“We don’t even know because we haven’t died yet.”-Brendan

In January, the ‘Airplane Group” went to the Santa Monica Airport and Kris and Adriana captured an impromptu and theoretical dialogue about death:

The teachers discussed that there was a hesitation among us as professionals about to how to support those children who are experiencing death within our community.

Currently, we work with the child in a small group that includes only their family and the teacher. We are now questioning ourselves and our practice; if we believe so strongly in a community of support, why are we practicing a private processing of death? Our reluctance to engage the whole group in support hinges on conflicting ideals. Are we working toward a culture of tolerance for other’s death stories or are we seeking a communal response of soothing gestures for the one who is grieving? We agreed that we want to move toward a communal support, so we took a theoretical discussion of death as an opportunity to look more deeply.

Brendan: Now the jets are made and it’s going to start all over again right, Kai?
Kai: No.  It’s not going to start all over again from when they build the airplanes.
Brendan: Ya, yes.  They are.
Teacher Kris: Why do they have to start all over?
Brendan: It starts all over because people have lives. When people die they get alive again then they have another life. And that’s when the airplanes start over.
Raven: Oh no, no.  People don’t come alive when they ‘re dead. It only happens in princess stories.
Brendan: No, we die for real.
Raven: When we die, you know what I’m saying, when I die, when we die actually, we, um, don’t come alive again.
Chase: When people die you can imagine they are real in your hearts.
Brendan: No. When you get alive again for real.
Kai: No.
Felix: No.  When you die, that’s the real time you die.
Brendan: We don’t even know, we don’t even know because we haven’t died yet.  We’re still kids so we don’t know if we’re gonna get alive again or stay dead forever or the rest of our lives I mean. So let’s keep moving!

Gathering perspectives to scaffold beliefs.

Reviewing video of the children’s beliefs of what happens after death (you come back alive, you disappear, you go to heaven), the children paused the replay to state their disagreement as they listened.

Kai: No, no, I don’t agree. What is                  heaven?
Raven: My grandma’s dog died and he disappeared, so heaven might be underground, ’cause  when you die you get buried                    underground.
Felix: What? No way.
Teacher Flora: What will we share  with the children at reflection                meeting?
Kai: We need to find out which one  do they think is true? Do we die and go to heaven, or come alive again or do you          disappear?

We’re curious if Kai’s idea to take these questions to the larger group is to gain support for his own theory. We wonder: How can children show acceptance of other’s ideas while maintaining their own beliefs? How will this awareness of other’s perspectives sensitize them to dealing with grieving classmates in the future? Will this investigation promote a classroom culture of tolerance?