VietNamNet Bridge – Facebook is spoiling the character and ethics of today’s young people, according to many Vietnamese educators. It has become a forum for students to speak ill of teachers and friends, or to escape their inhibitions.

Using foul language and swearing in front of adults has become a “disease” of modern Vietnamese students, say teachers and parents.

Van, the owner of an internet café on Highway No 32 in Hanoi, said that she often receives customers who are secondary and high school students in uniform who enter her shop to relax after “boring school hours”, as they describe it.

“They all like using foul language,” she said. “Even primary schoolboys, 9 or 10 years old, curse incessantly”.

“Using slang words and cursing others on Facebook – has this proven to be the outstanding characteristic of Vietnamese students in modern times?” she questioned.

Van’s daughter also has a Facebook account, on which the girl shares everything with her friends, from thoughts about teachers, comments about showbiz stars and gossip about someone’s lovers.

“I cannot imagine what they write on Facebook. But she refused when I told her that I wanted to read some of the comments,” Van said. “You’ll never understand what we write, she told me, because we use specific language for teenagers.”

Some days ago, a local newspaper reporter found a comment written by a student in Binh Duong Province who cursed her teacher ruthlessly because the teacher thought she was absent at the lesson, though she had answered the roll call.

Ironically, the comment received 400 likes from her friends.

A student in HCM City wrote on Facebook that she is “experiencing difficult days” because of a teacher named L, while calling for the establishment of a “club of students who hate L, the old hag”.

In fact, many such clubs can indeed be found everywhere on Facebook.

One club was established by the students of My Loc High School in Nam Dinh Province.The students called a teacher “damned chap” because the teacher was believed to be unfair when giving marks to students.

Meanwhile, a student in Vinh Phuc Province said he wishes his teacher would die immediately to end his (the student’s) misery.

Manh, a 9th grader, when asked if there are so many students cursing teachers in reality, said “obedient students are now just the minority”.

“There are so many reasons students find to hate teachers and curse them. When they receive bad marks, they curse teachers. When they are disciplined for absence from class, they curse teachers,” Manh said.

“Since they cannot insult teachers in front of them, they can vent their anger on their dogs or share their thoughts on Facebook,” he added.

Dr. Vu Thu Huong, a lecturer at the Primary Education Faculty of the Hanoi University of Education, noted that this demonstrates a serious degradation of students’ morality.

“My students will become primary school teachers. But they also curse their own teachers for unsatisfactory things on Facebook,” Huong said.

“What will happen if the teachers in the future, who must have good morality, also curse their teachers? I am afraid that we are spoiling Vietnamese students,” Huong added.

VTC