November 07, 2000

When Grief Makes Its Way Into the Classroom

Diane Weaver Dunne shares her motivation for writing about tragedy in the classroom.

As I drove home from work a few weeks ago, I saw a woman bending over a new grave at one of the cemeteries in my town. I recognized her as a mother who had recently lost her teenage son.

Most likely she was on her way home from work too. But she had stopped at the cemetery because she had heard there would be a frost that night. As she reached down to cover the mums with a white cloth, she looked as if she were covering her son with a blanket, as she probably had so many times during his life.

A few weeks earlier, when news had quickly spread through my town about her son's suicide, my neighbor's teenage son came straight home from school. He was so shaken by the news that he elected to skip soccer practice. "Why would the captain of a high school soccer team kill himself?" he asked.

There were no answers.

That tragedy prompted me to write about how teachers and schools handle the unthinkable -- suicides, deaths, murders of children. The media have been inundated with school shootings, but those are rare aberrations. What is not an aberration is that children do die. And after the funeral, after the meetings with counselors, students and school staff continue to ask why. They continue to grieve.

Teachers are on the front line every day. And they must face their students long after the shock has ebbed. I wrote When Tragedy Strikes to offer teachers and school administrators tips on how to effectively help students deal with death.

I welcome your comments to today's article. Send your reactions to me at [email protected].