What can a teacher do to help grieving students?

     This week was unlike any other week I’ve had while student teaching. Dover had two students involved in a car accident, the girl in the car had passed away while the boy walked away with minor physical injuries. Both of these students were involved in Dover’s Ag program and were active members in extracurricular activities in school. This accident sent a wave of grieving and sadness among the community and the school. So how do you help students work through something like this? 

    Monday when the news of the accident was released to students, there was multiple reactions from crying, being unfazed, and numb. All of the reactions are acceptable for students to have and that’s something that as a teacher I believe it's important to understand. Not every student knew those involved in the crash so it didn’t affect them personally but they felt bad for the situation that happen. Others knew both of students very well, or had something in their past that triggered an emotional response. Every single student deal with emotions in their own way and are affected by events differently. 

 

    Due to the events on Monday, we did not hold an “official class”, we did not teach any content. It was a day just to get work done that they were missing or work on there SAE entries. This also became a therapy session for some students, Ms. Marsh and I were available all day to be there for students and talk with them. There was lots of hugs and tissues and talking about what happened and how it affected them and what their next steps are to healing.  As a teacher it is devastating to watch so many students cope with what happened, because there is nothing that you can do to make them feel better right there and then. The only thing that you can do for them is be there when they need it. 

 

    So how does this effect Teachers? I’ve watched a lot of teachers cope with the students, as some of them have lost multiple students over their careers. One teacher had lost 28 students in 17 years of service, which is unbelievable to think about. This creates a lot of emotions for teachers to deal with while be there for all the students that they have in their class.

 

    My personal experience was just being emotionally and physically drained by the end of the day. it's so hard to watch students be in pain and the only thing you can do for them is just be there and hope that what you say helps them, showing them you care. There was also a point when I realized that I needed to take care of myself when I went home so that I could go back to school and be there for students. 

 

    This is something that I never thought would really happen while teaching especially student teaching. But I am grateful for the opportunity to have Ms. Marsh show me some best practices of how to help students through this and how to address hard situations.