It’s a perfectly normal Monday morning in Ukraine and Fedir Shandor signs up to deliver his online class.
The university professor has been teaching online since the pandemic, but in recent months he has been training his students from scratch.
The 47-year-old enlisted in the military after the Russian invasion, but was keen for his students to continue their education.
The result? He teaches courses on topics such as tourism and sociology from the trenches twice a week on his mobile phone.
“I have been teaching for 27 years. I can’t just give this up. I’m good at that,” he told the BBC.
Mr. Shandor has been teaching during his military service since the Russian invasion in February. He signed up because he wanted to fight for his country and protect his wife and daughter.
“I should stop the Russians before they come to my house,” he says.
Mr. Shandor’s dedication to his work has also helped keep attendance high.
“Even students who would previously skip class come to every lecture,” says one of his students, 20-year-old Iryna. “He always told us that we have to be smart, that we are fighting for a smart nation.”
But teaching in the trenches isn’t easy, and students had to get used to hearing shelling in the background.
“During one lesson, the noise was very loud and the students heard everything. Then I hid in the trenches and continued to teach,” he says.
His surroundings also allowed him to show his students shrapnel and teach them various rockets.
Mr. Shandor’s classes are also something of a first for his classmates, who often listen to his lectures and photograph him at work.
One such image, showing him holding his phone in a ditch, was posted online and went viral across Ukraine. A number of artists across the country have since made drawings and cartoons of the moment.
Mr. Shandor isn’t the only teacher struggling on the front lines right now. According to Ukraine’s Education Minister Serhiy Shkarlet, around 900 teachers have joined the armed forces so far.
“We’re proud of every single one of them,” he says. “We also have people in the Ministry of Education who have joined the armed forces of Ukraine.”
Others, like Anton Zelowalnyk, have joined the territorial defense.
His classes were canceled for the first two weeks of the war, but after some time schools he had worked with in the past began writing to him asking for help.
The 42-year-old responded immediately, opting to give lessons in the trenches or at nearby accommodation for Territorial Defense personnel. Nothing can stop him from missing a class, not even the cold weather.
He says that initially it wasn’t about teaching the kids, it was about talking and supporting each other.
“You can imagine the kids used to go to school every day and then it suddenly stopped.”
He teaches his students – from elementary school to high school – in architecture.
“The most important thing now is to keep the connection between your past and your future. That’s how teaching is for me now, too,” he says.
One of his students, 17-year-old Viktoria Volkova, says Mr Tselovalnyk’s lectures are fun to keep the class engaged.
“It’s the best distraction,” she says, adding that her teacher often takes the class around, telling them about the trenches he’s helped build and the places he sits and looks at the stars .
“He is thoughtful and caring during lectures. He always asks for feedback and tries to keep the topic interesting for us,” adds Ms. Volkova.
Other teachers like Maksym Kozhemiaka use their medical skills to help the military.
Realizing he could be of use at the city’s military hospital, the 41-year-old professor of trauma medicine at Zaporizhzhia State University volunteered to help.
But after a few days working there, he found a way to help his students continue their studies as well.
“We thought we could do the classes online,” he says. “We already had experience in online teaching during Covid.”
And so, after the challenging first two weeks of the war, Mr. Kozhemiaka resumed teaching by letting his students watch him conduct operations online.
They use a mix of live classes and augmented reality to allow their students to attend and comment on surgeries from their homes.
“We taught young doctors and students how to deal with combat wounds,” he says.
Daryna Bavysta has joined Mr Kozhemiaka’s courses and says she has learned a lot since the restart.
“Now I understand everything that happens on the operating table,” she says. “Maksym explains everything during his live online operations – what he does and how,” she says.
But she worries about her teacher: “It’s not only difficult mentally, but also physically – you want to give everything to the people you treat. Our soldiers.”
Giving up his teaching was not an option for Mr. Kozhemiaka.
“Teaching is my life’s work,” he says. “I couldn’t give it up. We were on the right track as a country before the war and we still are, so we must fight together for our victory and stay united.”
“It’s important to keep working on what you’ve been doing before. Why should a war stop us?”
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