Associate professor lends a hand to third graders exploring Ukrainian conflict

How do you explain the conflict in Ukraine to third graders?

That was a challenge that teachers in a classroom at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, faced when a group of their third graders chose to study the conflict as part of a service-learning project this winter.

Google to the rescue.

Teachers Lisa Hinshelwood and Michael Hurley found Maria Haigh, an associate professor in the UWM School of Information Studies who is from Ukraine, through an internet search for experts on Ukraine and Russia. Hinshelwood is a PK-4th grade teacher and social emotional learning specialist for the lower school, and Hurley is the third grade teacher.

Maria Haigh and Oksana Ivanyuk talk about the war in Ukraine via Zoom with third graders and their teacher from a school in California.

When the teachers contacted her, Haigh offered to help and connected them with Oksana Ivanyuk, a friend living in Ukraine. Ivanyuk is a film producer for Polygon Film Production Company.

Last month, four of the third graders – Ansel, Dawson, Aanya and Anton – joined Haigh, Ivanyuk and Hurley for a Zoom session to talk about what is happening.

The students had sent their questions in advance so they could talk about the issues at an age-appropriate level.

First up, of course, was why are the Ukrainians fighting. Ansel asked: “Why don’t the soldiers just run away because there is a high probability they will be killed?”

Ivanyuk explained with an example reflecting the Ukrainian perspective: Imagine if your neighbor says, can I use your balcony? It’s a nice place to relax. My balcony is called Crimea. The next day the neighbor comes into your kitchen and says, I now consider this place to be mine.

“What would be your reaction?” Ivanyuk asked. “I believe you will defend your home, your country, from this aggressive neighbor. That is what our soldiers do.”

Questions about why

So, why are the Russian soldiers fighting, Anton asked.

Russians have a big propaganda machine, Ivanyuk answered. “They are telling people we had this huge empire, our country was big and strong.” Now they want that empire back, she added.

Isn’t that what Hitler told the Germans before World War II, Anton asked.

“That’s right. That’s exactly right,” Ivanyuk replied. “You are an extremely bright and talented young man.”

Talking from the war zone

The Zoom call illustrated the reality of the conflict. Ivanyuk joined from her apartment in Ukraine, partially darkened because of intermittent planned power losses.

“I have a lot of videos taken on my cell phone…explosions filmed out of my window in the center of Kiev. In Eastern Ukraine, there are just villages that are wiped to the ground.”

Many of the third graders’ questions were about the children in Ukraine and how they were doing.

“Try to imagine that you go to Finland or Japan with your mother for a year,” Ivanyuk said. “Your father stays at home and goes to war. You don’t know when you will see him again. You need to learn a new language and find new friends. Your mother has to learn how to live in a new environment, and you father will need to learn to live without you.”

At the same time, the children are learning from their experiences, Ivanyuk added.

“Once they come back, they will have friends all over the world,” she said. “They will tell their friends ‘I met wonderful people in America. I have friends from Germany.’ Then the world will become a better place.”

How to help

The third graders wanted to know what they could do to help. Haigh and Ivanyuk suggested hanging up a Ukrainian flag or writing letters to children, families and soldiers. The students at Haigh’s children’s school in Milwaukee are doing that, she said. Many Ukrainians read English, and language apps like Duolingo make it easy to pop in a Ukrainian phrase or two.

“It will give them so much energy and just warm their hearts,” Haigh told the children.

She doesn’t mind taking the time to share information with these young students, Haigh added.

“The war is on its second year now, and understandably everyone is tired of hearing the same news, heartbreak at the innocent people dying and Russian soldiers’ atrocities. Many people are starting to forget that the war is still going on.”

That’s why it becomes particularly important to engage the next generation of American children,” Haigh said. “So that they continue growing up with strong sense of empathy and justice.”

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