When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and some of her students fled abroad, Iryna Kovaliova, a literature teacher, decided it was time to retire.
“I wrote my resignation letter and took my things from school,” she said. But the children in her sixth-grade class, 6H, in a Kyiv school, begged her to stay, “at least for the duration of the war,” she recounted in a recent interview.
Two years later, she is still teaching at 63, three years past the retirement age for teachers, torn by the heartbreak of watching her students grapple with the trauma of air raids, bombings and the loss of loved ones. She worries for those who have been displaced, forced to study online, as well as for former students who have already enlisted in the army and are fighting on the front lines.
She begins every morning by checking the social media accounts of two former students who are in the army, relieved when she sees they have been online, knowing that at least they are alive.
Maria Lysenko, the principal of the school, said she was worried for a whole generation of children, but also for her teachers.
“Children are like tuning forks, a reflection of what is happening in our lives,” Ms. Lysenko said. “There is a reason that a child is lying on the desk, maybe he has not slept all night, because he was waiting for news from someone close.”
“But what about the teachers?” she added. “They are holding on, no breakdowns, no panic, doing their best.”
Children and teachers across the country began their first day of classes for the new academic year on Monday at a time when Russia has been stepping up bombardments of Ukrainian cities.
Class 6H is the most troubled group of the sixth grade in Ms. Kovaliova’s school. The children, she says, dislike discipline and cannot sit still after going through lockdown during Covid and then two years of disruption with the outbreak of war.
They often ignore teachers, Ms. Kovaliova said: “It’s a difficult group.”
But, she added, she could see reasons behind their behavior.
“These children are loud. They want to shout something. But we never asked what they are shouting about,” she said.
“These children are crying for help,” she added. “They are like a bleeding wound, and no one sees it.”
So instead of checking their homework on a recent morning, she surprised the class with a sudden question. She invited a reporter from The New York Times along to listen in.
“What changed inside you in these two years?” she asked the class. “And how would you reflect it in a collective painting?”
Since the Russian invasion began, she said she had been pushing the school to consider displaying in the school’s bomb shelter a giant mural, painted by the children, in which they could express their experience of the war. The school prevaricated, so she decided to plunge ahead, asking her students to start thinking about the project.
The first to speak was Danya, 11, a student who was displaced from his home in the Ukrainian city of Luhansk in 2014, when fighting first broke out between Moscow-backed separatists and government forces in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
“Before, I thought of my house as a wardrobe where I could hide, where nothing worries you,” he said. “And it’s not like that.”
Then Yehor, 11, from Kyiv, said he had fled the capital with his mother at the time of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
“I wanted to stay, but my parents thought that soldiers were already approaching,” he said. “We left. My dad stayed, and he saw with his own eyes a missile flying and hitting.”
Yehor’s family fled to a town west of the capital. He kept a religious icon with him, which he thinks helped them to make the trip safely. He said he wanted to depict that icon on the painting.
Ms. Kovaliova explained her idea: “Imagine, a student comes to the school in 20 years’ time,” 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 wardrobe and an icon on a wardrobe. And he starts thinking.”
“What changed inside you in these two years?” she said. “And how would you reflect it in a collective painting?”
Nazariy, 12, replied, “For me, war is death, in the first place. It’s very painful.”
Nervous laughter broke out in the classroom.
“My uncle died,” he said.
Ms. Kovaliova hushed the class. “How old was he?” she asked.
“Thirty-two,” Nazariy said.
“I want to cry,” Ms. Kovaliova said. “What would you paint?” she asked him.
“A fortress. Knights entering the fortress. And a lot of blood all around,” he said.
“How were you changed?” the teacher asked, turning to the class.
“I became less ashamed to voice my opinion,” Nazar, 12, said. “Before, I was thinking: ‘Damn, why was I born in Ukraine?’ After the war started, I began to feel cool that I’m from Ukraine. I would paint a mirror on the wardrobe — to see how I changed.”
Some of the children spoke about the Ukrainian language.
“Before the war, most people spoke Russian,” said Liudmyla, 11. “And many switched to Ukrainian when the war started.”
“I would paint a lock, meaning our language was locked in a wardrobe, almost not used,” she said. “And now people understand that you need to value it, because it’s your country. It was let out.”
“I was more depressed before the war,” Makar, 11, said. “And I started to speak more Ukrainian. I would draw a shield.”
But war and violence kept crowding in on their thoughts.
“I would draw an ordinary girl in front of the mirror. And in the reflection, a girl in a military helmet,” said Maria, 11, who fled from Donetsk.
Many families have been torn apart as grandparents or other relatives were left behind and ended up on the Russian-controlled side of the front line.
Stories of personal separation and loss began to emerge.
“I didn’t appreciate my relatives, my grandma or great-grandma,” said Maria, 11, who is from the Kyiv region. “I didn’t care about spending time with them. But when my grandma and great-grandma were under occupation, I realized that they could be gone.”
“I would draw a big dome which would protect the whole painting,” she added.
Vira, 12, described running to a bomb shelter on the first day of the war as parts of a missile fell on her neighborhood in Kyiv. “I would draw a missile flying over the dome,” she said.
Liza, 11, said, “I realized I want to live.” She added: “I would draw an angel and a village with half-destroyed houses. Because Russians were in a village where we have a cottage, and now half of the village is destroyed. The angel covers the sky and rebuilds houses from the pieces.”
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 weep, and several of her classmates rushed to embrace 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,” their teacher said. “Thank you. I understand you better. You understand each other better.”
Stories were tumbling out now.
“My brother died recently, he was 24,” a boy called Sasha said. “I didn’t value those moments of life with him. I would paint arms holding coffins.”
“Our painting is getting complicated,” he added.
Another classmate, Kyryl, spoke up.
“When the war began, it was much scarier than I expected,” he said. “I would paint fear.”
“How would you paint fear?” Ms. Kovaliova asked him.
“Darkness,” Kyryl replied.
