'Their country is under attack': Two Yonkers teachers return from working with Ukrainian refugees
When the Yonkers schools have their regular fire and safety drills this fall, the alarms are likely to cause two Yonkers teachers to worry about several dozen students almost 5,000 miles away.
Alarms can trigger anxiety for anyone these days, when school shootings are all too common. But Shai Stephenson and Colette Hebert spent two weeks last month in Poland, teaching English to Ukrainian kids, refugees from war, who could not cope with ordinary school alarms.
"When the fire alarm went off, the kids would get PTSD," Hebert said.
"Every alarm creates panic," Stephenson said.
The pair were among 15 teachers from across the country sent by the American Federation of Teachers to Cieszanów, a Polish town of fewer than 2,000 residents not far from the Ukraine border. The teachers volunteered at a camp for 60 Ukrainian and Polish students, ages 10-16, designed to give the students a respite, a touch of normalcy, during a time of war.
"The first few days, the staff talked to us about trauma, what to be aware of with these kids," said Hebert, a veteran music teacher who will teach this fall at Yonkers' Ella Fitzgerald Academy. "We wanted to find ways to have them open up to us instead of us asking questions. They were open to talking about their lives."
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The teachers were not told about the individual students' circumstances. They knew that most of the Ukrainian students were from western Ukraine, away from the worst of Russia's attacks. But the students had relatives and friends across the war-torn country and some had fathers, brothers and uncles fighting in the Ukraine Army. And Russian missile strikes had increased in western Ukraine since June.
Polish students, too, were impacted, as their communities and schools were continuing to take in refugees.
As of Thursday, according to the latest data from the United Nations Refugee Agency, more than 6.3 million refugees had fled Ukraine since Russia attacked Feb. 24. There have been more than 5.2 million border crossings from Ukraine into Poland, with more than 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees registered for protection in Poland.
Stephenson, Hebert and their colleagues taught students English each morning at a Polish school, before the group got to have fun and blow off steam each afternoon through hikes, beekeeping, kickboxing and more.
"It was a good break for them from not thinking about the war constantly," said Stephenson, who teaches students with autism at the PEARLS Hawthorne School in Yonkers. "But they know their country is under attack. A 16-year-old (in the U.S.) should be thinking about the SAT and college. But these 16-year-olds were thinking that the army could soon be their life."
The trip came together quickly in June when the AFT started seeking applicants. The camp would be run by the AFT; a Ukrainian foundation, Folkowisko; a Polish foundation, Kosciuszko; and an Israeli nonprofit, NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief.
Stephenson and Hebert were naturals, having traveled extensively and done humanitarian work.
Stephenson served in the Peace Corps, in Haiti, from 2001-03 and returned there after the devastating 2010 earthquake. She has also taught in China and the United Arab Emirates. The Yonkers resident, who attended PEARLS Hawthorne School herself, said she wants to be an example to students of color.
"Part of the reason I do this work is that I came from here," she said. "Most of my students are Black and Brown. I want them to see that we can be in all spaces, we can go all over the world, we can help others. I also want others to see that Black and Brown people can provide support to others and help others."
Stephenson started teaching at PEARLS last year after working at a charter school in the Bronx. She noted that the Yonkers schools educate many refugees and immigrants who escaped extreme poverty and violence.
Hebert has traveled every summer since she became a music teacher in 2007, teaching in Thailand, Nepal, Turkey, Egypt, Tanzania and elsewhere. She founded a nonprofit, the DAR Project, that supports the education of orphans in Tanzania, including by raising money for college tuition. She's also an advocate for music education and has presented at state and national conferences.
Hebert came to Yonkers three years ago before being laid off because of budget cuts for 15 months and then rehired last fall. She spent the last school year teaching about 1,000 students at two schools because Yonkers was unable to afford a full music program. She had 37 classes of students, in grades pre-K to 8, who got 30 minutes of weekly music instruction.
"I tried to make it like a music lab," she said. "I told students to come in before class, after class, whenever they could."
With the first day of school three weeks away, Stephenson and Hebert will soon be busy with new classes and challenges. But they'll tell their students about the youngsters they met in Poland and the uncertain futures they face as Russia's onslaught continues.
"We had some funny, silly times (in Poland)," Hebert said. "By the end, everyone was loving on each other. There were hugs, pictures. It was great hanging out together like there wasn’t a problem in the world."
Gary Stern is a veteran editor/writer covering K-12 education in the Hudson Valley. Reach him at gstern@lohud.com. Twitter: @garysternNY. Click here for his latest.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers teachers will remember Ukrainian refugees they taught in July
