Kiev Sophia School: One of our school days

The Ukrainian capital Kiev is repeatedly the target of attacks. At the beginning of October, for example, the Russian army carried out massive air strikes in which dozens of missiles were fired at Kiev and the surrounding region. Last year, the Sophia School was damaged in an air raid by pressure waves and debris from missiles deflected in the air. In the most recent attacks, all missiles were intercepted by the air defence systems, but the alarms and the extremely tense situation have had a massive impact on the everyday school life of the students and teachers. Teacher Iryna Karasiova reports on one such school day, which was marked by air raid alarms.

"The unrest began at night and lasted for eight hours. So, it took me a long time to get to school today. The bus was too full to get on - I had to wait for the next one. There were traffic jams on the streets, and the ambulance sirens were blaring loudly. When I arrived at school, only a third of the children were in my class. Some of them spent the whole night in the basement, others had already been in the school's air raid shelter for an hour. The alarm had gone off when they were already on their way to school, others were still on their way to school and were stuck in a traffic jam, for example.

I listened to all the stories about the bad morning and decided that we had to play something first. First, we played a magician's game. We started playing and the children came to life - they moved and laughed. But only a few minutes passed, maybe a quarter of an hour, when the air raid alarm went off again. We grabbed our things and ran. It turned out that we were not supposed to run into the shelter, but into the street. They said the school was "mined". We spent the next 40 minutes on the school's sports field, where we were directed. One student had brought apples from her garden. The students nibbled on their apples and chatted. Later, another student brought beautiful flowers. We joked that the whole school was gathering on the sports field - we usually only do that to celebrate the first day of school.

I calmly answered the children's many questions until I heard one of them say: "And what do we do if the air raid really starts now? They won't let us into the school's air raid shelter then, will they?" Thank God the air raid didn't start at that moment, but much later.

We had time to go back to the classroom. We painted a few granite landscapes (we are currently studying mineralogy), then we played a few games in PE. We did these activities until the next alarm went off. We grabbed our bags again and ran straight to the air raid shelter in our sports clothes. There was no light, but an alternative power source, so we could study in this underground room. We were lucky that we were later able to end the day in our beautiful, bright classroom. Despite all of this, the children were very focused when working and learning."

The Friends of the Art of Education support schools and other initiatives in Ukraine to enable school life to continue despite the ongoing war situation. Your donations help the institutions to continue to pay teachers' salaries, or other ongoing costs. The construction of air raid shelters was also supported by your donations. And the Waldorf schools in Ukraine continue to rely on donations.