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A young teacher in Hanoi has resigned and is currently being treated at a local hospital after being harshly criticized by netizens and ridiculed by online newswires for failing to recognize the difference between chicken soup and a cockcrow.

Ha Thi Thu Thuy, a young literature teacher at Lomonoxop High School in Hanoi, has been on a drip for several days, feeling extremely shocked at both censure and insults published online since last week.

She has already tendered a resignation letter to the school.

The reason: she was found to have paid no heed to a grave mistake by her 7th-graders in their literature assignments.

In two instances, Thuy gave a mark of 7 and 8 out of 10 to two papers that wrongly interpreted the phrase “canh ga Tho Xuong” in a popular folk verse as a kind of chicken soup while it actually refers to the cock crowing that signifies the transition of time. “Canh” in Vietnamese means both soup and hour.

She did not correct the mistake or leave any marks on the wrong interpretation.

Many online news sites then manipulated their reports to make Thuy look stupid and ignorant besides publishing and re-publishing opinions that strongly criticize the teacher.

In response, the teacher explained that she had pointed out the error to students and asked them to correct it themselves when she should have rectified it directly on the papers.

She added the good scores are appropriate since they were given as a total for eight separate tasks.

Bombarded with negative comments

Many readers - provoked by the media - have left extremely harsh comments below myriad articles.

“This teacher doesn’t understand what she is teaching so how would she teach her students?” Thuan Tran wrote on a popular newswire. “I suggest checking her qualifications and handing her a penalty.”

It is strange that Thuy can be called a teacher with that kind of knowledge, Phuoc, another reader, said.

The reader then called for a background check on her.

A teacher like Thuy will be unable to produce good people for society, a third commented.

Nguyen Tuan Anh, also a reader, even condemned the university that taught Thuy, naming it a diploma mill that churns out low-quality products.

This is probably a sign of the deterioration in Vietnamese education, Dothang said in another comment.

A brilliant teacher

Thuy was a high-performing student at an elite school in the northern province of Phu Tho, according to her resume released by Lomonoxop High School.

She earned her first degree in education at the Hanoi University of Education, a top-tier institution in the country.

The teacher recently obtained a master’s degree in excellent standing with a thesis given the maximum grade.

Thuy is a smart and dedicated teacher who takes a very strong interest in innovative teaching, said Tran Trung, head of the school’s literature department.

“I have rarely seen such a brilliant colleague in my years of teaching.”

Before being accepted into Lomonoxop, she passed two selection rounds and did good work during a three-month probation period, the school’s vice principal Nguyen Quang Tung revealed.

The school has yet to make any decision regarding her resignation, Tung said, adding Thuy would find it truly hard to get over this shock.

What did her students say?

They want her to stay with them.

“Please come back to us,” Nhi Lun, the nickname of a student, said on her Facebook. “We all love you very much.”

Her students have set up a Facebook page to show their support for her.

“How to get her back here?” a status reads. “Should we go meet the principal and vice principal for her return?”

Van Anh, another student, said on the social networking site that she was happy to be her student.

“We all know that you are always right,” Anh said.