Five O’Clock
By Amber Willard
The phone call came at five o’clock in the morning.
“We are invading Ukraine!” my student cried. “I don’t know what to do!”
I was already receiving countless texts from students and colleagues. Russia was indeed invading Ukraine, and I still had to go to work that day. I lived in Prague, but my full-time job was teaching English at an online Russian-Ukrainian school, and there was no communication from our management about the protocols for one country invading the other. (This wasn't unusual, because there was little communication to begin with. Not that I complained. I had total freedom to do my lessons in any way I saw fit, as long as my students were happy.)
All of my remote students were adults during my time working for the hybrid school. They all had different backgrounds and careers; one was a lawyer, one a politician, and another a housewife. A few were in the IT sector. No one, Russians and Ukrainians both, canceled their classes that week. Some requested even more lessons than before. They came to online classes dazed and tired. Some of them had eyes full of tears. Others took a while to say their first words.
Lake Baikal, Russia, shown in a photo taken one week before the start of the conflict, by a Belarusian student and friend of the author. Credit: Alexey Akulinsky.
What could the first words be in this situation?
I was born in the United States, and for almost every year I lived there until moving to the Czech Republic, the U.S. was involved in some conflict or another. Still, it was never on the minds of anyone I knew in my days in the U.S. People would go to work and go back home. It was hard for some to even identify the country that had the war, what side we were on, or who else was involved. But, the violence was real, living in the shadow of every American, whether they realized it or not.
I never would have thought I would be witnessing the start of a war through the eyes of Russian civilians. That first day seemed to go by slower than any other in my teaching career. As the hours passed, I waited in my online classroom. One after another, my students would enter. One after another, they unpacked their nerves, trying to make sense of this new reality. This was more than just taking over another country. Even if they didn’t live there, many of my students—Russians and Ukrainians both—had friends and family in Ukraine. Once the Russian military crossed the border, they might never have contact with them again.
During this tense day, I was on my own, with no guidance from anyone at my company. For the following three weeks my Ukrainian boss was missing entirely. She wasn’t the only one. Some of my colleagues vanished. My boss reappeared saying she fled to Germany. The fates of some of other colleagues are still unknown.
I first started teaching the Russians English four years before the war started, and I quickly learned that most wanted to just practice the language through conversations. Over time, I became a professional conversationalist. This is a job not everyone is suited to. A person must be able to talk about topics that they might not enjoy, and be ready to keep the conversation naturally flowing.
Some of my student-teacher relationships became quite close over these four years. Our lessons became friendly and personal once I gained their trust. For a few, I evolved into becoming a weekly therapist. These students did not see me as just a teacher anymore, I became a break from their daily lives. When they came to their lessons, they spoke of things from technology to family history. One student spoke of an abusive relationship with his girlfriend. When he realized it was time to leave her, he thanked me and said that I did a lot for him. I did nothing but listen to his situation, talking him through his thought process.
Sometimes I feel the human species has forgotten how to listen. Listening, not talking, is the most important skill in my line of work. In order for a student listen to (and learn from) a teacher, the teacher has to do the same. The relationship must have respect and mutual understanding on both sides. Since I’m giving my students a chance to practice English with a native speaker, I must also give them my full attention. Over the years, I began to understand it was even more than these things. It was also their chance to have a relationship with a person unlike those in their regular circle. Someone to confide in. And that person was me.
Lake Baikal, Russia. Credit: Alexey Akulinsky
When spending this personal time with the students, many divulged some pieces of their situation: Their media was being controlled; The companies they worked for were controlled; Their internet was controlled. After the day of the invasion, a couple of students were panicking. “What if they are listening to us!” (“They” being the all-knowing cyber ears and eyes of the government.)
My Russian students were not only scared, they knew they were isolated. People in the West misunderstood them before the conflict, and now they were hated by default. Their eyes blazed with lost hope.
Despite this burden now upon their shoulders, they still came to their English lessons. They still wanted to learn. Some of them texted me before their appointment to ask if I was still working. A few asked if I even wanted to see them, now that their country had invaded another.
That question haunts me to this day.
The Ukrainian students still came as well. Terrorized and anxious, they spoke of hopes for a quick resolution. They wanted that familiar world they had lost. They wanted the ability to contact their loved ones across the border in Russia. They wanted the comfort of simplicity. They wanted all that was taken from them on that five o’clock hour in February.
I felt trapped between the two countries, but felt no judgment towards either. Civilians on both sides suffered enough; they did not need another person judging them. There were no heroes in this conflict, only pawns.
As a teacher, I felt unable to do anything but witness my students' growing desperation and panic. All I had was my calmness to sooth them as I listened to their hearts break. I knew that after some time, I might never see them again.
Before the conflict, I was planning to get my visa to enter Russia. Since some of my relationships with the students had become close, we discussed the idea of me visiting them, and how they would give me a tour of the historical and cultural sites of their home country. This idea now is a shattered dream.
This is what happened to one Ukrainian who was a student of mine, during the first year I worked at the school.
His name was Vladislav and he would often joke about taking me out. His comments sometimes bordered on flirtation, which is not uncommon behavior. (The online lessons made students feel safe. Once they felt secure enough, they would show their true nature.)
Once he turned from student to friend, Vladislav promised me that when I visited Ukraine, he’d take me to a pub and we’d tour the cities. A month after the start of the invasion, he came to his biweekly lesson.
“I am going to fight in the war,” he confessed.
I was not surprised, but I was frightened for him. I could not hide my fear, but I remember that I smiled at him, and told him that he was brave.
“I am sending you a birthday gift,” he told me.
My birthday was not until September. I said to him that it was not necessary, and there were more important things that needed his attention. But Vladislav was stubborn. His early birthday gift, a book, slowly made its way from Kyiv to Prague, changing hands five times in the process. He knew I was researching information about World War Two for the novel I’m writing. The book he sent me was about Prague during that time period.
Vladislav was killed in battle a few months after I received the book.
I continued to show up for work. I discussed the future, and corrected the grammar of my adult students at the hybrid school. When late summer came, the school dissolved. There were no warnings from management. I simply received a message from my boss one morning, informing me that the school was closing.
I still have contact with some of my students. Last week, one of them suddenly video called me. When I answered, she said, “I just wanted to check in with you and see how you are doing.”
What I understood from her was: I just needed to talk to someone, and decided to see if you would answer my call.
There was only one thing different between the conversation we had then, and the conversations we used to have while I was her teacher at the school. This time I was only her friend.
Amber Willard is an English teacher based in Prague, Czech Republic. She enjoys traveling to historical places around Europe to glean inspiration for her research and writing.
