Death Education

Death education for educators is the curriculum and instruction for making meaning of death, dying, bereavement, and loss. Depending on the age of the students, the curriculum and activities regarding death are designed for the appropriate level of cognitive and emotional maturity. The materials also take into account the cultural values relevant to the population served.

There are three basic responsibilities regarding death education: (1) to help children feel safe while acknowledging the reality of death, (2) to promote an accepting classroom atmosphere where children's feelings are supported, and (3) to provide developmentally appropriate learning opportunities that allow children to discuss death.

The subject of death has moved from a taboo topic to a very necessary one. Impetus to the discussion of death was greatly accelerated by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's book On Death and Dying, stressing the need for death education among health professionals.

In today's society, it can be stressed that children need to examine death due to societal pressures such as terrorism, school violence, war and death on television/ media, and violence in computer games.

There appear to be two very divergent trends emerging in the death education literature. One trend seems to find school violence as exemplified in the Columbine High School massacre directly related to the softening of traditional values of the three R's and teaching values education and death education. These views are further delineated and expounded by Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld in 1999 and on a Web site hosted by Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Another trend enlarges death education and loss by stressing the issues of loss facing young people. Disenfranchised loss is a term coined by Kenneth Doka in 1989 to describe grief that people experience from a loss. This definition of loss is greatly expanded and includes issues such as death of both people and pets, moving, loss of a best friend, and the end of a romantic relationship. Other examples of grief experienced by students who are in a racial or sexual minority include loss of safety, loss of friendship, loss of acceptance of family, and loss of belonging. A teacher sensitive to all these issues would find many students in some stage of unresolved grief.