School and Home Together in the Shelter: Two Alerts, One Pact

Last night in Kyiv, our parent-teacher meetings were scheduled from 5 to 8 pm. Twice the sirens sounded. Twice we moved to the shelter. For half the evening, families sat on the same benches where their children wait during air raid alerts. Seeing parents and grandparents there was a lesson in itself: school and home were not two places, they were a shared promise.

In that tight space, we leaned on the heart of the JVDT Methodology. Humans at the helm, tools on the track. We kept the conversation on the twin rails of Root and Context. Root is the essential we must hold. Context is time, place, audience, and purpose. One idea stayed in view throughout: we are partners for this child.

Association: finding the bridge

We started by listening for the story behind the grades. What strengths are already there. What changed this term. We treated the report card as new information and the child’s life as prior knowledge, then built the bridge between them.

Analysis and Root: getting to the core

We did not only ask what happened, we asked why. Is a dip about missing foundations, a disrupted routine, sleep, confidence. We pared each conversation down to a root cause we could name, then chose one next step for the learner, small enough to begin today.

Context: where learning lands

We spoke in the tone we want our students to learn: steady, kind, clear. We named the reality of the evening and kept the destination of the JVDT journey in mind, the Field of Application, where knowledge is used in real lives. Last night, that field looked like families’ hopes and shared plans that outlast a timetable.

This night reminded us that education is more than lessons. It is a pact we renew, even in a school basement. Thank you to the families who came and stayed, and to colleagues who held the room when the room moved. Love. Respect. Happiness. Last night, they sounded like a calmer question, a warmer answer, and a path we will walk together.