This article focuses on the difficult event of death. The audience for this article is classroom teachers, librarians/media specialists, curriculum developers, and so on. The purpose is to share points to consider when choosing quality picture books focusing on death as well as exemplars to represent these points. These points were concluded as a…

Sixty percent of students experience the death of a close person at some point in their post-secondary studies. This life stage is characterized by cognitive, academic, social, physical, emotional, and identity-related stressors which together may also intensify grief. Importantly, post-secondary students' unique needs may not be addressed by…

In this article we explore the grieving-through-writing process of two researchers who dialogue about spousal loss. Drawing on the idea that bereavement requires meaning-making, we engage in an interview-style conversation about how: (1) we each made sense of our spouse's death; (2) experienced Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) as described by Calhoun…

In this article, the author discusses how her mother's death uncovers the implications of how people do not deal with grief in higher education, as well as what that means about the work alongside students and each other.

In her work with bereaved children at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston, Fox (1988) identified four universal tasks that grieving children must complete in order to achieve a grief outcome that is good: "understanding," "grieving," "commemorating," and "going on." In light of the need to support…

Recovery is one of the five National Preparedness System mission areas and is a critical component of an education agency's preparedness. In the context of school emergency management planning, recovery refers to the capabilities necessary to assist schools affected by an event or emergency in restoring the learning environment. Recovery is also…

The authors discuss the relationship of death and play as illuminated by computer games. Although these games, they argue, do illustrate the value of being--and staying--alive, they are not so much about life per se as they are about providing gamers with a playground at the edge of mortality. Using a range of visual, auditory, and rule-based…

This autoethnography investigation used guideposts for whole-hearted living as a means of processing grief as a teacher educator during the COVID-19 pandemic. Life stories were drawn upon to understand the social, cultural, and political dimensions of the mental health crisis facing teachers and students. I conclude by asserting that centering…

Forbidden Sounds: The Music of the Holocaust considers the historical events of the Holocaust in the context of music. The honors course explores diverse roles that music played during the years 1933-1945, including the Nazi use of music as a means for censorship and discrimination; music performance and creation in various Jewish ghettos and…

The death of a student, especially to gun violence, is a life-changing experience that occurs with more and more frequency in America's schools. For each of these tragedies, there is a classroom and there is a teacher. Yet student death is often a forbidden subject, removed from teacher education and professional development classes where the…

Although schools are making the effort to support students grieving the death of a loved one, there is a large population of grieving students who have experienced ambiguous loss from causes other than death and who may need support. Ambiguous loss or a loss without closure can leave a person searching for answers, thus complicating and delaying…

The challenge and conundrum are to integrate within ourselves the dark/light cycles of the natural world, yet flourish in times of grief and pain. But how does one lose and be grateful? How does one create harmony between body and soul? Here we explore the lessons of a snail wedded to the earth, astute in its slowness, in its minute shadow; we…

School counselors play a crucial role when schools face any type of tragedy or loss, many times learning from experience because response plans are not in place. School counselors are called upon to help shape and provide the response to students, staff, and parents. The demands of managing all of the aspects of school tragedy, in addition to the…

Children experience grief and loss from death, divorce, parental incarceration, and similar situations of being placed in foster care or adoption. These youths may be challenged in recovery due to lacking the necessary life experience and coping skills. They may also lack the appropriate support networks to work through their grief as their…

Every day someone is faced with the news that they are dying or that they have a loved one who is dying. Often times this is very unsettling and fear creeps into their hearts for one reason or another. This paper is an attempt to identify the most common reasons for that fear, and offer suggestions for handling that fear in a Christian manner.