“Mourning With the Morning Bell”: An Examination of Secondary Educators’ Attitudes and Experiences in Managing the Discourse of Death in the Classroom

Abstract

A plethora of research exists about death and dying, particularly with regard to the prescriptive strategy on how teachers should address death in their classrooms. However, there is a gap in the literature about teachers' perceived preparedness to discuss a student's death in their classrooms. The following qualitative study used focus groups to explore teachers' experiences with and beliefs about death, dying, coping, student death, and preparedness to address student death in the classroom. Data were transcribed and thematically analyzed. Themes and subthemes for all research questions are presented and explained; some themes explored include teachers' views of death, death versus dying, initial and long-term coping, difficulties in addressing student death, the teachers' role after a student's death, feelings of being prepared versus unprepared to address student death in the classroom.

The Hospice as a Learning Environment: A Follow-Up Study with a Palliative Care Team

“…Furthermore, they expressed a desire to repeat the initiative in the future. The hospice professionals confirmed that the education initiative motivated them to improve their knowledge and competencies in their everyday work, much in the way that other healthcare professionals undergo continual training to improve their relational competencies [ 35 , 58 , 59 ]. Indeed, they stated that this initiative allowed them to improve both their teamwork skills and their knowledge of themes related to death education.…”

“I Keep it Together at Work but Fall Apart at Home”: The Experience of Israeli Homeroom Teachers Coping With the Death of a Student in their Class

“…While teachers mourn their own lost relationship with the deceased student, they remain committed to helping the rest of their students process this traumatic experience (Case et al., 2017). A study that examined teachers’ perceptions of their role vis-à-vis students found that more than half thought that supporting these students was not their job but rather the job of counseling professionals (Dyregrov, Dyregrov, & Idsoe, 2013).…”

“…Death is a natural part of the life cycle that people across the globe all must face (Case, Cheah, & Liu, 2017). Losing someone close is a painful, staggering, and difficult experience for any individual.…”

The hospice as a learning environment: A follow-up, qualitative study with palliative care professionals and school teachers involved in a previous death education intervention

“…The last major theme -regarding willingness to reimplement the intervention -revealed that participants were indeed interested in repeating the experience in the future. Participants believed that introducing similar death education interventions in high schools would be worthwhile partly because it would allow hospice professionals to improve their knowledge and relational competencies in their everyday work, much as other healthcare professionals do [46][47][48][49][50]. The hospice staff stated that this intervention allowed them to improve both their teamwork skills and their knowledge concerning themes related to death education.…”