Facing loss: pedagogy of death

Abstract

Loss, impermanence, and death are facts of life difficult to face squarely. Our own mortality and that of loved ones feels painful and threatening, the mortality of the biosphere unthinkable. Consequently, we do our best to dodge these thoughts, and the current globalizing culture supports and colludes in our evasiveness. Even environmental educators tend to foreground "sustainability" whilst sidelining the reality of decline, decay, and loss. And yet, human life and ecological health require experiencing "unsustainability" too, and a pedagogy for life requires a pedagogy of death. In this paper we explore experiences of loss and dying in both human relationships and the natural world through four different types of death affording situations, the cemetery, caring-unto-death, sudden death, and personal mortality. We trace the confluence of death in nature and human life, and consider some pedagogical affordance within and between these experiences as an invitation to foster an honest relationship with the mortality of self, others, and nature. We end by suggesting art as an ally in this reconnaissance, which can scaffold teaching and learning and support us to courageously accept both the beauty and the ugliness that death delivers to life.

Teaching death to undergraduates: exploring the student experience of discussing emotive topics in the university classroom

“…By examining death, individuals are given the opportunity to develop a greater understanding, appreciation and reverence for life, legitimising one's inner feelings towards death whilst placing the experience of the dying within the natural realm of human experience (Eddy and Alles, 1983). The less death is hushed up, the less likely people are to retreat from it when so confronted (Affifi and Christie, 2018).…”

“…To discuss death is not an easy thing to do and there are issues associated with making pedagogy painful. In a society habituated towards evading thoughts of mortality, confronting it in a classroom has the potential to lead to an unsafe and uncomfortable learning space for both teacher and learner (Affifi and Christie, 2018). Consideration of teaching approaches and styles is therefore of crucial importance.…”

Creating Aesthetic Encounters of the World, or Teaching in the Presence of Climate Sorrow

“…; do they allow for complexity, openness and uncertainty?). As Affifi and Christie (2019) argue in their advocation of a ‘pedagogy of death’, encounters with loss are central to creating opportunities for emotional and existential growth that contribute both to living well in the present and to developing affective dispositions needed to deal with the future. The quality of encounter, therefore, is central to bringing students’ present reality into contact with environmental destruction and alternative ways of formulating life in the future.…”

Beauty in the Darkness: Aesthetic Education in the Ecological Crisis

“…While we might recoil in horror at the thought of a dying partner or child, or frantically set ourselves to avert this doom, no response is restorative without opening to the beauty the situation offers. The husband of a dying wife can enrich her remaining time, and even feel gratitude for the softness and intimacy the tragedy gathers into their thoughts and deeds (Affifi and Christie, 2018). Any ‘fight’ against her disease risks sacrificing these delicate possibilities when focused fearfully on ends at the expense of means.…”