ABSTRACT
In addition to examining Western and Vietnamese literature, this book also provides a study of Vietnamese high school text books to develop a more comprehensive framework and to add to the body of knowledge of Vietnam’s history and culture. Text books provide a useful guide to understanding the way in which Vietnamese citizens comprehend their own history, their obligations and responsibilities as citizens, their culture and language, and they also offer insight into some of the principles that guide Vietnamese citizens in their daily lives both as children and adults. In a socialist setting where the content of classroom learning is strictly controlled by the government, where political ideology is given great attention, and where students are discouraged from exploring alternative ideas or asking challenging questions, the content of text books may be relied upon by students and teachers more heavily than in private or nongovernment funded institutions. This chapter will explore how history is reflected in Vietnamese text books and what students are taught in schools about the nation’s past. Specifically, this chapter calls upon text books from grades one through twelve focusing on the subjects of history and citizenship. These two subjects were the most appropriate for gathering data for a qualitative analysis and were chosen because both history and citizenship texts support the framework being constructed. Text books from public schools in Vietnam are consistent throughout the country, so the books analyzed were purchased in Hà Nội and are used in public schools in all of Vietnam’s 64 provinces and cities. After the text books were translated, I primarily utilized the history text books of grades nine and 11. The grade ten and grade 12 history books essentially repeated what was said in the previous years’ books. The citizenship books from grades nine, 11, and 12 were most useful. Again, the citizenship book from grade ten generally repeated what was written in the grade nine citizenship book. The five text books that were used in the final analysis were published by the MOET in Vietnam in 2005. In conjunction with the text books themselves, this analysis also includes press reports and journal articles from local sources that relate to the educational system. Additionally, this chapter will also review the mandatory defense education system and other mechanisms of political indoctrination. Through this study, it is apparent that the development and implementation of rules, conventions, and
values begins as an elementary process, at a young age when children are beginning to make the world intelligible. Knowledge is a social construction and is developed through social institutions such as the educational system. Our sense of reality is based on our knowledge of the past and present beliefs. One’s level of knowledge changes over time, but changes in knowledge are often orchestrated in such a way that knowledge does not wander far from broad socially accepted principles.1 In Vietnam, as in other societies, the education system including teachers and text books, control what students know about the past and the present world. Public school texts in Vietnam reflect interpretations of the past, as well as present day beliefs and customs that are knowingly adhered to and reinforced to young people throughout the country. Text books and classroom teachings also provide students with interpretations of roles and responsibilities, rules, and citizen expectations. Therefore, education of the youth is the foundation of the development of rules, conventions, and appropriate behavior for young people, which may later lead to proper decision-making by adults. It can not be undeniably concluded that the content of Vietnamese text books is directly related to the way in which Vietnamese adults, specifically political leaders make decisions. However, there is extensive literature on the role of education in state formation and how education shapes cultural and political value systems. Emile Durkheim asserted that education had two major functions: one was to provide skills for industrialization and the second was to act as a vehicle of social integration through the transmission of culture. Writing from a Western perspective, Durkheim saw the need for a social collectivity and noted that early on education was one of the primary means for achieving this.2 Similarly, when writing about rural France, Eugen Weber said, “The school is “an instrument of unity,” an “answer to dangerous centrifugal tendencies,” and of course the “keystone of national defense.”3 In his book on education and state formation, Andy Green explains that nineteenth-century education systems in the West came to assume a primary responsibility for moral, cultural and political developments of the nation.4 Additionally, Antonio Gramsci said that if the state is to raise the population to a “particular cultural and moral level,” then the two most important institutions are the courts and the school. He argued that the successful teacher is one who can mould the children in the “universal” ideas of the dominant culture.5 School children are more easily influenced than adults and it can be argued that prolonged exposure to certain ideas and belief systems could substantially affect individuals’ beliefs and values as adults. Children develop their ideas about social behavior in a sequence, from simple to complex; specifically children first categorize behavior as positive or negative.6 Therefore, this chapter will be organized around four main themes that are taught to high school students and are reiterated to adults in all sectors of society. The enduring values and principles that will be repeated throughout this chapter will include an emphasis on social order and harmony, the need for regime stability, national independence and defense of the homeland, and a continuous threat of invasion
or sabotage by outsiders. These themes will be also appear later in the context of protected values during the two case study analyses. In order to draw a more conclusive link between values taught in schools and political decision-making, this chapter will include a section on educational principles taught during the 1950-60s. The current generation of leaders in Vietnam was for the most part attending high school during the 1950-60s, so it is important to address the values that current day leaders were taught 50 years ago. Although the exact text books could not be procured, other authors including Thaveeporn Vasavakul and David Elliott have written on Vietnam’s state education system from 1945-65.7 What this section will show is that while the structure of schools in Vietnam has changed over the years, the main themes reiterated in the texts and through public speeches by leaders such as Hồ Chí Minh and Trường Chinh have remained the same.
