We often say that schools prepare students for life, but I sometimes wonder what we really mean when we say that. We teach children how to read, write, investigate, communicate, collaborate and solve problems. We prepare them for university, careers, and we increasingly talk about wellbeing, relationships and social emotional learning. Yet there are some of the most fundamental experiences of being human that we rarely address explicitly. Inner peace, conflict resolution, building relationships, failure, grief and death are all part of life, but how much space do they have in our schools?
Death is perhaps one of the most difficult subjects to discuss because, no matter how much we know about it, we are rarely prepared for the moment when it becomes personal.
I still remember my first years of teaching. During one academic year, my school lost three students. One died in a car accident, another from cancer, and the third because of health problems. I remember crying and feeling completely overwhelmed by the loss. The school counsellor offered some sessions to the classmates of the students, which was important, but there was nothing embedded in the curriculum or wider learning experience that helped us explore what had happened and how to deal with it. The school responded to the immediate situation, but once the immediate response was over, the normal rhythm of school returned.
Years later, I experienced a different kind of shock. I used to exchange emails regularly with a friend, and one day I received a reply from her husband telling me that she had passed away. I remember the feeling of reading those words and struggling to process them. More recently, just two weeks ago, before leading an inschool workshop, the coordinator told me that one of the teachers had passed away one week before the start of this academic year. She had been expected to attend the workshop. Once again, I found myself confronted with the reality that someone who was part of a learning community one day can suddenly no longer be there the next.
These experiences have made me wonder why death so often takes us by surprise. Perhaps we can never fully prepare for the death of someone we love or someone who is part of our community. Grief is deeply personal, and knowing that death is inevitable does not make the loss easier. But can education help us develop the language, emotional resources and empathy to navigate these moments when they arrive?
Why do we find death so difficult to discuss?
We introduce young children to living things and explore growth, development and life cycles. We teach them that living things are born, grow and change. Yet how often do we explicitly acknowledge death as part of that cycle? Is it because we are afraid of frightening children, or because we believe that some conversations should wait until they are older? Perhaps we avoid the subject because we do not have easy answers ourselves.
In some communities, death can become a taboo subject, much like politics, religion or sexuality. The reasons may be cultural, religious or personal, and they differ from one context to another. But when adults avoid a difficult subject completely, children may still encounter it without having the language or understanding to make sense of what they are experiencing. They may learn about death through a sudden loss in their family, a conversation with a friend, social media, the news or an unexpected event at school.
This makes me think about the difference between protecting children from difficult realities and preparing them to navigate those realities. These are not necessarily the same thing.
Perhaps the curriculum already gives us entry points
I am not suggesting that schools need to create another subject called “Death Education” and add it to an already crowded curriculum. In fact, I think the opposite may be more useful. There are already many opportunities within what we teach to have age appropriate conversations about life, loss, change and grief.
When young children explore living things and life cycles, for example, we can acknowledge that death is part of life rather than presenting the cycle as if it ends with growth. Literature provides another natural entry point because stories allow children to encounter loss, change and grief through characters and situations that create some distance from their own experiences. Health and wellbeing education can provide opportunities to explore emotions, coping strategies, seeking support and caring for others. With older students, philosophical discussions can open deeper conversations about mortality, meaning, relationships and what makes a life meaningful.
The role of the teacher is not necessarily to provide answers. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer is a safe space where students can ask difficult questions, listen to different perspectives and recognise that some questions do not have simple answers.
What about the adults?
There is another part of this conversation that we sometimes overlook. When someone in a school community dies, teachers are also affected. A teacher may be grieving while trying to support a class. A coordinator may be dealing with the loss of a colleague while trying to maintain continuity for students. A principal may need to make difficult decisions while experiencing the same emotions as everyone else.
This is why I think preparation cannot be limited to students. Schools also need cultures where adults can acknowledge grief and support one another. Counsellors and pastoral teams play an important role, but support should not begin only after something happens. A healthy learning community should already have relationships, trust and structures that allow people to respond to difficult moments with care.
There are now centres and organisations in different parts of the world that provide spaces to explore death, dying, grief and spirituality, including conversations sometimes described as the “art of dying.” Whether or not we agree with every approach, their existence raises an interesting question for education: if adults are actively seeking spaces to learn how to understand death and dying, why do we rarely create similar opportunities for young people to explore these ideas in developmentally appropriate ways?
What does it mean to prepare someone for life?
Perhaps this is where I return to the statement we use so often: “Schools prepare students for life.”
If that is truly one of our purposes, should we prepare students only for the experiences we hope they will have, or also for the experiences we know they will eventually encounter?
Can we help children understand that grief can look different for different people? Can we give them the language to say that they are hurting, that they miss someone, or that they simply do not know how they feel? Can we teach them how to be present for someone who is grieving without feeling that they have to find the perfect words? Can we help teachers recognise that they are allowed to grieve too?
And perhaps most importantly, can we create learning communities where difficult conversations are not automatically avoided simply because they make adults uncomfortable?
Death is inevitable, but talking about death does not mean frightening children or taking away their innocence. It can mean giving them a deeper understanding of life, relationships, empathy and the experiences that connect us as human beings.
Maybe preparing students for life is not about giving them answers to every difficult question. Perhaps it is about helping them develop the courage, language, empathy and inner resources to face questions for which there are no simple answers.
What place should death, grief and loss have in education? When a member of our school community dies, are we simply responding to an unexpected event, or are we drawing on a culture that has already helped us learn how to face difficult moments together?
Perhaps we do not need to teach children how to die. Perhaps we need to teach them how to live with a deeper understanding of life, including the reality that one day, life will end.
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