VietNamNet Bridge – Hundreds of the 12th graders of Nguyen Hien High School in district 11 of HCM City gathered on March 30 afternoon to cheer loudly on the news that history is not a national final exam subject this year. They were too excited that they threw all the history books to the school yard.

The clip recording the images of the school’s students tearing books has been posted on Internet and has attracted a lot of viewers.

In the eyes of many educators and students, the behavior is “unacceptable.” A student with the nickname Zuan Duck commented on the school’s forum that this was an inconsiderate behavior of the students who did not care much about their honor and keep indifferent to the teachers’ feelings. Zuan Duck violently criticized the students, saying that the behavior of the bad students has tarnished the good reputation of the school.

Another member with the nick name Trang Bac also said he feels sad when witnessing the behavior of the students. “I feel so disappointed about the students. We should take pride of the Vietnamese history. Why can they act like this? Their actions are like the denial of the credit of their predecessors who sacrificed themselves for the peace and independence of the country,” he wrote.

A member, Tieu Chieu, commented: “The students’ behaviors are not joyful at all.”

Meanwhile, many others have applauded the behavior, commenting that this is a normal thing that many students do.

“History books are just useful for students until they finish the second semester exam. Why should they keep the books for longer then?” a student said.

The student went on to say that students always get tired of history lessons, because they have to remember so many events and figures. Therefore, they would be happy if they can escape from the terrible subject.

A student with nickname Tu Lap said not only history books have been torn. “Students would throw away all the books which are not useful for them any longer,” he said, adding that he also threw away biology books, because he did not have to take biology exams last year.

“The knowledge the teachers tried to stuff our head at school proves to be nonsensical. It will be useless for us in the future. Therefore, it would be better to throw it away,” he added.

Meanwhile, Andy Le said that the behavior of the students shows the adults how they think about history. “The history knowledge we receive at school is really unpractical and not useful.”

When asked to comment about the students’ actions, Nguyen Can Tan, Headmaster of the Nguyen Hien High School, said this should be seen as a “hysterical joke” of students.

Tan said that the students might feel too excited on the news that they would not have to attend history exams, the most difficult exam subject for them.

He stressed that the students not only threw away the books and documents relating to history learning subject. The documents found on the school yard included rough papers, brochures, leaflets many other things.

He also said that in fact, students still cannot give up history books right now, because they would still needs the documents for the second semester exams.

Tien Phong