The tension between the traditional attitudes of Asian parents and the reality faced by today’s Asian adolescents has always been a tightrope that international schools in the region have had to walk, and never more so than now.

There is now a real and widening generation gap on a wide range of issues, from smoking, drinking, underage sex, teen pregnancy, LGBT students, teen relationships, viewing pornography, and the Internet.

Here in Vietnam, a country I have called home for most of the last 17 years, my job as an English teacher puts me on the front lines of the intergenerational battle currently raging in homes and schools across Southeast Asia. .

Middle-class Asian parents, raised during the austerities of post-Cold War poverty, have worked hard to give their children a better life. Convinced by traditional Confucian ideas about the importance of education, they have encouraged their children to study hard, take extra classes, complete loads of homework, and get good grades, while equipping them with iPhones, laptops, and the latest modern conveniences, in an effort to give their children what they themselves could never have or afford when they were younger.

However, all of this comes at a cost. Long hours spent running businesses selling second-hand Chinese-made T-shirts in sweatshops located on busy streets filled with motorcycle traffic have led to today’s modern Vietnamese teenagers being raised by the rented housekeeper, who cook and clean for them while Mom and Dad are out earning money.

So while middle-class parents can now afford to send their children to mid-budget “international” schools that offer a combination of the Vietnamese national curriculum and an impromptu English program and without all the credit points . , Mathematics and Science taught by expatriate foreign teachers, their children have grown up surrounded by modern millennial attitudes towards subjects that would have been shocking in their parents’ time.

Allowed to go out at night without adult supervision, alone to deal with the stress of upcoming exams, these teens now frequent shisha lounges, smoke weed, enjoy casual, unattached underage sex, get pregnant in weekend parties with friends. ‘ houses, watching Mia Khalifa on Pornhub and drinking Cruisers vodka during homework time, among more normal things like listening to K-Pop, learning to dance hip-hop and playing basketball.

What have these international schools done about it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In a quest to gain accreditation from international bodies such as the Council of International Schools (CIS), there has been a tightening of school rules, where students are more often punished for minor infractions, while, at the same time, schools they strive to seek the best they can externally, making cosmetic changes to the design of the curriculum by placing foreign professors in “head of subject” positions without any increase in remuneration and with the expectation of dedicating more and more hours of free time in an attempt to reach “international standards”. standard”.

More serious for students, however, is the way schools trample on the individual rights of adolescents. Schools in this budget range are much more expensive than Vietnamese state schools and, at the same time, of much lower quality than the ultra-exclusive “American high school in Vietnam” experience offered by IB World Schools to students. super rich vietnamese where one year’s tuition amounts to more than $20,000 per year. Mid-market schools like the one I worked at are terrified of modern teen issues, gossip and scandals as they risk alienating the existing client base of older generation Vietnamese parents. Internal scenes of occasionally unruly classrooms lead to students’ mobile phones being seized by Vietnamese teaching staff, “officially” because bringing mobile phones to school is against the rules, but really because the school is terrified of Have students upload photos to Facebook for parents. and the whole world to see.

Perhaps the most serious threat to student safety at the school where I worked came in January 2016 when, after a boy had attempted suicide the previous month after splitting up with his girlfriend, the school announced to students that From now on, all of their Facebook accounts will be stalked and if there is any sign that they have boyfriends or girlfriends, the school will phone their parents, claiming that their grades are suffering. Since then, this has led to several students receiving physical and verbal abuse from parents. Of particular concern is the LGBT student community, as such a policy is likely to force LGBT students to “come out” to their parents before they are ready, potentially putting them at risk of serious domestic violence and abuse.

The tension is near breaking point as the traditions of the older generation come face to face with a new generation that has no big hang-ups about casual sex, Internet dating, viewing pornography, recreational substance use and hang out with your LGBT friends. in the classroom.

SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER? As a frontline teacher, life coach, and qualified youth counselor, my contribution is to provide timely and sometimes blunt and accurate advice on teen self-esteem, personal development, health, wealth, sex, dating and relationships, while at the same time advocating and supporting my teenagers in any way I can, sometimes in the face of hostile reactions from school management and other teaching staff.

I NOW HAVE A PLAN to set up an after school center near the school where I worked where my teens can learn the life skills and knowledge they need to change their lives, drop their most negative habits and choose new ones to guide them . to take the necessary steps to lead the life you have always wanted and achieve your personal goals. Based on the American 4-H youth organization but “Vietnamized” and more focused on personal development and learning marketable skills that will be valuable in the future online marketplace, my vision is to create an exciting, values-based hub of informal education. that allows my teenagers to believe in themselves and make their dreams come true.

To do this, I intend to crowdfund the creation of the hub through the IndieGogo crowdfunding platform, but to do so, I need a multitude of fans, supporters, and supporters willing to donate. To that end, I have become an author and will soon be publishing my first novel about the issues facing my teenager. The novel is called “Shisha Girl” and the cover of the book is the image at the top of this article. Posting soon as a series on Wattpad and as a print and Kindle book on Amazon, I hope the book gives me the fans I need to run a successful IndieGogo campaign.

Check out the Slideshare presentation below for a brief overview of my work to improve the lives of my teens. It’s time to make a difference. It’s time to switch things up, shake things up and start something new. Let’s have a new generation of young Asian millennials who accept the realities of life in the 21st century. Century, while giving them the inspiration and courage they need to reach levels of success their parents could only dream of. LET’S START NOW!

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