Dancing schoolteachers
Kyiv educators mark their professional holiday with a ball
In Ukraine, Teachers’ Day is traditionally marked on the first Saturday of October. However, sometimes it takes more than warm words and bouquets of flowers to create a truly festive atmosphere. Sometimes teachers feel like attending a ball. This is precisely what the Kyiv City Council had in mind when it was planning this year’s festivities.
LINING UP FOR CHAPKIS
“Bolder, bolder! Gentlemen invite ladies to dance and ladies have no qualms about doing the same!” exclaims Hryhorii Chapkis, Merited Artist of Ukraine. Clad in a snow-white suit, he takes his first step on the parquet floor. The guests are waiting to see whom the maestro will invite to join him in a waltz. One of the women cannot stand it any longer and invites herself before Chapkis chooses another partner. Other pairs follow her bold gesture and start dancing to the tender melody of the waltz. They have hardly mastered the main waltz steps when the maestro addresses the orchestra: “And now a polka! Repeat after me!”
“If you start learning to dance, you go all the way, you can’t stop halfway. Dancing also lets you forget about your daily worries. We don’t have many real holidays in our life, so we have to relax our body and soul,” says Mariana Kharytonova, principal of School No. 28.
No one pays attention to a skirt that’s too short for this lively dance, someone stepping on your new shoes, or the fact that not everyone can dance to the right beat. The main thing is not to stand still. Since there are more ladies than gentlemen, women invite women to dance.
PRESTIGE AND LACK OF IT
The orchestra stopped playing, and hundreds of schoolteachers were ceremoniously presented with valuable awards in recognition of their meritorious service in the sphere of education.
“Even though I didn’t receive an award, there is no sense of loss and my heart is vibrant with joy. Personally I found this ball very touching; it reminded me of my youthful dreams that never came true, unfortunately. I have a lifelong love of music and I can share it with my pupils,” says Yulia Sumarokova, a music teacher at a Kyiv boarding school for children with mild forms of tuberculosis.
Practically all the guests at the ball were women because our school staffs are predominantly female. Men are school principals. Another question that troubles today’s schoolteachers and is having an impact on our society in general is the need to raise the schoolteacher’s professional prestige. Some schoolteachers shared a variety of opinions with The Day.
“Young people today, after graduating from higher educational establishments, do not want to work as schoolteachers; they are looking for better paid jobs. Those that do work as teachers are only working off their assignments from their alma maters. This is very bad because the state spends money on them and then is unable to provide them with adequate salaries for their responsible and taxing work,” said Iryna Abramenko.
Olena Chekhlova does not agree with her colleague. She believes that the prestige of schoolteachers has increased in the past couple of years: there are many cases of young teachers finding their true fortunes in schools and wholeheartedly dedicating themselves to their profession.
There is one thing on which all teachers agree: teaching requires more care from the state, so the government must concern itself with raising the schoolteacher’s prestige, including higher pay and providing young families with subsidized housing. But the teachers were unwilling to discuss their problems during the ball; they wanted to make the most of this festive occasion.
DRAWING TO MUSIC
After the awards ceremony ended, the guests returned to the parquet floor. There was a bit of a hitch when Pronia Prokopivna (played by Olha Sumska) and Holokhvastov (Dmytro Dihusar) performed a quickstep dance; the guests were subdued by their performance and they left the dance floor to the pros. Then the first chords of Jamaica sounded and there was no stopping the schoolteachers. They slowed down only when they heard the voices of opera singer Volodymyr Hryshko, his pupil Hanna Demeniuk, and Dmytro Hnatiuk.
The ball was not just about dancing. The guests were invited to master the art of painting. There were small stands with sketches in every corner of the ballroom and the guests stood in lines. Anyone who wanted could pick up a paintbrush, dip it in a can of green, blue, or red paint, and start creating. While the rest of the guests were dancing, black and white sketches, somewhat vague and sad, turned into beautiful paintings of unparalleled beauty.
The way to the heart of a schoolteacher is through dancing. So, boys and girls: when you leave school, you can do more for your teachers than say thank you and give them a bouquet of flowers. Invite them to dance!
