Death and Mourning in Primary School Education: Isabell Dietze-Fründt (#ID1)

Format

Seminar, fully asynchronous

Keywords

Cemetery, primary school education, philosophy, pools of experience, reflection

Description

Death and mourning – surely that’s not suitable content for children!

At first, it may seem that these topics don’t belong in primary school education and they are often met with dismissal. However, this view is no longer in keeping with the times. Teachers must frequently address children’s concerns of this nature with no prior warning. For instance, if Grandma passes away or a pet leaves, never to return, children will understandably seek answers to their many questions. What happens after death? Does dying hurt? Why don’t we live forever?

Children’s questions are a core element of the didactics of primary school education. They go to show the multi-faceted and creative ways in which an individual topic can be handled. And it is just as important for educators to first confront and carefully explore this ostensibly uncomfortable issue for themselves – including what it makes them think and feel, what questions arise and what their own view on death is – before tackling it from a pedagogical perspective.

In this seminar, we examined the potential that cemeteries have as a place of learning beyond school grounds, both with regard to historical and social aspects as well as to how cemeteries intersect with media, education for sustainable development and mobility. We analyzed “new” methods like philosophizing with children and other approaches in order to facilitate future classes’ understanding of death and mourning.

We relied on various tools to take our discussion online, including a Matrix messenger group for quick organization, Nextcloud and OPAL for structuring the course, Padlet for more detailed discussion, and PowerPoint and YouTube for reports and presentations. We used Edkimo for the evaluation process. Thankfully, all cemeteries remained open during the summer semester, allowing all students to have their own unique experiences at this special place of learning. Students summarized their thoughts in a portfolio, which served as their graded assessment and offered insight into the learning process of each course participant.

Contact

Isabell Dietze-Fründt

Voting ID

#ID1