Today is the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster.  Today, people know about the disaster, with many becoming familiar from the excellent miniseries Chernobyl.  It has an IMDB score of 9.2 and is worth watching on HBO Max.

At the time,  it was the radioactive fallout over Scandinavia that got my attention.  Ten years later, I had a student who had been there.

I would not normally talk about an identifiable student, but Natasha has some notoriety as a chef and has been profiled in several publications.  Also, my recollection is from thirty years ago, so I could have any of it wrong.  This isn’t so much about Chernobyl, as it is about the student.

Chernobyl is about 60 miles from Kiev, so when the nuclear power plant melted down, there were populated areas nearby.

Natasha said that the authorities sent school buses out, and picked up everyone they saw.  Play grounds, sidewalks or stores, and evacuated them.  She said that as firemen were trying to cool the reactor, they were sinking into the melting asphalt.  She hadn’t seen that, she was only 6 or 7 years old.

This was my first year at Normandy.  I had so many ideas, and so much energy and motivation.  The way the building was laid out, classroom doors are set back from the hallway.  That provided a nice spot for a mural.  The floor plan looks like this:

A dumb idea has to be executed well, or it’s still dumb.   I must have seen some of Natasha’s art, because I was certain she could do a nice job.  I pulled in her lab partner and a few other students to help on the easy stuff.

Being a new teacher, I thought I should clear the mural with the principal.  Randy was a short-timer, running out the clock until he could retire.  He wasn’t clear what I wanted from him, but assured me that he had no budget for paint or supplies.  The Parma School District was like that.  Do what you want if you aren’t asking for money.  It was great.

I wanted a Twilight Zone theme, with physics images rather than just creepy stuff.

Natasha was quiet and shy, so I don’t know if she really wanted to take on the mural project, or if I and her lab partner pressured her into it.  She didn’t leave Ukraine until after elementary school, so she may not have known that this was optional.  Whatever, she understood what I was describing, and did a nice job implementing my concepts.

The lab partner wasn’t particularly artistic, but was a dynamic, energetic kind of girl who kept the project moving and entertained Natasha.

Natasha grew comfortable enough to tell me about Chernobyl, but she remained reserved.  Using her artistic talent to contribute to the school, helping me out and working with other students, may have been the best way to make her feel like she belonged.

An article for the Cleveland State Magazine, said, “Not until she was a student at Normandy High School did Pogrebinsky feel truly comfortable in her new homeland.”

Maybe my willingness to exploit students to implement my wholesome vision, is a force for good.

A few years later, I had her brother Alex.  He was more outgoing, but not as academically inclined.  When I asked him, he said that he was too young to remember anything about Chernobyl.

At one point, Alex asked me if he could build an Einstein webpage for extra credit.  There was a ton of Einstein info available, but Alex said he could read Russian and Russia had declassified a bunch of Einstein files.  That would be his source.   The internet as we know it, the world wide web, was pretty new, so sure, who cares, build a webpage.

When Alex was done with the webpage, he sent me the URL and I checked it out.  It was good.  Almost too good.  Online plagiarism is not new.  When I told him it was almost too good, he didn’t get angry, but understood that I was suspicious.  He suggested that I quiz him on the info, and I did.  There was a lot of information on his page, so I quizzed him on the details.  He knew it all, so I was convinced.

This morning, the BBC had a short piece on the 40th anniversary of Chernobyl.  That brought Natasha and Alex to mind.  I will post the mural in a day or so.