As the world cеlebrates International Day of Education, we want to share how education looks amidst war. Teach For Ukraine wants to remind you about every homework made with candles or light from the city board, about every ruined classroom and every destroyed school, about every child who lost their childhood, and about Ukrainian teachers, who are no longer teachers, but parents, guardians, lifesavers, evacuators, doctors and more of all fighters.

Since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale war, at least 3045 educational institutions have suffered bombing and shelling, – and 424 have been obliterated. Education was put on hold for the first three months of the war and is still to be revived in most of the country. Children were trying their best to keep up with studies online, but with blackouts, even that got almost impossible. Today, we want to tell the first of 5 stories of brave Ukrainian teachers, Teach For Ukraine fellows. Because who, if not teachers, are helping provide stability for children amidst war?

How are teaching and school different now?

For me, this is a story in two acts. The first act is the return to the destroyed Borodyanka school in May 2022. The first time was difficult. I just couldn’t believe that this was the school where I worked. Everything looked like the scenery for a cheap horror movie. Broken windows, broken desks, scratched walls and boards with traces of shrapnel and knives. But the most painful thing was to see my office. I first noticed a door covering one of the broken windows. And then the cabinet itself. A broken chair is crushed by a half-collapsed ceiling. Bent flower stands. Test papers from the 11th grade are scattered on the floor.

My heart was bleeding because all the memories flashed by at once. There will be no more students, their questions, grades, and laughter. All around here is emptiness and pain—blood stains in the corridor and the acrid smell of burning. Then I returned several more times: to fill out journals and collect documents. However, this place was no longer associated with what it was before the war. It was just a destroyed and mutilated building.

The best and the worst memory since the beginning of war 

The worst during this time was when my student said her father had died on the battlefield. At that moment, I was lost because you cannot be prepared for this. I just fell out of my life for a minute. She stood and watched as tears welled in her eyes, and the usual light on her face disappeared. I pulled myself together, asked to call a psychologist, and gave the student water. I didn’t know what I could do. All the words seemed meaningless at that moment. And then, I realized that the most challenging part of this academic year would be handling emotions. You cannot compare supporting the well-being of students during tough moments to teaching a subject. In the last year, I had to become more than just a subject teacher, learning how to be there for my students at their lowest.