When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and some of her students fled abroad, Iryna Kovaliova, a literature teacher, decided that it was time to retire.
“I wrote my resignation letter and took my school things with me,” he said. But the children in his sixth-grade class, 6H, at a school in kyiv, begged him to stay, “at least as long as the war lasted,” he said in a recent interview.
Two years later, she is still teaching at 63, three years past the retirement age for teachers, torn by the anguish of seeing her students deal with the trauma of airstrikes, bombings and the loss of loved ones. She worries about the displaced, forced to study online, as well as former students who have already enlisted in the army and are fighting on the front lines.
She starts each morning by checking the social media accounts of two former students who are in the military, relieved when she sees they’ve connected, knowing that at least they’re alive.
Maria Lysenko, the school’s director, says she is worried about a whole generation of children, but also about their teachers.
“Children are like tuning forks, a reflection of what is happening in our lives,” Lysenko said. “There is a reason why a child is lying at his desk: perhaps he has not slept all night, because he was waiting for news from someone close to him.”
“But what about the teachers?” he added. “They are holding on, without breaking down, without panic, they are doing everything they can.”
Children and teachers across the country began their first day of classes in the new school year on Monday, at a time when Russia has stepped up its bombing of Ukrainian cities.
Class 6H is the most troubled group in Kovaliova’s sixth grade. The children, she said, do not like discipline and cannot sit still after having been locked down due to the Covid pandemic and then two years of upheaval with the outbreak of war.
They often ignore teachers, Kovaliova said, adding: “It’s a difficult group.”
But she could see reasons behind his bad behavior, she said.
“These children are noisy. They want to shout something. But we never ask them why they are shouting.”
“These children are crying out for help,” he added. “They are like a bleeding wound, and no one sees it.”
So instead of checking his homework one recent morning, he surprised the class with a sudden question. He invited a New York Times reporter to listen in.
“What has changed in you over the past two years?” he asked the class. “And how would you express this in a collective painting?”
Since the Russian invasion began, she said she had been lobbying the school to consider displaying a giant mural, painted by the children, in the school’s air raid shelter, in which they could express their experience of the war. The school was reluctant, so she decided to go ahead and asked her students to start thinking about the project.
The first to speak was 11-year-old Danya, a student displaced from his home in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk in 2014, when the first fighting broke out between Russian-backed separatists and government forces in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
“Before, I thought of my house as a closet where I could choose
Kovaliova explained her idea: “Imagine that in 20 years a student comes to school,” she told the class. “The war is over. We live in a happy country. And he sees this mural signed ‘Class 6-H.’ He sees a cupboard and an icon on a cupboard. And he starts to think.”
“What has changed within you over the past two years?” he asked. “And how would you express this in a collective painting?”
Twelve-year-old Nazariy replied: “For me, war is death, first of all. It is very painful.”
Nervous laughter broke out in the classroom.
“My uncle died,” he said.
Kovaliova silenced the class. “How old was he?” she asked.
“Thirty-two,” Nazariy replied.
“I feel like crying,” Kovaliova said. “What would you paint?” she asked.
“A fortress. Knights entering the fortress. And a lot of blood around it,” he replied.
“What changes have happened?” the teacher asked, turning to the class.
“I became less embarrassed to express my opinion,” said 12-year-old Nazar. “Before, I thought, ‘Damn, why was I born in Ukraine? ’ After the war broke out, I started to feel great about being from Ukraine. I would paint a mirror on the closet, to see how I have changed.”
Arina, 11, revealed that she had been displaced from eastern Ukraine and separated from her grandparents, who remained in Russian-occupied territory. She began to cry and several of her classmates rushed to hug her.
“I would paint a person crying,” Arina said. “Because people die, and you can’t even visit their grave.”
“It’s a very important conversation,” her teacher said. “Thank you. I understand you better. And you understand each other better.”
Now everyone was telling their story.
“My brother died recently. He was 24,” said a boy named Sasha. “I didn’t appreciate those moments of life with him. I would paint arms holding coffins.”
“Our painting is getting more complicated,” he added.
Another colleague, Kyryl, took the floor.
“When the war started, I was more afraid than I expected,” he confessed. “I would paint fear.”
“How would you paint fear?” Kovaliova asked her.
“Like darkness,” Kyryl replied.
“nderme, where nothing worries you,” he said. “And it’s not like that anymore.”
Next, 11-year-old Yehor from kyiv said he had fled the capital with his mother at the time the full-scale Russian invasion began.
“I wanted to stay, but my parents thought the soldiers were coming,” he said. “We left. My father stayed, and he saw with his own eyes a missile that flew and hit.”
Yehor’s family fled to a village west of the capital. They carried with them a religious icon, which they believe helped them make the journey safely. He said he wanted to depict that icon in the painting.
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