News-Info-Alerts

Re: A Journey For Answers

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: April 24, 2003

"Schools in Vietnam are much like the ones here

By RAY HACKETT
Norwich Bulletin; Rhackett@norwichbulletin.com

For more information, read the online version of this story at www.house.gov/simmons/releases/travellog.html

HANOI, Vietnam -- When Heidi Simmons entered the classroom at the Nguyen Hue Private Elementary School, the students rose from their seat to greet her.

In perfect unison, the class recited the three English phrases they had been taught for her visit: Good morning, how are you -- and, how old are you?

"I told them I was 20 years old," she said with a laugh. "No one snickered or even challenged me. I love this culture."

Simmons, a teacher at the Regional Multicultural Magnet School in Waterford, is accompanying her husband, U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, on a six-day visit to Vietnam. The main reason for the visit is related to the search for Waterford native Capt. Arnold Holm, shot down over Vietnam in 1972.

Holm, and his two crewmen, Pfc. Wayne Bibbs and Spec. Robin Yeakley, have been listed as missing in action since.

The Simmonses depart Hanoi today, traveling south to the city of Hue. Friday they will join with the Joint Task Force-Full Accountability investigative team searching for the Holm crash site in the central highlands outside the city.

Prior to their departure last week, Heidi Simmons said she hoped to take advantage of the trip to visit several of the schools in the country and establish an educational link with her own school back home. As of Tuesday, that link is made.

"We have a Vietnamese sister school," she said in telephone interview from Hanoi.

The Nguyen Hue Private Elementary School is not the typical Vietnamese school.

Its director, Madam Phan Thi Nghai, a 30-year teaching veteran, broke away from the public school system to establish the private school, offering a rigorous curriculum that produces a top record of academic performances when compared to national government testing standards.

The movement to private schools is relatively new, Simmons said, a result of revitalization effort going on throughout the country. Next month, the Vietnamese will introduce magnet schools.

Simmons said in many ways, the private school was like that of the magnet school where she teaches, both dedicated and concerned about student-to-teacher ratios.

"The children are happy," she said. "There is a joyousness that you could feel and there is high level of expectation toward achievement."

And yet, they are different, more functional with stronger parent involvement and a more disciplined approached to study.

The average annual salary in Vietnam is $400 a year and the cost to parents for the private school is close to $350 -- making it difficult for many Vietnamese to take advantage of them. There are government subsidies and they also are looking into scholarships, she said.

The classrooms, she said, are no larger than the magnet school faculty lounge, desks lined perfectly in a row and students, seated perfectly at their desks with pencils poised.

While traditional public schools operate with a class ratio of 70 students for each teacher, the private school's ratio is 30 to one, two classes per grade. And unlike the public schools where the students attend for only a half-day so another 70 students per teacher can attend afternoon sessions, the 450 students at the private school remain all day.

Simmons described her visit as "a welcome fit for a queen" as the children performed traditional dance and song in her honor before her tour of the school. After the tour, she was invited to have tea with Madam Nghai and seven of her teachers where trinkets and letters were exchanged, and negotiations for the sister school relationship was discussed.

"Madam was very aggressive in her proposals," Simmons said. "She has a commendable mission. Her ultimate goal is to have 10 of the children and two of the parents visit the Regional Multicultural Magnet School sometime in the next two years."

The congressman, in his meeting Wednesday with the chairman of the National Assembly's Defense Committee, also extended an invitation to him and his colleagues to visit the United States -- an invitation that apparently the Vietnamese officials intend to accept in May.

Simmons also reiterated the desire to bring an American ship into Vietnamese waters to assist in the recovery efforts of unaccounted for airman lost at sea during the Vietnam War.

"He expressed to me their concern over their own lack of technology in their own efforts," Simmons said. "They have 300,000 missing from the war. His response to the request for us to bring in a ship was very positive. I think that was the most positive response, and the most exciting potential development thus far in the trip."

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