There is a taboo surrounding death in our North American culture. We're not sure how to talk about it, or how to connect through it. The HBO series Six Feet Under breaks this taboo with its honest, humorous and moving look at death and dying. There are important lessons to be drawn from this series. Teachers could revolutionize their classrooms as this show has revolutionized television: by dealing with issues that most tend to avoid. Parker Palmer and Mary Rose O'Reilley's views on education provide a foundation for this thesis. First, teachers need to recognize the fragility of their students as well as their own. Second, they need to appreciate that loss comes in many forms, and that mourning is often necessary. Third, teaching needs to create a space for both students and teachers to express themselves. Fourth, this space also needs to exist in order for both teachers and students to truly listen to one another. Fifth, teachers need to change their own perception of death and dying if they expect students to do the same. Last, teachers need to promote the idea of connection with the world outside the classroom. This thesis's intention is to bring awareness and acceptance around death and dying to individuals, particularly teachers, by exploring Six Feet Under through the characters' journeys, and extracting its many valuable lessons.

No description available.

Youth today experience high degrees of loss and change, resulting in grief (Goldman, 2001). Little evidence exists of school counselors' academic preparation in grief counseling. The purpose of this research study was to determine how CACREP school counseling programs prepare school counselors in the areas of grief and loss, including course delivery methods, included curriculum areas, and reasons for exclusion. A quantitative, descriptive design was utilized. The "School Counselors Preparation in Grief/Loss and Substance Abuse Counseling" survey was designed for data collection and sent to the 150 United States CACREP accredited school counseling programs. A total of 79 programs responded, resulting in a 53% response rate. Research results found that 40% of responding CACREP programs did not offer any grief and loss preparation to their pre-service school counselors. Sixty percent indicated providing some training. Data show that 11% of programs required a course and 50% offered an elective course. Additionally, 48% of respondents taught a module on grief and loss within a required course, and 13% through a module in an elective course. Results found 6 respondents included all 17 suggested curriculum areas, while the mean for curricula inclusion was 11 areas. Research indicated 78% of programs not offering grief and loss cited a lack of room to add more credits as their exclusion rationale. Furthermore 35% of respondents did not offer curriculum because it was not a CACREP requirement. Lacking trained staff and financial reasons were both reported by 25% of programs as reasons for non-inclusion. Facing grief and loss are realities of life. Helping students to acknowledge and cope with these realities is a necessary task, as loss is a normal, universal experience, encountered repeatedly (Lenhardt, 1997). CACREP standards position that counselor education programs will prepare students to meet the real life counseling situations they will face while working in schools (CACREP, 2001). Research results indicated an inconsistent delivery of appropriate training in grief and loss among responding CACREP school counseling programs. Counselor education programs may wish to examine if they are ethically and effectively preparing their 21st century graduates. Recommendations and limitations are included. / Graduation date: 2004

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, N.Y., 2003. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47).

Thesis (Ph.D.(Psychotherapy))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

No abstract available / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play Therapy)

No abstract available / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play Therapy)

The recent increase in the number of children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by HIV and AIDS in South Africa has placed an added burden on schools as sites of care and support. Education policies mandate schools to develop strategies to support such children, but this is no easy task in contexts where teachers are already struggling to fulfill instructional requirements. Literature reveals that teachers in under-resourced schools, where the problem is more severely experienced regard this increased pastoral role as an added responsibility that they do not feel competent to execute. Since there is unlikely to be any significant improvement in the circumstances of these children in the near future, there is a need to discover creative ways to address this problem. I was led to ask how teachers could support children to better cope in the face of adversity in a way that could be easily integrated into the academic curriculum, so as to minimise the perceived burden of providing care and support. Based on my knowledge of the value of bibliotherapy in promoting resilient coping in individuals, I was interested to see if folktales could be used in a similar way with groups of children. Working from an asset-based perspective, and proceeding from a transformative and participatory epistemology, I adopted an action research design to explore the potential of traditional folktales to enhance positive coping responses in children orphaned and rendered vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. My choice of traditional folktales was influenced by the importance that resilience theory attaches to cultural variables in the resilience process. The participants were isiXhosa speaking children who were orphaned and rendered vulnerable by HIV and AIDS (OVC) between the ages of nine and fourteen years (n=30) in Cycle One who lived in a children‟s home or with foster parents. In Cycle Two, the study was conducted in a school setting with thirty (n=30) participants. I conducted two cycles of reflective action research enquiry to ascertain how folktales could be used to enable teachers to meet both pastoral and academic requirements. In the first cycle, I used a pre-post time series design to explore if merely telling the stories would enhance the resilience of the children. Although this use of the stories was teacher-centred, I knew that it would be an easy and time-saving way for teachers to provide support, if it proved to be effective in enhancing resilience. Drawings and accompanying explanations were used to generate data pre-and post-intervention. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that, post-intervention, there appeared to be an increase in two resilience-enhancing indicators: the children appeared to have a more positive sense of self and improved positive relations with peers/friends. Critical reflection on the process also revealed ethical and methodological concerns and problems when working with vulnerable children. The findings from this cycle informed my second cycle, in which I adopted a more participatory approach to engage the children in making meaning of the stories and explore how they related to their own lives. I used participatory arts based methods such as drawings, collages, drama and more usual qualitative strategies, such as focus group discussion and observation, to generate data. The findings from this cycle suggest that using such strategies will equip teachers with tools to enhance the resilience of OVC in a way that also promotes the attainment of instructional outcomes. This study has contributed important theoretical, methodological and pedagogical insights. Theoretically, this study has contributed to the social ecological perspective of resilience by confirming that cultural resources, such as indigenous African stories (folktales) can enhance the resilience of vulnerable children. Lessons learnt from this study had a methodological contribution to the ethics of working with children and the use of culturally appropriate resources in the field, which were folktales. This study has also contributed to the meaning making implications of using folktales, which can aid the pedagogical strategies that teachers use. Although this study was meant to be small- scale research and was not intended to be generalisable, the findings do suggest that teachers could have a resource that is time efficient, effective and could assist them to reach both their pastoral and academic goals.