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Noncrisis Death Education in the Elementary School.

1994; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 29; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0013-5976

Lynn V. Edgar, Mary F. Howard‐Hamilton,

Homelessness and Social Issues

Death the very topic sends educators into shock and counselors into a crisis-mode (Wass, Berardo, & Neimeyer, 1988). Death is seldom mentioned in schools except in situations of national trauma such as the Challenger explosion (Wass, 1986) or of local tragedy (Martin, Martin, BarrettKruse, & Waterstreet, 1988). Generations are growing up in a world in which death and violence are synonymous terms (Fulton & Owen, 1988; Lerner, 1978). According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States (United States Bureau of the Census, 1993) young men, from ages 15 to 24, compose the fastest growing group for number of suicides. Furthermore, violent deaths (i.e., accidents and homicide) account for the majority of deaths in this age group today. As a result, every aspect of popular entertainment from music and concerts to television, plays, and movies is evaluated for the number and types of deaths presented ('Ted Turner, 1993; Wass, 1984; Wass & Stillion, 1988). In the realm of natural death, AIDS is no longer a death sentence for adults only but now an invader of babies' bodies and lives even before birth (Harris, 1991). Today families and school personnel are having to help children, even very young children, deal with death and grief on a far too regular basis (Baker, Sedney, & Gross, 1992; Lewis, 1992; McHutchion, 1991). Gordon and Klass (1979b) made a sound argument for teaching the basic facts about death in the school system, allowing parents to complete their children's death education by teaching their religious beliefs at home. They also pointed out that schools are not only able to be more objective about a stressful topic, but also their resources are usually more extensive than are those of most families.