowledgeable and more successful, I had a feeling of fulfillment again.
It turned out that teaching, that sharing knowledge with others made me happy, but did not necessarily make my students happy. Or in fact, I was much happier than my students, and the more students succeeded, the more my happiness increased accordingly. So who knows, maybe I mistook, conflated, and regarded the action that made me happy as a “noble” deed?
So it turns out teaching is also just like doing charity work? The feeling of passing on one’s knowledge is like the feeling of helping others, giving away, and doing good deeds. Helping others always brings a wonderful feeling. Perhaps when we help others, we feel like we take a step closer to the status of a “saint,” we have a feeling of rising above mediocrity, released from earthly matters. And that brings us an incomparable feeling of happiness.
But just like doing charity work, (most) people are happy only when they are fairly well-off, when they are (partially) warm and fed materially, or when they no longer need any material goods. That is also the reason why many businessmen, politicians, successful people… upon retirement actively go teach and do charity work. Because they obtain the feeling of happiness and fulfillment when teaching, when giving.
But attaching giving away like that to “nobility” is actually not it at all. Therefore, I will no longer consider the teaching profession as “noble” according to an old-fashioned connotation.
If we want the teaching profession to be less arduous, perhaps we should stop extolling the teaching profession. The teaching profession is no more noble than other professions if the teacher does not have enough to eat. The less we “rose-tint” “being a teacher,” the more frankly we face reality and must find ways to resolve the bitter reality that teachers in Vietnam are still suffering too much.
And perhaps, when knowing that working as a teacher is truly hard, not “noble” as everyone usually thinks, fewer people will want to become teachers. That will probably be better. Because when there is a demand for education and with high quality, people will have to be ready to pay for the teaching profession in a decent, fair manner according to market laws (like in the old days); at that time, perhaps the teaching profession will be less miserable.
Or when there are too few professional teachers, those who have succeeded or volunteers (who are already partially well-fed and warm or not too miserable) will participate in teaching to have a feeling of happiness because of contributing for their own sake. Perhaps by that time, the teaching profession will become a “noble” profession because it is no longer attached to material demands.
Nguyen Quoc Toan
