Oksana Polishchuk: Frankness and calmness are what I bring to school

It is often that what happens to us in life is exactly what we subconsciously avoid

Oksana Polishchuk, a teacher from Kyiv, is successfully fulfilling herself in cooperation with several private schools in the capital. Oksana never dreamed of being a history teacher at a hospital school, but her desire for self-improvement and new experiences has led her to join the team of teachers of the Volunteer Superheroes School. The School traces back to 2017 when it was founded in Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Hospital and there have been seven branches opened in the last four years in five cities of Ukraine.
Oksana Polishchuk’s unique experience at the Superheroes School has changed her vision of hospital education and will definitely influence her future career in education.

How did you get into the Superheroes School team?

This was my shortest job search: usually, you know how it happens, you monitor job openings, send resumes, then there are two stages of an interview, and you are on pins and needles. This time I was just scrolling my Facebook feed and saw the announcement from the “Okhmatdyt” hospital about the recruitment of teachers to the “Superheroes School”. Honestly, before I saw this ad, I was totally clueless about the Superheroes School, the education system in hospitals, or hospitals in general. Let me tell you something else. I subconsciously avoid the topic of hospitals, especially the topic of children’s hospitals. I have a little sister and maybe that’s why I react so painfully to any problems connected with children, or why I want to help all children and take them all home. However, I saw the name “Okhmatdyt”, and, actually, it did not matter what I had to do, or how I had to do it. Somehow I just felt the desire to support children with cancer and that’s it. I filled in the application for volunteer work and met a wonderful curator of the Superheroes School in Kyiv – Liudmyla Sokur. She is an extremely sincere, friendly and just relentlessly energetic woman, who is still a role model of how you can and should work.
Liudmyla introduced me to two of my superheroines – Katya and Ira. They were ninth graders, but now they are in the 10th grade in regular schools, and it makes me really happy! Ira and Katya underwent a bone marrow transplantation and, at the time of our acquaintance, had spent about two years in hospital. They underwent a lot of terrible operations, blood transfusions, chemo, hair loss, tears of their parents… At the beginning of our educational process, they were already on mixed treatment: both at home and in the hospital; and they already had funny hedgehog haircuts. We had classes in Zoom. Unfortunately, I never saw Ira in real life, but it’s just because she was discharged quickly and now, I hope, she’s fine. Katya and I kept working together until the end of the school year and brushed up on history and law according to the 9th-grade curriculum. Then I decided to give her a graduation gift. In fact, I’m into photography in my spare time, so the decision came instantly. My partner and I rented a photo studio, invited a makeup artist and made Katya and her mother an absolute surprise: a family photoshoot. It was funny, warm and extremely beautiful.

Sometimes, when it gets overwhelming for me and I want to huddle myself up in a corner and roar, I remember Ira and Katya. Imagine, they did not leave the hospital for almost two years. Almost two years! And when Katya’s mother first took her to the park, I got so much emotional feedback when the child saw a squirrel. A squirrel!!! But there are children whose illness does not allow them to leave a hospital for even longer periods. I can’t and don’t want to imagine what it feels like to stand at hospital doors and not be able to walk more than a kilometre because dialysis one has dialysis every 30 minutes. This is scary. What’s worse is that the Superheroes School is not in every city, and it’s a completely volunteer organization.
A supervisor and a head of a similar institution in Kyiv get a minimum wage. And not from the state, but from a sponsoring organization. Small playrooms are overcrowded. Oh if only I could find or build separate rooms on the premises of at least basic Ukrainian hospitals. There would be many afterschool programs for children to choose from, and training sessions would be a must upon request: training for parents, a psychologist on duty, a fitness trainer, beauty masterclasses for moms and girls, and at least some basic workshops for boys. And a lot of flowers, greenery, toys, colouring books and smiles. So that the children who would come to these centres would forget for a while that they are still in the hospital.

Are teaching methods in hospitals any different from those in regular schools?

The methods are the same, but not all methods can be applied here, and not all methods can be applied there (in a regular school). When there is a class of more than 5 children in front of you, you can do a lot – something that cannot be done here. And these lessons are more challenging. For example, in lessons with girls, we brought up feminism, romantic relationships, weddings, and what people looked like at these events. And I had to explain all of it very carefully so as not to hurt their feelings. Because there were two young girls without hair in front of me, who were having a lot of different treatments and therapies and I tried to pick examples that wouldn’t distress them. In a regular school, a lesson is always a team effort, but here it is an individual job, a constant lively dialogue. In a hospital, you invest more and the output is also bigger.

It seems to me that morally it is not as difficult now as it used to be in the beginning. At first, I always remembered that I had sick children in front of me, and you can’t demand from them as much as you do from healthy children. But then I decided that it is no such matter, that we must move on, not give in to pity. And as a result, we finished the school year perfectly well. And it all depends on children and how they work. All children engage differently. Some children are very easy-going, while others, on the contrary, withdraw. Sometimes moms join the classes. Children react very only subtly to their mother’s behaviour, but they are children. And my position is the following – they need to be allowed to forget that they are sick! Because they are the same as everyone else. The same future awaits them. They have the same professional prospects. And there has to be little pity. For example, I believe that Kirill will be a super-diplomat, like any other child from one of my schools. And maybe even better, to be honest. However, it took me a while to figure it out. It was morally tough for me to control myself and not forget that these children are constantly in a hospital and do not go out into the city, they may not know some examples of the latest news or some public people, because they have been in the hospital for a year or two and they might have missed out on something.

How was the experience of volunteering at the Superheroes School useful for your professional activities?

Sooner or later, you begin to draw comparisons between what happens in and out of the hospital. And it was a great discovery for me that I was full of energy from communicating with the children in the hospital. I realized that even when all is out of sync in my life, I just don’t have the right to give up. Because for these children who are waiting for me in the hospital, everything is much, much more complicated. Because in a regular school we are used to communicating with children on an equal basis. Children perceive us, teachers, as equals too. And here in the hospital, children sometimes seem so little and fragile, they look like babies, but in fact, they are the 3rd or 4th graders. So, volunteering at the “Superheroes School” helps to accept children as children.
Also, it helps to accept their weaknesses and forgive them. And to learn to forgive yourself too. It teaches us to relax, to understand that we all have the right to make mistakes and that something can go wrong. And it is always important to remember that there might be major shifts in life situations none of us expected. Therefore it is necessary to be calm and to react to everything calmly. In addition to that, I am a media-active volunteer, I have an excellent supervisor and every idea of ​​mine regarding volunteering is immediately picked up and supported. People I know even ask how they can join the lessons because they have heard my emotional stories several times. So, frankness and calmness are what I bring to school. I used to worry about the poor grades of my pupils. Maybe even more than the pupils themselves. But then, when I came to a lesson for children with diabetes, whose mothers constantly measure their blood sugar, I realized how relative all these assessments are. And our problems are not so terrible in comparison.

When you get acquainted with the children’s stories, with their diagnoses, do you have a strong feeling of pity?

There are no such feelings with Kirill. He is very positive by nature, I am super sure that he will be fine. I was worried about Ira. Ira was on her own, very withdrawn. It took me a few lessons to stir her up. To make her smile. Katya, on the other hand, is very open-minded and sociable. It was tough for Ira. She was probably very insecure about her appearance because of the lack of hair. I was worried about her. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t understand diagnoses well enough, but for some reason, I’m sure that these children will be fine. After all, they are surrounded by parents who have found the strength and ability to provide them not only with treatment but also with education. And I only have to give them what they ask for. And they will be fine. That’s why diagnoses are not important to me. I also work with healthy children and I can’t say it’s much easier.

What innovative experience of the Superheroes School would be useful in ordinary educational institutions?

When a child comes to a hospital school, both the child and the parents know exactly why they need it. On the other hand, in ordinary schools, children go to classes simply because they have to, and because this is a system that cannot go against. While at the Superheroes School, the kids go against the disease system. They have had to put their studies on pause and now they value what they have even more. I would like to bring the orderliness and the wishes of these children, along with the aspirations of their parents, to an ordinary school. Parents understand that teachers in the “Superheroes School” do not work for money, we work because our hearts guide us.

Do you plan to come up with a webinar or methodology for teachers based on the experience of teaching in the hospital?

I have a lot of experience in holding webinars. I would be happy to hold a webinar because many teachers have no idea how it all works. Just as I had no idea about it before the hospital. Just a year and a half ago, we all knew nothing about working remotely. Therefore, not all methods we use remotely can be applied offline. And vice versa. So, if there was a webinar for teachers, I would be happy to join.

As for textbooks, it seems to me that they are becoming a thing of the past. There is so much information on the Internet and everything is changing so dynamically, ideas are born in the blink of an eye. So, a textbook would become obsolete within a month. Sometimes I walk down a street, I see a branch of a sawn tree and in 5 minutes I am dragging it to a classroom because neanderthals used to build wooden houses and we need to build one in a hallway too. It is so vivid. Everything is constantly changing and I keep adding something new. And you should not rely on the specifics of the hospital. These children are just like other children. It’s just that not all methods can be used, given Zoom and the number of children on the other side of the screen. There are some cool things like foil or wool that can be used anywhere. I even used it with children at an Independent external evaluation test, although everyone was shocked because usually, no one does that anymore in the 11th grade. Everyone just crams for an exam to reproduce some dates. However, some ideas are complete failures. Children like them, but you can’t use them in class. For example, put homework assignments in balloons, inflate them and hand them out to children. That was cool. The children were excited. But the lesson turned into chaos. I have a YouTube channel, but I don’t have enough time for it. I have a blog on the Osvita Nova portal, I am a member of the First in Ukraine online association of educators SUTO PRO, and I also work as a methodologist at the training centre “Certified Ukrainian educational technologies”.

What are your career goals? What ambitions do you have?

I want to become the Minister of Education. I have experience in deputy activity. I worked as a Village Council deputy for 5 years. Education is a field of activity where it is difficult to build a career. This is possible only if you become a senior officer. I now have the first category, but this year I plan to be certified for the higher one and for the title of senior teacher. The next title is the Methodist (teaching methodology expert). And that’s it. My grandmother has 55 years of teaching experience and she was a primary school teacher. When she retired, she was given the title of “People’s Teacher” and she got UAH 30 of supplementary pension. That’s why a career at a school is impossible. You can develop and grow professionally. Therefore, if you are building a career at school, you have to be a senior officer. I was offered a position as an assistant headteacher for discipline in a school in Kyiv. I refused. I would like to work with methodology. I want to work in the field of education but I’m tired of working with children. It is very energy-consuming. If an opportunity to work in the field of education in a senior position comes up, I won’t think twice. I love myself as a teacher.

The interview is posted on the Pedrada Portal