Behind the Kid Who Got the Zero

By Anonymous / Spring 2022

Dear D,

In 9th grade, I know you are kind of stressed out about the entrance exams to get into your favorite high school. After getting into the school you love, there is another mission for you: to get into the class for gifted math students. Your parents are proud of you. They are always happy that you are a good kid. You should not be stressed out too much. Believe me, everything is going to go well for you. You have always been proud that you are the top student in your class. I think that you deserve that because of the efforts you put in. Today, I write this letter for you. I just want to discuss with you that have you ever wondered why some kids in your class do not perform well like you. Maybe they are just too lazy? Or maybe there are so many reasons behind it?

Hey D, I just want to say that you are a lucky person. “A lucky person?” you might wonder. Yes, you are. I know that your parents do not have much money. However, they love you and try to give you the best they can. Your mom wakes up early to make breakfast for you in the morning. Then, your dad takes you to school. After you finish school, your dad picks you up, asking about how you are doing in classes today and what you have learned. Your parents stop going to school from 9th grade. So, they do not remember anything. Thus, talking with you about what you have learned, they have no ideas about what is going on. However, they still want to know, just to make sure that their lovely kid is learning and growing and having a better future than them. Although they do not have much money, they try their best to give you a good education. You know they talk with many people to find you one of the best science teachers in your city and enroll you in their classes. Thus, you can learn more materials outside of school, which makes you more competitive with your classmates. You are given the resources to learn and grow. Your parents sacrifice a lot for you, especially your mom. She never goes out. She keeps sitting at the corner all day with her sewing machine to earn money. Remember the loud sounds that the machine makes when she presses the pedals up and down? The machine is not even electrical. How much work she put in to get clothes done—all of the hard work just for giving you the best conditions.

Now, let’s talk about your friends, starting with H. “H, please solve the problem I have just written on the blackboard,” the teacher says. He then goes to the blackboard. He stands there for a long time. You start to think: “This is an extremely basic problem, don’t tell me that you do not know how to do it.” Then, you kind of lose your patience and think: “What are you doing, H? How are you going to get into high school without knowing how to solve this problem? This is just a pluck and chuck problem. By the time you finish this one, I think I will finish 20 problems!” After spending lots of time with the blackboard, he finally gets the problem wrong, then receives a zero from the teacher. The problem is that not only him, but many students in your class are like him. At the end of middle school, many of them are still confused about basic concepts. Looking shallowly, they are students who do not study and end up with bad grades. On the other hand, if you look deeply at the problem, it is not completely their fault but the educational and social systems.

Unlike you, H does not have many resources to succeed. After school, you have chances to improve your knowledge more by attending private classes with good teachers. On the other hand, after school, H has to help his parents process the fish to sell them in the markets. Your parents care a lot about your education. Any one as a parent wants to give their kids the best education. However, what if education is ignored because there are too many things going on and more important now so that they cannot think a lot about the future? Food, rent, those things overwhelm their minds. They do not even think of education but only how to survive. They can only think about having a safe place to sleep at night and a good enough meal that helps their bellies not cry all day, providing them enough energy to sadly repeat the cycle of life that they get stuck in. I know your family is in the lower class and does not have much money, but many families are even poorer. Imagine you do have to work after school to help your family, that would affect your study results, too.

I want to discuss with you that there are many problems in our education system. You remember many times you see questions that never appear in the class materials but on the exams. Then you talk to yourself, “I can solve it because I’ve worked on similar problems before in my private math class.” However, for students who never get a chance to attend a private Math class session, how could they do those problems? I know you are good at Math. However, sometimes, you get stuck on a problem, right? What if you are stuck on a problem for so long? Sometimes you doubt yourself, thinking that you are not that smart; it is your limit, and you can’t get better. Now, think of what your friends believe when they get stuck with not one problem but many problems, and it happens on a daily basis. They would doubt themselves, thinking that studying is not their path. Their goal now is just to finish middle or high school, then look for a physical job in a factory that needs a middle or high school degree as a minimum requirement. Our education system has many flaws, and not the students are victims, but also the teachers. Teachers get paid poorly. They have to hold private classes at other academic centers to earn more money. But how do they attract more students? The key is the exclusive materials that might appear on tests but are never mentioned in your traditional classrooms. Before becoming a teacher, I believe many of them think that their goals are to deliver knowledge to the younger generations. Now, money is what they are concerned about. For those students that get access to those resources, they understand things better and have higher grades. Unfortunately, students who do not have access to those resources get mediocre grades or even bad grades. Imagine that you do not get to learn math with the great teacher your parents choose for you. Imagine when you hold the exam in your hands and say, “I have never seen this problem before or any problem similar to this” on almost every exam; that would make you feel terrified. I know not only because of the resources you receive but the grades you get also show how much effort you put into studying. But your friends could get good grades too if they luckily have access to better resources, which makes them understand the materials better and have a different view about education.

Dear D, after you finish middle school, you will have a chance to go to your grandfather’s hometown with your parents, where you will see many things that will open your mind. You’ve been complaining about not having a room and having to sleep on the hard floor, right? You will see kids who sleep on a dirty floor full of spider webs around them. When your parents talk to others, they like to tell them something like: “My kids are smart, they are doing really well in school. I am so proud of them”. When the parents of those poor kids talk to others, you would hear: “My kids wake up at 4:30 in the morning to take the cows out and feed them. Then they go to the river. My first son is really good at catching fish.” Looking at those kids, you will think that they are in elementary school, they look so short and small. You go to rub a little kid's head, give him some candies, and ask: “How old are you?”. “I am thirteen years old”, the kid answered. You will be surprised about his age. The little kid with his dark skin because of going to the farm every day. He looks so little because of having to work at an early age and not having enough nutritious food to grow as usual.

At the end of the letter, I hope that you can see the inequality in the education and social system. Kids cannot choose where they are born or what kind of family they are born into. Some kids luckily are born in a good family, where they get a chance to study and have a better future. On the other hand, some kids are born into very low-income families, and it is tough for them to make a big change. Your family is considered a low social class in your city, and your parents do not make much money. However, when you go to the countryside, you can even see a more distinct gap. Now, you are a rich kid compared to those living in your grandmother's little town. Usually, we only see the surface and blindly get convinced that it is just what it is, which is likely untrue. Now, I hope that looking at your friend who got a zero in your math class, instead of believing that he is just a lazy student, now you can understand what is really behind that zero. For me, the zero grade from him is a zero grade for the education and social system in Vietnam, which does not give much support to poor students and families so that they can have a better chance to improve and change their lives.

I wish you the best

D, The future you