Readings in Thanatology

John D. Morgan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780895031495
• eBook ISBN: 9781351860215
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

A comprehensive book of readings for courses on death and dying at the college or university level. It contains material by such leaders in the field as: Colin Murray Parkes, MD, John Hinton, MD, Kenneth Doka, PhD, Ira R Byock, MD, Ronald K Barrett, PhD, Robert G Stevenson, EdD, Judith M Stillion, PhD.

CHAPTER 1
Death Education in the Context of General Education

John D. Morgan

Education, the process by which one develops one's potential for one's own sake as well as for that of society, has included education about death and bereavement since prehistoric times. Different cultures have introduced their young to the realities of ultimate loss as a part of tribal or religious custom and more recently through formal teaching.

The term "death education" has many meanings, but three seem basic. In analogy to many specific forms of education such as medical education, death education has the sense of "preparation for death." The I Ching, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Ars Moriendi literature, and the Hebrew-Christian Bible have, to a greater or lesser degree, the purpose of preparing the person for death and death-related issues such as immortality, funeral rites, and bereavement behaviors. Since each of the major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—teaches that the person in this life is in a transition to another life, one can argue that one of the purposes of all religion has been the preparation for death.

The second meaning of death education is education for those decisions affected by actual or possible death. The practice of medicine and nursing; law; religious ministry; counseling; military, police, and fire-fighting provision; and funeral direction are all affected by the possibility of preventing or causing death, and by the consequences of a death. The training of practitioners in these careers would be incomplete if it did not include serious discussion of the definitions of death and of the personal, moral, legal, and economic issues involved in the death-related decisions made by these professionals.

The third meaning of death education, and the one that is the primary focus of this book, refers to a course or part of a course focusing on the meaning of death, attitudes toward death, and ways of coping with death. These courses often have as their purpose the realization that (1) death is a part of the natural life cycle, (2) dying persons are still fully alive and have unique needs in the terminal stage of their illnesses, (3) the bereaved have normal reactions and needs, (4) the needs of the dying and bereaved can be satisfied by a supportive community, and (5) children have the right to know about the fullness of the life cycle, including death and bereavement. Death education differs as it is taught in elementary, high school, and university programs, but the above five elements are common enough to be considered a general orientation.

The aim of this book is the integration of education about death, dying, and bereavement within the context of a basic education in the humanities and the social sciences. We show how the principles of liberal arts education can be useful for education about death, dying, and bereavement for the non-specialist as well as for the education of those who will deal with the dying and bereaved on a professional basis.

Each reader brings their own agenda to any book but especially to one such as this which touches basic human questions so fundamentally. It is for this reason that education about death, dying, and bereavement can make a contribution to general education. Death education deals not with what the reader might see as disembodied dull abstract questions but with the fundamental problems of human life in their harshness, their beauty, their complexity, and their interrelatedness.

True education consists of analyses of human problems in a sufficiently abstract and rigorous way that disciplined habits of mind occur. These habits of mind develop logical skills which act as a tool both for learning and for the articulation of learning. Death education as the authors have developed it in this book effects such goals.

THE NEED FOR FORMAL DEATH EDUCATION

In earlier centuries, one did not have to live too many years before being exposed to the death of a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, or a neighbor. Today, due to longer life as well as the professionalization of death-related activities such as medical care and funeral direction, death is less frequently experienced immediately. It is common in the developed world to grow into one's twenties or even thirties without having experienced the death of a significant other. In a questionnaire which this author distributed to over 3000 Canadian students between 1975 and 1996, whose ages ranged from seventeen to seventy, the answer to the question "What was your first experience of death?" was rarely a family member or friend. Vanderlyn Pine notes that "for American [university] students, death courses, formal instruction, seminars, projects, mini-courses, and so forth, provide an opportunity for the acquisition of experiential knowledge regarding dying and death. Given the other institutional structures existing today, such educational socialization seems essential" [1, p. 77]. Since it is less known, death is less accepted as an integral part of a human life.

Contemporary formal education about death and bereavement is primarily a North American phenomenon. In a 1993 survey this author found that education about death and bereavement occurs in Europe, Africa, and Australia as part of religious education, professional ethics, and, to a lesser extent the training of the health-care professional, however, education about death and bereavement for the average elementary, high school, or college student has seemingly developed only in Australia and North America. One possible reason for this is that with the exception of Quebec, the hospice movement began as an English-speaking movement and remained so until fairly recently. The hospice movement—the establishment of programs to provide only supportive care for persons with advanced progressive disease—started in England with the work of Dr. Cicely Saunders and was brought to Canada and the United States in the 1970s. Only since 1985 have there been hospices in Europe, South America, or Asia.

Death education as we know it today began in universities and colleges, and later filtered into elementary and high schools. For the most part, death education at the university level seems to be limited to one or two courses in departments of sociology, psychology, religion, or philosophy. Even in medicine, nursing, or social work, few formal courses exist, and what training there is in the psychosocial aspects of death and bereavement, occurs at the discretion of the instructor.

Few formal courses devoted to death education exist in elementary and high schools. What are found are modules, or units within courses, that deal with loss and grief. There are three basic orientations to education about death and bereavement below the university level. The first and most common form of death education, at least at the level of secondary schooling, is suicide prevention. Staffs in schools are deemed by the courts to be responsible if they do not act in "a reasonably prudent manner" in reporting possibly suicidal behavior [2, p. xiii], so school boards across North America have emphasized the importance of education as a form of suicide prevention. The second most common form of death education is an immediate response to a tragic event, such as the death of a child, a teacher, or a parent. Literature dealing with the support of the bereaved child in the classroom is now well developed. Since a curriculum is a statement of priorities, the third form of death education, proactive learning prior to a loss, would be the most important. It is, however, the least developed form of death education.

THE CONTENT OF DEATH EDUCATION

A study of the literature dealing with death and bereavement in the thirty years since the publication of Dr. Herman Feifel's ground-breaking book The Meaning of Death indicates seven basic themes in death education [3]. These themes are: the interrelationship between North American social structures and death attitudes; the care of the terminally ill as a philosophy; bereavement as a normal human reaction to loss; persons of all ages, including children, have death concerns; values about life are to be articulated; the influence of death in arts, literature, and social structures themselves; and the question of suicide. This book examines these issues. The first part deals with the social and psychological roots of death and bereavement attitudes and ideas; the second with the care of the dying; the third with bereavement. The interrelationship between children and death is examined in the fourth part. Any discussion of death evokes our fundamental beliefs about values and meaning. The values questions, philosophical and religious ideas about death and with death, are examined in part five. Finally, suicide is covered in part six.

The essayist Alexander Pope said that the "proper study of man is man himself." A renewed awareness of this is the greatest contribution which death education can make to education as a whole. For academic purposes, we may consider economics, political science, history, biology, religious studies, law, and child development as several distinct areas. Researchers must think "departmentarily" if the store of human knowledge is to increase. But we must never lose sight of the fact that there is only one human reality. The person whom we consider in ethics is the same whom we consider in biology of law. Education about death, dying, and bereavement makes a great contribution to education as a whole because this commitment to learner-centered education and to the person-asintegrated has been a part of the death awareness movement since its rebirth in the 1960s.

THE AIMS OF DEATH EDUCATION

Judith Stillion has pointed out that "rarely has a course been called upon to meet such variety of expectations: to teach people to live peacefully with each other, to appreciate life, and to give service to others as they seek meaning in living and dying. All this plus teaching a body of knowledge and research are the tasks of the death educators" [4, p. 158]. Since death education involves coming to understand one's place in the world, and the reality of ultimately limited resources, such knowledge should contribute to general education as a basic for personal development.

Many goals have been established for death education. The list below represents what occurs in the literature from 1977 to the present, however, one must not assume that every course, much less every module, effects these goals. The goals cited are: (1) to remove the taboo aspect of death language; (2) to promote comfortable and intelligent interactions with the dying; (3) to educate children about death so they develop a minimum of death-related anxieties; (4) to understand the dynamics of grief; (5) to understand and be able to interact with a suicidal person; (6) to understand the social structure of dying (the "death system"); and (7) to recognize the variations involved in aspects of death both within and among cultures [5, p. 44]. In reality, most courses effect no more than an understanding of the definitions of death, the meaning and necessity of palliative care, funerals, the dynamics of grief, and children's awareness of death [6, p. 17].

THE CURRICULUM

The death education curriculum has a cognitive aspect that includes the development of a body of knowledge and an affective aspect that includes changes in attitudes and values. The International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement has recommended the following criteria for education about death and bereavement: (1) that it be based on the current state of knowledge from a variety of disciplines; (2) that it integrate theory and practice; (3) that it promote sensitivity, awareness, and skills development through role modeling and supervised practice; and (4) that it provide emotional support and foster confidence [7, p. 236].

THE NEED FOR EVALUATION

Death education has not been universally accepted. From a practical standpoint, it is one more thing to be added to the already overcrowded general or professional curriculum. While there is some resistance to formal death education programs, death in literature, family life, or health has found mo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• CHAPTER 1 Death Education in the Context of General Education
• PART I: INTRODUCTION: NORTH AMERICAN DEATH ATTITUDES
• PART II: INTRODUCTION: THE CARE OF THE TERMINALLY ILL
• PART III: INTRODUCTION: BEREAVEMENT
• PART IV: INTRODUCTION: CHILDREN AND DEATH
• PART V: INTRODUCTION: QUESTIONS OF VALUES
• PART VI: INTRODUCTION: SUICIDE
• Contributors
• Index