Choice of Ukrainians

In his family, there are nearly fifty teachers. To be sure of his own choice, Yurii tried different jobs, but each time he returned to the classroom.
Today, Yurii is a chemistry teacher. He speaks openly about his own dyslexia and shows students that challenges do not limit opportunities. Once, a student left him a note that read: “I am not afraid to come to your class.” Yurii kept it in his wallet, and years later, when that same girl was preparing for her final chemistry exam, he showed her the very same note. For her, it was a small gesture; for him, a sign that a child’s words carry weight.

Yurii was one of the first to turn STEM from just a “set of letters” into practice: interactive AR cards, facilitation, and lapbooking — which he introduced to middle and high school and which is now part of the New Ukrainian School curricula. When labs are lacking, augmented reality comes to the rescue — making reactions visible and science more accessible.

Assignments in his class always carry social meaning. During the topic of combustion, students made trench candles; from this grew the project “From a Flame to a Garden,” where a candle becomes a seedling and the money raised goes toward supplies and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. While studying chloride ions, teenagers explored the impact of salt on the environment and initiated change in their communities. In just one year, the school raised 130,000 hryvnias.

Mr. Yurii’s educational dream is to create a space of support for teachers of natural sciences. He envisions organizing an educational retreat in the mountains, where teachers can restore their energy, share their own methods, learn new facilitation tools, and receive psychological support. Yurii is convinced that only psychologically healthy and motivated teachers can truly respond to the challenges of education and help children grow in today’s difficult conditions.

The journey of Ms. Yuliia in pedagogy began with leading a vocal group, where she first witnessed how art can open children to the world. Later, she worked as a teacher’s assistant and immersed herself deeply in inclusion. It was then that Yuliia realized every child is unique, and that art can become therapy, a way of self-expression, and a source of support.

At the Ivan Puliui Lyceum in Lviv, she teaches the integrated course Art. It goes far beyond singing or acting: children here practice stage speech, public speaking, and body percussion. In Yuliia’s classroom, it’s more than just lessons — students create their own theatrical productions, write songs, organize charity concerts, and raise funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Her 6-B class staged The Star-Child and collected 25,000 hryvnias for the military.

Ms. Yuliia founded the Belcanto Studio, where more than 40 children study. Her students have performed on the stage of the Lviv Opera together with the band SKAI and even filmed a music video for their original song Unconquered, which won the Grand Prix at Talent Paris. Yet, Yuliia considers her greatest achievement not awards, but the moment when children stop being afraid of their own voices and learn to speak about what truly matters.

Yuliia is a mother of four, two of whom have disabilities. This experience became her main motivation to transform the school from within: to create a space where everyone can be themselves and feel accepted.

Ms. Yuliia’s educational dream is to create a nationwide program on public speaking and forum theater for schools. She believes that silence breeds fear, while words teach a person to be responsible and free.

Her ambition is to study in depth and adapt the methods of Brazilian director Augusto Boal — forum theater and legislative theater — and to train teachers across Ukraine to apply them in schools.

Mr. Oleksandr’s path to teaching began unexpectedly — after graduating from an electromechanical technical college, he took a job as a lab assistant in a school physics classroom. Just a few months later, he realized this was no coincidence but a calling. He went on to graduate from the History Faculty of Volyn University and has not left the classroom for more than thirty years.

Mr. Oleksandr teaches History as well as the elective Entrepreneurship in Action. He was one of the first in his region to introduce the program Applied Economics at a time when the subject was not yet part of the curriculum. For his students, economics quickly became more than abstract theory — it became a space for action: they organized Sweet Fridays and planted tulips to raise funds for their community.

But for him, school is not only about knowledge. During the war, he organized psychosocial support meetings for displaced children, workshops, and community-led initiatives. His students wove camouflage nets, collected aid for the military, and learned that history is not only about dates but also about responsibility — here and now.

Today, Oleksandr Tarasiuk is a master teacher, an institutional audit expert, and a trainer for international programs. Yet he says his greatest achievement is not titles or publications, but a united team of students who dream, act, and believe in change.

Mr. Oleksandr’s educational dream is to create an Educational Hub: a school of leadership and entrepreneurship for teenagers. This would be a space where young people learn not only theory but also practice — from financial literacy and project-based thinking to launching their own social initiatives.

He envisions a program with modules, workshops, and meetings with entrepreneurs, artists, and activists who would serve as mentors for students. The key result — teenagers who realize they can bring ideas to life, impact their communities, and gain tools to shape their future.

Mr. Andrii has always loved exploring the world. Traveling to 23 countries, climbing a glacier in Norway, or simply talking with friends — everywhere he felt the need for an audience. So his career choice, he says, was “accidental but inevitable”: right after university he came to Gymnasium No. 9 in Cherkasy, later known as the “Gymnasium of the Successful Ukrainian,” and has stayed there for 18 years.

In his classroom, history goes far beyond the textbook. Students model castles on 3D printers, create “historical handicrafts” — from reconstructing Slavic clothing to laser engraving ancient buildings — and design storytelling projects and cartoons.

Beyond the classroom, Andrii launched the project “Mysteries of the Cherkasy Castle,” where students presented their own reconstructions of the destroyed fortress. He organized debate tournaments, developed courses for distance learning, and created educational videos on YouTube. He co-authored the program “My Cherkashchyna,” now taught in schools across the region, and was the first in the area to develop STEM and robotics. Under his guidance, the KiborgsUA team of gymnasium students has won awards in Ukraine and abroad.

The war also changed learning. The shelter became a place for shared conversations, songs, and flash mobs, while charity initiatives raised aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Mr. Andrii’s educational dream is to create an interactive center “Living History,” where students will learn not from textbooks but through research, role-playing games, VR tours, and their own projects. Here, history will turn into a “detective story” and “storytelling,” while children will create podcasts, board games, and AR guides.

Such a space will boost motivation, develop critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork, and most importantly — show that history can be alive, modern, and personally meaningful.

Ruslan Shalamov once dreamed of becoming a biochemist-researcher and never seriously considered teaching. In 1994, a friend who was a school principal asked him to teach just one lesson — within two months, he realized: this was his true calling.

His students win and grow: in 2002, one of them earned a silver medal at the International Biology Olympiad, while dozens of his graduates now work at leading universities around the world. Ruslan himself is not only a teacher but also a reformer: co-author of the State Standards, author of textbooks and curricula, creative director of the Soniashnyk Creative Association, head of science assessment for Ukrainian students in PISA, and trainer of hundreds of educators across the country.

In his classroom, biology means research and responsibility: the subject is taught through ecology, evolution, and real-life decisions. Lab work begins with a question, and knowledge becomes a tool — from nutrition to attitudes toward vaccines and GMOs.

The war forced Kharkiv students into online learning and bomb shelters. To preserve the “living” science, Ruslan, together with the community, created safe digital spaces, invited university professors to shelters, and organized lab practices in Chernivtsi, Lviv, and Kyiv.

Mr. Ruslan’s educational dream is to spark a wave of change in biology education across Ukraine. He seeks to update his own competency-based program, focused on research, critical thinking, and practical skills, and to train teachers to use it.

Ruslan envisions it as a chain reaction: bringing together the most dedicated educators from different regions into a safe space, running intensive trainings for them, and then sending each one back home — to spread the experience and launch change in their own communities.

Since childhood, Ms. Nataliia dreamed of becoming a teacher. By her third year at university, she was already working at a school — and she has never left the classroom since. Over 17 years in the profession, she has become a history teacher, a methodologist, an author of New Ukrainian School textbooks, and since 2019 — the principal of a lyceum in Dnipro. Despite her administrative role, every year she carries a full teaching load and serves as homeroom teacher for two graduating classes.

When the full-scale war began, her lyceum was among the first in the city to launch blended learning. A comfortable space was arranged in the shelter, and lessons were moved there while classes were simultaneously recorded for an online platform. The school introduced “relief minutes” and trauma-informed practices so that children could keep learning even under the sound of air raid sirens.

In her history lessons, Nataliia teaches through practice: debates, historical role-play, comics, a “history film club,” virtual museums, and even AI-“revived” historical figures.

Nataliia also coordinates the project Educational Soup — engaging eight teachers and more than a hundred teenagers in overcoming learning gaps. She has run four waves of free online courses for displaced children, organized an EdCamp in Dnipro for nearly two hundred educators, and hosts a morning “history segment” on DniproTV.

Ms. Nataliia’s educational dream is to create in Dnipro a center for displaced children and students from occupied territories who face educational and psychological losses. This would be a space that combines learning, support, and rehabilitation.

The goal of the project is to give these children not only a chance to catch up academically but also to restore their faith in themselves, receive psychological help, and feel part of a community. Hundreds of children would gain not only knowledge but also life skills for difficult conditions, feel heard and valued, see new opportunities, and realize their dreams — from journalism to aviation.

Mr. Yevhenii’s path to teaching began in childhood — he grew up in the family of a chemistry teacher, watching how his father revealed to children the “invisible world of reactions.” For more than thirty years, he has been teaching chemistry, convinced that the subject is not just formulas in a textbook, but about the environment, the water, the air — everything we encounter every day.

Already in the early 2000s, Yevhenii decided that traditional lessons were not enough. He began developing STEM projects: from soil and water research to expeditions along the Dnipro River, where students carried out real analyses of its ecological state. His students invented prototypes of protective clothing against radiation, designed eco-friendly detergents, modeled molecules in 3D, and became winners of national and international competitions. One of these projects — a study of the Dnipro’s ecology — even reached the international stage in Stockholm.

The war changed the conditions, but not the essence of his work. Even during remote learning in bomb shelters, he refused to give up experiments: children worked with virtual labs, carried out experiments with household materials, and felt that chemistry was still close by.

Today, he is a master teacher, author of methodological resources, and speaker at STEM schools. Yet his greatest pride is not the awards but the paths of his students: among them are doctors, ecologists, pharmacists, and teachers.

Mr. Yevhenii’s educational dream is to create an open-air STEM research station. This would be a space where students could carry out real experiments: study soils and water horizons, test new fertilizers, build “smart” greenhouses, research atmospheric phenomena, or observe the starry sky.
Such a station would allow children to test their own hypotheses, develop innovative solutions for their community and the environment, and feel that their discoveries have real value. Yevhenii dreams of this space becoming a place where science goes beyond the classroom and helps children not only study the world but also change it.

Ms. Liudmyla grew up in a large family of educators. At first, she dreamed of other professions: a doctor, a psychologist, a researcher. She worked as a translator, wrote academic articles. But in 2010, everything changed — the school became her place, and she never left.

In Lviv, she became one of the first to promote the teaching of Polish as a second foreign language. Thanks to her initiative, a subject once seen as “exotic” turned within just a few years into one of the most popular in the city. She organized conferences, led the association of Polish language teachers, and later became the school’s vice principal.

For her, a lesson is never just a textbook. Students work in groups, design quests and projects, present books, and even run lessons themselves for younger peers. In literature classes, every lesson ends with quiet reading of a chosen book, while the classroom walls gradually fill with the results of collective research. In this way, Liudmyla teaches children not just to listen, but to inquire and explore.

Her students change not only themselves but also their environment: they organize charity fairs, volunteer initiatives for soldiers and orphanages, and create community-support projects. Meanwhile, she shares her experience with colleagues: leading trainings with Osvitoria, IREX, GoGlobal, House of Europe, and co-founding the Teachers’ Guild.

Ms. Liudmyla’s educational dream is to create “A Platform for Supporting Educators.” In times of war and burnout, teachers need not only methodological resources but also psychological and community support.

The project will combine online self-help marathons, individual consultations with psychologists and coaches, peer support circles, and an open bank of practices and inspiration. The final stage will be a retreat for teachers from across regions, including those near the frontline.

For more than ten years, Mr. Kostiantyn taught at a humanities and pedagogical academy and headed the Department of Graphic Design at IT Step Academy. But in 2022, he made a conscious decision to go to school: to be close to children who, during the war, need not only knowledge but also a sense of support.

At the gymnasium in Khmelnytskyi, he teaches fine arts and informatics. His lessons are a blend of classical and digital experimentation. Alongside gouache and graphic work, students use Photopea or Inkscape, bring their sketches to life with generative AI, create characters, and build virtual exhibitions.

Kostiantyn’s key principle is respect. He addresses students formally (“Vy”), listens to their ideas, and adjusts assignments to match each child’s interests.

Beyond the classroom, he runs workshops for teachers, showing how technology can become an ally rather than a threat. As a New Ukrainian School trainer and UIRO expert, he helps shape the quality of art education at the national level. For his gymnasium, he designed a logo, a visual style, and an online gallery of student work — a space where children and parents can see real growth.

What inspires him most is not titles or positions but the moment when a child brings a sketch made at home and asks: “What will we do in the next lesson?” For him, that is proof that change is already happening.

Mr. Kostiantyn’s educational dream is to open an Art Lab — a space where children can freely combine classical drawing with digital art and artificial intelligence. In most schools, art lessons are still reduced to “draw on a topic,” without modern tools or space for self-expression.

That is why his idea is to create a studio equipped with tablets, laptops, graphic editors, 3D pens, and multimedia screens. Here, students would develop their own projects, organize exhibitions, and run workshops together with the community.

Ms. Kateryna did not immediately picture herself as a teacher. Her first teaching practice felt intimidating, but within a week she realized: those children’s voices and gazes were personalities she wanted to stay beside. Since then, the school has become her space.

In her Ukrainian language classes, Kateryna is always searching for unexpected formats. It could be TED-style conferences, quests or reading challenges, podcasts, or even debates with artificial intelligence. For her, language is a way of thinking and acting. Students create comics, stage texts, and debate the newest words that have just entered everyday speech.

During the pandemic, she recorded video lessons for the television project Open Lesson and later compiled an online guidebook for children from temporarily occupied territories to help them prepare for entrance exams. Her voice is also familiar from The Nightingale Show — a program watched by millions that has made learning Ukrainian fun and engaging.

In the classroom, Kateryna pays attention to each child: she talks with them, gives surveys, and helps them set personal goals. This way, students gain confidence and gradually overcome barriers. Beyond school, she creates spaces for both children and adults — the conversational club Movyty, charity lectures Language in Time, and language quizzes for displaced families.

Ms. Kateryna’s educational dream is to turn The Nightingale Show into a nationwide school project.

She sees that for many children, Ukrainian remains just a “classroom language” that doesn’t always carry over into everyday life. Her goal is to make the language trendy and alive — integrating it into teen culture through humor, games, and media.