An absolutely certain part of life, more so than sex or reproduction, so should it be talked about and taught about more than it is?
I think people enter the realms of end of life experience, either as loved ones or the one who's life is ending, woefully unprepared. We take sex education in schools for granted now (apart from a few far right religious folk) because there's a consensus that knowledge about it is needed to make informed choices and that a lack of knowledge can cost both individual and society.
Equally, death is becoming something which involves choices, from a DNR choice to euthanasia. Moreover, the process of death has become extended for many people and that in itself poses a multitude of 'how' questions.
So, should death education be taught in schools? Yes, it would be problematic but wind the clock back and so was sex education, and still is, yet we accept the need so tackle the problems. Isn't it time to begin to organise thoughts, beliefs and science into something teachable?
Religious groups already teach about death (or perhaps the lack of it!) but there's not much available to our children and young people from the secular, more factual side.
I was lucky growing up, my parents owning what was called a 'doss house' meant pre the age of 10 I'd seen a fair bit of dying, known plenty who popped from their mortal coil and saw some of the graphic parts of the process. Later working with animals I held horses to be shot, even sat on a struggling disembowelled horse while the gunless vet slit his jugular. I understand that death is rarely dignified, well ordered and fear/pain free unless it is a chosen course of action to avoid the rather inevitable suffering. I don't think this knowledge has harmed me, made me more fearful, or less able to think clearly about death - I'm willing to accept it as part of life because I value life highly enough it's worth it ten times over, maybe the latter is BECAUSE I've been less sheltered from the process of death.
Is it time to pull it out the closet? To begin a process of education?
I've been thinking on related lines (about the so-called attractions of immortality), and drafted a post for my SFF blog which will appear at some point in the next few weeks. The first and last paragraphs are below:
The concept of human immortality has always had huge appeal. Somehow, we never seem to accept the fact that it is necessary for us to die. This is perhaps most marked in our modern society, in which medical science has done so much to counter the causes of premature death. As a result, death has become something of a taboo subject, which most people are reluctant to face up to. This is well illustrated in the UK by the current confusion and controversy over the "right to die" of the terminally ill.On a lighter note, I rather liked the spoof aphorism: "Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down."All in all, this hankering after eternal life looks like a worse idea the more I consider it. Our physical and mental development is constructed around the idea of seasons in life – of passing through stages from childhood through adolescence to adulthood, maturity and old age, before we shuffle off this mortal coil. Apart from the practical problems I've discussed, a major extension to the length of our lives may do nothing to improve the overall quality of our existence; and immortality of any kind (physical or virtual) would, I suspect, turn out to be appalling.
100 years ago one had the advanyage of death being a commonplace part of everyday life. Most people lost family members through disease, malnutrition and violence. Most people killed their own livestock, or at least the local butcher would happily show youngsters the process.
Now discussing death with young children is a rather artificial process. they do not really have first hand experience to call on, so avoiding their imagination running away with itself is quite a trick. Any large scale educational package would have to cater for the beliefs of the main religions, which has its downsides.
So how to provide real life experiences of death? Visits to abbatoirs?
Well, the basic biology of it would be a start, perhaps with some introductions to the grey areas such as brain death and when life is considered to have begun.
Different religions would certainly try to dictate the agenda but then they do so already with sex education and by large most people agree some sex education still needs to take place. The controversy is not reason enough to keep avoiding the subject.
Personally I think people's fear of children's imagination comes more from their own lack of it than actual harm seen to be done. It would lead to some questions that ADULTS would rather avoid, but again, so did sex education when it began (and for some still does).
With my munchkin I'm less concerned, we have 2 11yr old dogs which will certainly oblige in providing education. This may be controversial but I intend to fully involve her in dealing with their death, the care needed because their bowels and bladder open, the burying and why it's done, and, in our case, the discussions about remembering and valuing their life. Of course long before that happens she will see me pluck or skin pheasant to make our tea (£2.50 a brace unplucked and ungutted!!). I know that these things will give rise to her having questions - maybe the first question would be why I treat a dead bird we will eat with respect.
That highlights the perils of allowing religion into the school. Tell 'em how it is at school, and let their parents screw with their heads at home if they must.Originally Posted by Pebble
I grew up on a farm so I had no illusions about death - just got a bit brassed off that it became my job to bury dead cats or to climb inside the combine to pull out dead rats. Going pheasant shooting, learning how to dispatch winged birds and clipped hares, shooting rats at night during winter - you become quite familiar with death.
My bird...
Well this is an anecdote, however, having always been open to discussions of death and its nature with my children, I was somewhat taken aback when my eldest son then aged 5 became rather obsessed with death. I even ended up discussing the degree of obsession with a psychiatrist to see if this was just a normal phase - unfortunately he could proivde little help. My partner was rather freaked out by this, especially as he insisted in relating his thoughts on death - his or anyone elses to his classmates and school teachers. The whole phase lasted about a year, but during that time he was having nightmares, sleep walking etc - fortunately it all disappeared and he has subsequently adjusted rather well.
I suspect therefore that individual reactions will vary and that one needs to consider the approapriate management of more extreme reactions especially where peers and others can find the reaction disturbing.
I can understand your concern it's just those kids I've known growing up in the countryside where death is still plainly visible seem the best of all in terms of adjustment to it.
I think it's the very nature of our taboo which gives death it's creepy appearance, in other words our discomfort is passed down generations. Even if a parent is open about it there's still a world of people that will avoid talking about it like the Clap and I think children are likely to be effected by that.
I wonder if children had nightmares about sex pre sex education? My hunch is yes, as the unknown is powerful.
I recall a TV series many years ago which covered some families who spent a year living in a reconstructed iron age village, using only the materials and technology available then. They raised a pig for several months, during which time it was regarded as something of a pet by the young children, before deciding to eat it.
They had to depart from their principles when it came to killing the pig, as this had to be done in an abbatoir. So the adults gently broke it to the children that the pig was to be taken away and would come back dead. One of the lads (maybe about 8) started crying. When they tried to comfort him, he said "Why can't I watch it being killed? I want to watch!"
I think that young children are not afraid of death, but are curious about it. They learn the fear from adults, or maybe it just comes from growing up and realised your own mortality.
As has often been observed, adolescents often take appalling risks because they seem to think they are immortal - death is something that happens to other people.
Bit of a side note...
I must admit, I put that down to the frontal lobes not being fully developed, together with raging hormones and a seemingly biological drive to show off! When I was a teenager I was just starting out making money from riding and I used to say I'd be happy to die doing what I loved, but then to achieve my objectives I NEEDED to show off, no work experience, no references, and I had to compete in a labour market where everyone else was older than me. It has since occurred to me that perhaps this is always the age we need to display what we can do to the maximum, the age of entering and gaining position in the adult world with the fundamental disadvantage of inexperience.As has often been observed, adolescents often take appalling risks because they seem to think they are immortal - death is something that happens to other people.
Comparing death education to sex education makes sense to me, both are riddled with bizarre myth (gooseberry bush, gone to sleep, living on a cloud, stalks with carrier bags), both entail basic biology, both address life changing events, both have an emotional element, both divide the culture between science and reason, and both need to take place if we want to move from myth to reality.
The lessons you should be teaching are those you experience yourself. If you have sat with a loved one through the trauma of death, unable to give assurances the faithful give each other, it is the true test of your disbelief.It also tests your humanity when the feeling of sorrow and also of great relief overwhelms you. My experiences dont convince me of any god but they do question the fact we are more than flesh and blood.Being sceptical does not exclude possibilities, it demands you are fully aware of lifes mysteries.
My first direct brush with death occurred when I was about three. My grandfather kept hens on his allotment and I regularly fed them and was given the ongoing task of collecting eggs from the crees (cree is Geordie for a shed housing hens or pigeons) or wherever they were dropped.
One day when my grandfather was in the hen enclosure and I was elsewhere on the allotment. I saw him pick up one of the hens, examine it closely and then grab it around the neck. He saw me watching so he went behind the shed. Then I heard a crack and the hen, which had been making quite a racket, went silent. Granddad then reappeared with the now deceased hen and buried it in a far corner of the plot.
I was quite fond of the hens, and I realised granddad had killed one of them, but I don't remember being upset at all. But I still remember that awful crack.
That depends on the lesson, I remember 'doing' the heart at school and the teacher threw in a little about what can go wrong, what a heart attack was. That real world tie, something I could relate to beyond the mechanics of valves and pumps brought the subject alive. The teacher didn't need to have had a heart attack to inspire.The lessons you should be teaching are those you experience yourself.
My husband was resuscitated in March, it was about as close as you can come and still be talking to each other about anything! But my take on it is very different to the one you describe. I was curious if it'd create a desire to believe but it didn't. I felt more comfortable to accept life and death the way it is - a job lot and I could cope more easily with knowing that there isn't reasoning behind the actions of bacteria than by trying to work out some greater justice as his family did. There was reassurance between my husband and I, reassurance that his daughter would still climb hills with his father, that we loved him, that we wanted time with him, or even just by being there 24hours through. It didn't rely on magical thinking. People who don't believe face death just as much as anyone else and it is possible to cope.If you have sat with a loved one through the trauma of death, unable to give assurances the faithful give each other, it is the true test of your disbelief.
Maybe it's because I don't see how having learned about and talked about death would make actual loss worse - could you explain?
Believe,believe what?believe in god ?believe in a soul?or just a belief you dont know?
Fair point. I was referring to a range of supernatural beliefs and trying to avoid listing them, but yes, god and a soul would be two of the most pertinent that I don't believe in.
I say believe because belief can be a very personal thing. Take the doctor who experiences the dying patient, talking to a dead relative before their departure and seeing the relief as they depart. Now for you, you can muse logicaly about the reasons why this dying patient had this hallucination but can you deny the belief that lies behind it.
I dont believe in a benevolent god but i cant prove there is no god nor can i be convinced we have no soul, am i wrong?
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