Promoting Revolution in Ukraine

Today I went to a local high school and spoke about the American Revolution. Schools and organizations in Kyiv regularly reach out to the embassy for guest speakers and this is one I volunteered for as I have an interest in American history.

I’d have to say it went quite well and I was impressed by the questions the students asked. They were 16 and 17 year olds and are studying American history this year. (I don’t seem to recall studying a year of Ukrainian history in high school.) The presentation was in English and I didn’t sense any real communication barriers and judging by their questions they seemed to understand me. Of course, they did have prepared questions and one student asked me what caused the Revolution…which was pretty much my entire presentation. Apart from that, others asked about the Minutemen (the ones during the Revolution…not the ones building a fence in Arizona), the role of the French and the Spanish, Lafayette, modern day memorials, and other good questions. I was only thrown by one question about John Salem. Wikipedia now tells me he was a freed slave who fought in the war. Now I know.

After the presentation, the teacher gave me a nice little tour of the school and gave me tea along with another teacher. Everything here either starts or ends with tea and cookies. The school was nice and not radically different than a school in the States apart from being cold and dark (they kept the lights turned off and the heat is controlled by the city and not turned on until November.)

All in all, a good time apart from the one hour and forty minute ride back home thanks to Kyiv traffic (the school was about 3 miles away.)