"I have found my path!": Luong Phan from Vietnam

One could say that Luong, like many adults, was guided towards Waldorf education by her infant daughter: she was looking for a school where she would be more likely to have a happy and fulfilled childhood experience. The difference in Luong’s case was that this involved quite specialised research: She was working at a university, in curriculum development and teacher education, instructing students in creating effective lesson plans and applying educational theory. To her discerning mind, there was something convincing about Steiner’s holistic and respectful approach to the human being, and she found that the pioneering Waldorf home school in Ho Chi Minh City lived up to her expectations.

Her daughter joined the school and, as these things go, Luong’s expertise, interest and potential were soon spotted. She went through a two-week first module of a part time Waldorf training (!) before taking on a First Grade in 2018, returning to the classroom after a successful and still promising and fulfilling career in adult education. “It felt wonderful to be with children again!”

Then the pandemic struck, and lockdowns were imposed. The College of Teachers decided against educating their pupils remotely via screens: instead, Luong, together with her colleagues, put her systemic curriculum skills to excellent use and created lesson plans for the parents to follow and teach their children at home. This was both joyful and effective: she went from coaching university students to showing parents how to teach, which was much needed and appreciated in her new community. “It was very rewarding to give children the benefit not only of the Waldorf approach but also of my previous knowledge, and to impart appropriate aspiration to the work they did at home.” Sometimes, when human beings meet to create communities, it is easy to see destiny at work: the right people with the right skills come together at the right time to create something meaningful.

Luong never regarded her move from University to primary education as a demotion. The loss of status means nothing to her: “I am doing what I want, and I can develop myself better here. I love the children, and I love my work.” How is it to exchange a highly organised, professional work environment for a pioneering, often improvisational start-up such as a fledgling Waldorf school? “It’s not easy. The Waldorf Primary sector in Vietnam is only eight years old, and we would like to fully understand and apply Steiner’s ideas about the threefold social organism – but there are so many challenges in finding the right structure for Vietnam. We are also not yet recognised by the government and need to find ways towards becoming an official school. We could do with developing healthy systemic approaches: love and enthusiasm have carried us thus far, now we need clear thinking and ideas that can be usefully applied in practice.”

Luong places great importance on her discovery of anthroposophy: it determines the way she leads her life. She no longer sees her work as a job, but as part of meaningfully developing her biography: “This is who I am now. I have found my path and I am committed to it.”