The Well-Being Practices Helping Educators and Students in Wartime

Excerpted with permission from Greater Good Magazine. Read the entire article

In Ukraine, school goes on even when nothing feels stable. Lessons restart after nights in shelters, teachers log on from cities under attack, and students join from apartments without windows or from friends’ homes in other countries. The fact that learning continues at all is a testament to the creativity, adaptability, and commitment of educators and students who have spent years navigating extraordinary uncertainty. 

Liudmyla Herasymenko, an associate professor at the Ukrainian State Flight Academy in Kropyvnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Ukraine, is one of the millions of educators carrying the invisible weight of supporting her students’ social and emotional well-being despite the turmoil that surrounds them every day.

“Because of the existing threat, which is hanging, you cannot plan your day in advance,” Herasymenko says. “You can have some plans, but everything can be changed in one second, and you need to adapt to be flexible about it. We have alerts, so that means we need to go to the shelter, then schedules of electricity, which means you need to find power and Wi-Fi. So, it’s a lot of stress that we are experiencing.”

Herasymenko is not alone—a rising number of children and educators are currently facing unprecedented disruption and stress due to living in conflict-affected areas. More than 473 million children live in or are fleeing settings of conflict and crisis around the world, and approximately 204 million people worldwide live in areas controlled or contested by armed groups.

Educators in these spaces are navigating burnout, secondary trauma, and constant uncertainty, while they simultaneously hold space for students’ fear, grief, and hope. In these conditions, the question is not whether teachers and students need support, but rather what kinds of support are actually feasible, sustainable, and relevant to them.

Small practices that make the day possible

Despite years of disruption, Ukrainian educators have found creative ways to help students stay connected and engaged. They adapt lesson plans around air raid alerts, maintain routines that foster belonging, and cultivate community across distance and displacement. Social-emotional learning (SEL) practices have become one more tool in that effort, helping educators strengthen the care and support they were already providing.

According to a recent journal article, SEL Kernels—short activities and strategies that are used to support the growth and development of social and emotional skills and competencies—helped support teachers and students in wartime Ukraine. These include games, routines, and activities that target specific skills like emotional regulation, conflict resolution, and building relationships.

When SEL practices are not adjusted to be responsive and relevant to a particular culture, they’re less likely to have benefits. These SEL Kernels, developed by Harvard University’s Ecological Approaches to Social Emotional Learning Laboratory, were modified to fit the evolving needs of educators and teachers in Ukraine. How? Rebecca Bailey and her colleagues started with landscape research to identify what challenges students and educators in Ukraine were actually facing.

“Building on these findings, we engaged in a collaborative co-design process with Ukrainian teachers and a team of LEGO Foundation Ukraine Master Trainers to adapt and refine the Kernels for local relevance and usability,” they write.

They conducted a survey and organized focus groups for teachers to discuss their concerns about student well-being and mental health. Teachers identified areas where additional support could strengthen the work they were already doing, including helping students regulate emotions during air raid alerts, rebuild social connections, and navigate prolonged uncertainty.

Based on the survey and focus group discussions, the researchers identified five priorities for the Ukraine Kernels materials, including cooperation, mindfulness, cognitive skills, emotional intelligence, and teacher well-being.

“Finally, we piloted the adapted Kernels materials in diverse classroom settings, gathering data on implementation, feasibility, and relevance,” they write.

After the final revision of materials and rollout of the Kernels, Bailey and her colleagues found that teachers viewed the SEL Kernels as beneficial for both their own and students’ well-being. Teachers reported that the activities helped support emotional and psychological health, made learning more engaging and meaningful for children, and provided practical tools that eased the demands of teaching.

For example, Herasymenko has found that short mindful moments help ground both her and her students. Having students name their rose, thorn, and bud for the day—having them reflect on something positive, naming a challenge, and looking ahead to something they’re excited for—have helped them hold on to hope.

Additionally, she leads a five senses grounding practice with students to reconnect the mind and body without taking up a large amount of time during the learning day. In high-stress environments, practices like these work because they are small enough to hold, even on hard days.

“I cannot imagine my teaching being the same as it was before the war,” Herasymenko says. “Everything is different now. So, I prioritize my students’ well-being more than their academic achievements. I think that now it’s more important for them to be OK and to be without stress in my classes. This is my priority now.” … Read on at Greater Good Magazine

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Emily Brower is the communications specialist on the Greater Good Education Team and an Associate Producer for The Science of Happiness Podcast. Emily earned her B.S. in Journalism with a concentration in Public Relations and a minor in Art History from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and received her masters degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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