The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S official — a shift in "the world order."Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all who fled the war in Ukraine with his mother at the "Saint John the Baptist" Monastery in Ruscova where 12 Ukrainians are currently being hosted It's Tuesday morning and Hanna Kudrinova's 5th grade English class is signed on to Google Meet Kudrinova starts like a lot of teachers everywhere She asks the students to turn on their cameras and show a thumbs up if they're happy a boy with a round face and a striped shirt who seemingly always has his hand raised Other students are yawning — one is wrapped in a blanket Air-raid sirens were going off the night before in the small town near Odessa where they all used to live and study with Kudrinova in person Now her students are scattered to the winds — some still at home more than half the country's children have been pushed from their homes At least two million are refugees outside the country disruptions of children's lives since World War II but a surprising number of families are also keeping up with school Ukraine's Ministry of Education declared a two-week school holiday a majority of the country's school-aged children The country is even broadcasting video lessons on television but the world is newly familiar with remote learning thanks to the pandemic And Ukraine's focus on maintaining education is in line with an emerging philosophy of disaster response — one summed up in the name of a special fund at the United Nations: Education Cannot Wait The fund has just announced $5 million in donations to help children affected by the war with learning and mental health services "Often when you have a humanitarian crisis you under-prioritize education and focus on water and shelter — which is important," says Yasmine Sherif what we have seen from many countries in crisis is that they are protracted — they can last 10 When there is no school and no other organized activity children's mental health suffers within a few days children can be pulled into a conflict as soldiers "You will have no dreams and hopes for those millions and millions of children and adolescents but also no capacity to build a country should peace arrive." It's not easy teaching in the middle of a war one of 61 independent international partner organizations of Teach For All a network co-founded by the founder of Teach For America Kudrinova fled for the west of the country one of the most devastated cities in Ukraine I was worried about my family and trying to teach at the same time." Her family has since evacuated and her 14-year-old sister is now staying with her Teach For Ukraine gave her and the other fellows some quick training on how to deal with students' psychological challenges and learned some breathing exercises to try to calm the class down when they have to stop the lessons for air-raid sirens Boards with hearts and Ukrainian and Polish flags showing solidarity with children who fled the war in Ukraine are seen inside a primary school classroom in Krakow Some students can't attend every day because they aren't in a safe place or are moving around Many others are signing in on their parents' phones that the routine of school and seeing their friends online is helping "Even if I'm not teaching the full curriculum they are talking to each other...[it] can remind us of something normal." The children are experiencing the war on social media They don't ask Kudrinova a lot of questions when she asked him to explain the difference between "There is" and "There are," came up with the sentence "There are a lot of dead Russian soldiers in Odessa." Stay with your classmates or go to a new school In countries including Poland and Bulgaria there are informal settings that resemble the learning hubs set up in the U.S students can sign on to their remote lessons with their teachers and classmates from back home and also play sports and do other activities in person Some of these hubs also have support for mothers Other children are starting over in new countries which has received more than a million children from Ukraine Some newcomers are enrolling directly in Polish schools Poland is also creating classes with all Ukrainian children and Ukrainian teachers who have also just arrived These will follow Ukraine's curriculum and be taught in Ukrainian is helping with staffing: matchmaking newly arrived Ukrainians who have education experience to the various openings we're all going and helping with the medical things people will start thinking about education.' And we realized that this can be our purpose to make sure that schools are safe spaces for these kids because safety and this type of stability is the most important for them." the efforts to absorb Ukrainian children have been more ad hoc there are a few new Ukrainian students in teacher Phil McCarthy's school He's trained in teaching English as a second language and is a spokesperson for the English Language Support Teachers' Association of Ireland He was called in the other day to help with a newly arrived student "He was just sitting there lost." He set up the child's teacher with some translation software His group also held a webinar recently for Irish teachers who want to help students from Ukraine More than a dozen different languages are spoken in McCarthy's class His school is close to a short-term reception center for asylum seekers at the Dublin airport one of his Syrian students had a realization A destroyed classroom in a school hit by Russian rockets in the southern Ukraine village of Zelenyi Hai between Kherson and Mykolaiv The problem of interrupted education is a lot bigger than this one war says that while an estimated 4.5 million Ukrainian children are displaced worldwide there are 128 million children and youth whose learning is disrupted–by war climate-exacerbated disasters and the pandemic where the Taliban has recently barred girls from attending school above 6th grade just 2 to 4% of all humanitarian aid goes to education and the outpouring of support from around the world Ukraine's online classes will continue through the end of the school year A looming issue is the spring high school and college entrance exams For the moment Hanna Kudrinova and her students are carrying on She says she no longer bothers to pause her own teaching when the air raid sirens go off near her temporary home near Lviv Become an NPR sponsor A community celebrating Black voices Beautycon is a global platform that brings together beauty enthusiasts and industry leaders to explore the latest trends and conversations shaping the future of beauty This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.