“Mourning With the Morning Bell”: An Examination of Secondary Educators’ Attitudes and Experiences in Managing the Discourse of Death in the Classroom

Abstract

A plethora of research exists about death and dying, particularly with regard to the prescriptive strategy on how teachers should address death in their classrooms. However, there is a gap in the literature about teachers’ perceived preparedness to discuss a student’s death in their classrooms. The following qualitative study used focus groups to explore teachers’ experiences with and beliefs about death, dying, coping, student death, and preparedness to address student death in the classroom. Data were transcribed and thematically analyzed. Themes and subthemes for all research questions are presented and explained; some themes explored include teachers’ views of death, death versus dying, initial and long-term coping, difficulties in addressing student death, the teachers’ role after a student’s death, feelings of being prepared versus unprepared to address student death in the classroom.