Paul - A long time ago, when I was on a temporary appointment at the start of my career, I taught death and dying (pretty much at gunpoint, since I wasn't qualified or even interested). As a total neophyte, I wasn't constrained by tradition or even knowledge of past practices. Here are a couple of things we did in that class:
- Cemetary walk. We figured out a random sampling technique for the cemetary, and had students gather what information they could from tombstones (gender, birth year, death year, age at death, any clues about cause of death). We used the data to construct a death table for the town, average life expectancy, etc. We picked up the flu epidemic of 1918 (spike in deaths at all ages), both world wars (many headstones marked as war deaths, but also deaths in young men). I started out with this to buy me time to prepare -- I had one week's notice to teach a course I'd never taken -- but also to break the ice and get students used to the idea of being around death. I still remember that when we talked to the cemetary superintendent, he insisted that the persons buried there should be referred to as "residents" (not "bodies" or even "people buried here"). - Tour of a local funeral home, including optional coverage of mortuary techniques (e.g., embalming) for those students who wanted it. - Panel discussion of local clergy (christian, jewish, muslim, hindu were all I could round up), talking about their faith's view of death, funeral traditions, etc. [This was a student population that 90% came from a christian tradition, so I emphasized that this was an academic exercise, not a chance to convert anybody]. This was a huge hit with students; they talked about it -- in constructive, thoughtful ways -- for weeks. Warn the instructor that many students take this class because they have an agenda; about half of my class had chosen it because they were dealing with death in some personal way (friend, relative, even some students with life-threatening conditions), and emotions can run high. Since I'm not a clinician, I made this very clear to students and really emphasized the academic nature of the subject. Even with that, I ended up serving as a bridge to the campus counseling center for a couple of students during the semester. I hope you get ideas from people better qualified than me, and from those who've taught the course more recently. Michael Renner ====REPLY TO MESSAGE===== Subject: dying and death From: Paul Schulman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1904 21:15:33 -0800 X-Message-Number: 2 I am asking this for someone who will be an adjunct on our staff: she will be teaching Dying, Death and Bereavement for the first time and would like to know what other people have done to teach this course--projects, assignments that worked well, etc. Thanks [EMAIL PROTECTED] ====END OF REPLY TO MESSAGE===== ------------------------------------- Michael J. Renner Department of Psychology West Chester University West Chester, PA 19383 USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] Telephone: +1.610.436.2925 Fax: +1.610.436.2846 http://psych.wcupa.edu/renner_m/ ------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
