On September 1, 2022, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Knowledge. This is a holiday for both teachers and students, especially those who will enter the first and last, eleventh grade. This year, there were no traditional holidays in the war-torn country. In Ukraine, according to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, 270 schools were completely destroyed by rocket attacks and shelling, and 2,405 educational buildings were partially destroyed (as of September 1, 2022).
More than 640,000 Ukrainian children left the country. They will start (or have already started) the 2022/2023 school year in schools in other countries, online in their Ukrainian school or go to Ukrainian schools abroad. There are several of them in Poland.
The Ukrainian school allows children to avoid the additional stress of adaptation after difficult experiences – there they are close to compatriots, it is easier for them to make friends and communicate. They will not lose their Ukrainian identity and will be raised patriotically. Ukrainian school is the best option for families who intend to return to their homeland.
Everything is like in Ukraine, but…
On September 1, the academic year began at the “First Ukrainian School in Poland”, which is run by the “Unbreakable Ukraine” Foundation in three Polish cities: Krakow, Warsaw and Wroclaw. The school has been open since March 21, 2022. 350 children studied in the summer semester. This academic year, 1,385 Ukrainian children will go to the foundation’s schools, 550 have been accepted to the Krakow school itself. Formally, they will be students of one of the Kyiv schools. 25 teachers worked, most of whom left Ukraine because of the war. There are still vacancies for several positions.
The celebration of the beginning of the academic year took place in one of the buildings of the AGH University of Science and Technology. Stanislav Stashich in Krakow. Premises rented by Nezlamna Ukraina on the street St. Philip, almost ready to receive students. Parents and teachers did the repairs themselves. One of the parents, Mr. Victor, took a leave from work for this.
The holiday begins with an eleventh-grader raising a yellow-blue flag. 11th grade students lead first graders to the classroom. Afterwards, the “Unbreakable”, as the director addresses the children and guests, stand up to sing the national anthem of Ukraine. Each student receives from UNICEF, which financially supports the school, a backpack with school supplies and a tablet with electronic versions of Ukrainian textbooks. Children watch videos about school and teachers. The screen also shows photos of children who participated in a summer camp organized by the foundation. At the end, everyone dances together.
The atmosphere is friendly. The director, admitting students to the audience, jokes with everyone, smiling and happy. Some children, parents and teachers came in traditional embroidered dresses, with modest bouquets of flowers and yellow and blue ribbons. The Ukrainian language is heard everywhere. The atmosphere is similar to the usual September 1 in Ukraine, but more saturated with positive emotions and improvisation.
Ms. Estella Kirsanova, director of the Ukrainian school in Krakow, strives for the school she manages to have a modern and democratic approach to children. Her vision is different from what happens in most schools in Ukraine. The children who studied at the Krakow school in the summer term, and who came to visit today, hug the principal like their mother and tell the new students that they will definitely feel very good at this school. In a conversation with me, Kirsanova mentions that the children cried at the end of the camp because they did not want it to end.
Mrs. Estella has been working as a teacher for 31 years, and coordinated international educational programs for 15 years. She wanted Ukrainian children to be open, intelligent, educated, to see the world.
When selecting personnel, it was important for her that the teachers were not only good specialists, but also able to devote themselves to children. She and the entire foundation believe that children are the future of Ukraine, so teachers should educate them as best as possible. It is these children who will rebuild Ukraine after the war.
“Unbreakable Ukraine” school is not only lessons and training; teachers plan to go, visit and play together. Tomorrow they will spend the day at Jordan Park.
“Behave the way you want to be treated. Be one family,” asks the 11-A teacher in the corridor, talking in a circle with new students. There are 27 of them.
Children and parents
Nastya is an 11th grade student. She came to Poland at the end of February from the Sumy region. She says that as soon as the opportunity arose, she immediately went to a Ukrainian school. “I like it here because I can communicate live in my native language. I don’t know Polish, and I’m not going to learn it. It is important for me to finish school, and the online option is not suitable”, she says.
Nastya’s classmates – Sofia from Mariupol, Oleg from Cherkasy, Katya from Kyiv – were most afraid of the language barrier in Polish school.
“It’s the 11th grade, I have to take the ZNO (External Independent Assessment, the equivalent of the Polish Matura), I would have to take the Polish language exams at a Polish school, it would be twice as difficult for me,” explains Sofia, whose father disappeared during the war (they found each other for two months), passed Russian filtering and managed to leave Ukraine only at the beginning of summer.
Katya believes that although her classmates are new, it is easier to communicate with them, because they are also from Ukraine. “The teachers here are very cool, they really live their work and they like us,” says the girl. When Katya came to Poland in March, she did not understand Polish at all. Because of this, she says, she was depressed.
We ask the director about problems with the adaptation of Ukrainian children in Polish schools. She lists: the language barrier, the worldview differences between Polish and Ukrainian children, the difference in age (often Ukrainian children were admitted to a lower class), different education systems. “There are no such problems in our school. Children work according to the usual schedule, communicate with teenagers in their native language – Ukrainian. At the same time, they have the opportunity to learn the Polish language,” says Ms. Estella.
There are many applicants, unfortunately there are not enough places for everyone in Ukrainian schools.
Among the students of the Ukrainian school in Krakow, there are children who attended Polish schools. They did not manage to overcome the difficulties of adaptation ー they refused to study there further. This is especially true for teenagers.