Death Education in elementary school: Teachers’ perceptions and affective experiences of an in-service training program in Cyprus

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the need for Death Education is more pronounced than ever. The purpose of this paper is to analyze elementary school teachers’ perceptions and affective experiences of an in-service training on death education taught by the first author over three years at the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute. The teacher training focused on how to teach about issues of death, loss, and grief at the elementary school. The article examines what drives teachers to participate in the training and describes their concerns and dilemmas of engaging with issues of death, loss, and grief in their teaching. The study, which is based on an action research methodology, also explores teachers’ reflections on their pedagogical efforts to design and implement a lesson plan in which issues of death, loss, and grief are included. Its results have several implications for teachers’ professional development on Death Education.

This presentation is based on a project Professor Michalinos Zembylas and I have worked on: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00933104.2020.1841700

Painting by Juan Lucena in memory of all grandparents lost due to Covid 19, who couldn’t say goodbye to their grandchildren.