LookAtVietnam – “I will continue to teach students in my hometown until I can’t.” For 84-year-old Tran Ngoc Anh of Ben Tre Province’s Mo Cay District, teaching is akin to breathing. He has been doing it non-stop for 30 years.

Teacher Tran Ngoc Anh, 84, is one of the first teachers in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre to receive the Viet Nam Medal for the Cause of Education.

“He always learns new things from his colleagues and other sources to enrich his knowledge and uses it for his teaching. I’m very lucky to have been taught by him.”

Anh graduated from high school in 1943 under the French curriculum, but he was unable to continue his studies because of many problems in his life then.

Many years later, he joined the resistance war against the French. He returned home in 1954 and focused on taking care of his family – his wife and two children.

Anh began teaching and continued his studies at the Sai Gon Lecturer’s University a year later. After graduation, he taught literature at the Thanh Phu High School in Ben Tre Province, going on to become its principal from 1969 to 1973.

Twenty years later, he retired at the age of 65, but two years on, in 1995, he opened his first class, teaching English.

Despite learning under the French curriculum, he had been taught English for two years, and he was ready to build on that.

At the age of 74, Anh would ride his bicycle to teach English in the morning and learn it in the evening at the Ben Tre Foreign Language Centre.

He smiles as he recalls: “Several teachers and students who could be my grandchildren were very surprised when they saw a man over 70 years old go to school.”

After three years of study, Anh became much more proficient in English, and began teaching the language in right earnest.

“I have to make teaching plans which help students understand lessons quickly.”

He now teaches English to about 20 students, ranging from beginners to ninth-grade students. He also receives a few high school students sometimes.

Many people who have studied English under him have succeeded in life. Some of them are studying at Dong Thap Province’s University of Pedagogy and Can Tho City’s University and others have become teachers.

Anh is one of the first teachers in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre to receive the Viet Nam Medal for the Cause of Education.

Apart from teaching, Anh is also a poet. His poems about education have been published on local art magazines.

Someone once said: You don’t grow old. You become old when you stop growing.

At 84, Anh has not stopped growing.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News