At the beginning of April there were more than forty thousand.

Forty thousand children and young people who fled to Germany from the Ukraine and now go to school here.

And not a day goes by that more people, mostly women and children, don't make it here to safety from the country at war.

Fridtjof Küchemann

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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No one can say how long these people will have to live far from their homes.

But it is clear that they cannot simply wait and do nothing somewhere else, in Germany for example, until the terrible war is finally over.

The children who went to school in the Ukraine and then fled to Germany are now supposed to go to school here.

Especially when it comes to people who have experienced terrible things and are still worried about others who stayed at home or about what else they left behind there, it is important that they do not simply do nothing, do nothing

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when they are here.

That was immediately clear to the politicians who look after the schools in the individual federal states, the ministers of education.

Together they decided that the students from the Ukraine must be safe with us, that they need emotional support to cope with their war experiences and that they have the right to education and care here with us.

In a joint statement, the politicians wrote: "For all children and young people, school is of particular importance in these difficult times because it offers reliable structures, a safe environment and the opportunity to work in a protected space with peers and with teachers to exchange as persons of trust.”

That's correct.

But what does that mean?

It means that the schools and everyone who makes sure that everything works, the teachers and the students are in for a lot.

In Ukraine, people not only speak a different language from ours, they also write with different letters, in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Luckily, more children from Ukraine can also read our Latin letters than initially feared.

But anyone who has ever vacationed in a country with a different type of writing knows how difficult it is to find your way around when you can't quite easily read everything.

And anyone who can still remember their first day of school at a new school - or the first day of school at all - knows how nervous all the strange and new things can make you anyway,

Perhaps that was what the Ukrainian consul from Hamburg had in mind when she replied to the German ministers of education that her country, Ukraine, doesn't really care that the children who have fled are admitted to the German schools and the German school system.

It would be better for the children from the Ukraine to be taught from their home country via the Internet, after all, they shouldn't stay here with us for long.

If only one could say how long it will be before all those who have fled can return to their homeland without fear!

But you can't.

And if we wait a few months before we get the kids going to school, we would have lost those months if it's taking longer than we'd hoped.

In some places there are welcome classes in which the children can first keep to themselves and prepare intensively for later coming to the other classes.

Elsewhere there are great projects where teachers who have fled Ukraine take care of the children.

And again, the people who take care of the schools take a very close look elsewhere: Which subjects are there, for example, in which the language differences don't play such a big role?

Sport, of course, but also music and art.

English for older students who already have foreign language lessons.

It's trickier with math, there's a lot of talking and explaining on the one hand.

But on the other hand, math doesn't really know any country or language borders.

German is of course the most difficult.

But the children could just have their Ukrainian lessons during this time, there should still be room for that.

The lessons that Ukrainian children can get in Ukrainian via the Internet should find their place in their everyday school life here.

Even if it's definitely quite a puzzle to get him into the timetables.

It's not that difficult

But just as important as the question of how all this can be organized is the question of what we as school children and parents can do in our schools to make it easier for the children from Ukraine.

And that's where the best ideas come from.

In some schools, they have made little school cones, a bit like when they start school, as a welcome gift and given them to the new students.

In some schools, a school child who is already familiar with everything takes on the task of showing and explaining everything to a new school child who has fled.

If necessary with hands and feet.

And preferably with a smile.

Of course, that’s also possible if the school or the teachers didn’t take care of it: It’s not that difficult to share biscuits with someone else, to make a gesture during the break that means come here with us too, together Playing a game or just sitting next to each other and borrowing the eraser, even if you don't speak the same language.

And: bet?

It certainly doesn't take a single day until you not only know the name of the refugee child, but also know what "hello" and "bye" and "see you tomorrow" mean in Ukrainian.