Dima, who fled the war in Ukraine with his mother, attends an online class, at the"Saint John the Baptist" Monastery in Ruscova, where 12 Ukrainians are currently being hosted, on March 30, 2022 in Ruscova, Romania.
Now her students are scattered to the winds — some still at home, some elsewhere in Ukraine, others in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, even as far as Canada. It may seem surprising, but the world is newly familiar with remote learning thanks to the pandemic. And Ukraine's focus on maintaining education is in line with an emerging philosophy of disaster response — one summed up in the name of a special fund at the United Nations: Education Cannot Wait. The fund has just announced $5 million in donations to help children affected by the war with learning and mental health services.
Teach For Ukraine gave her and the other fellows some quick training on how to deal with students' psychological challenges. She learned to do the daily mood check-in, and learned some breathing exercises to try to calm the class down when they have to stop the lessons for air-raid sirens. The children are experiencing the war on social media, through memes and videos, as well as directly. They don't ask Kudrinova a lot of questions, but it comes up in other ways. One boy, when she asked him to explain the difference between"There is" and"There are," came up with the sentence"There are a lot of dead Russian soldiers in Odessa.