Representations of death and of spirituality in an experience of death education in a nursery school

Death fear and cultural censorship characterizes Western history starting from the twentieth century till nowadays. The effort of forbidding a philosophy of pain and of denying the salvific value of suffering is leading our culture toward a policy of total anesthesia of grief and pain. Death unawareness usually causes unhealthy behaviors and traumas hard to solve when we face with life frailty. In the past ten years the Chizzolini nursery school, thanks to expressly trained teachers, has been setting up a program on grief related to one of the biggest losses in life: the death of a beloved one. Emotional-affective and death education paths enable to face death fear. In 2013/2014 school year it was introduced a further step toward spiritual education. Spirituality concerns everybody, including children. It has to do with the whole person, with his vision of world, life, death and with his way of relating to reality. Spiritual education is essential. It consists of a path of awareness concerning our perception of being beyond our body. It allows to face and overcome dying fears. The research involves 49 five years old children and their 50 parents (age range 31-45). It aims to investigate death and spirituality representations and if the path is helpful to recognize, work through and be responsible of emotions. The Death Education experience began in October and finished in December. Children’s replies to a death fear managing interview were analyzed with the Atlas.ti qualitative analysis software to identify ways children discursively construct emotions, especially fear and representation of death. The Spiritual Education experience (January-March) followed the death education phase. Children’s responses to the interview on spirituality meaning were analyzed (Atlas.ti) to detect ways children discursively construct the representation of spiritual dimension. How the path reflected on children’s families was also observed. Parents completed two questionnaires, one at the beginning and one at the end of the path. Answers were analyzed through SPAD 5.6, qualitative analysis software, to detect ways parents discursively construct representations of death, spirituality and related emotions. Finally, through the Semantic Differential, ways parents define death and spirituality representation in relation to their symbolic values were detected. Results confirm that emotional/death education paths from childhood, seems to be undoubtedly the best way to work through grief. In earlier years (2005), children’s death representation was hardly violent and there was not room to think of illness and aging. There was death awareness, but with lot of sadness and violence due to departure. Our qualitative analysis reveals that children’s death representation is linked with aging, illness and spiritual believes. Violence is present, but it is slightly significant in relation to the cause of death. Generally, death strikes elderly people, but it can also be caused by illness or accidents, showing children’s considerable understanding that death can occur. There is still separation fear, but deep spiritual beliefs opposed to material ones were detected. Children show a dualist representation of death: death is the end of vital functions, but not the end of existence. Concerning spirituality, results reveal that children have a remarkable ability to keep in touch with their interior life associating this dimension with inner strength that everybody has. Children learnt to listen to their body, to search their interior strength and happiness that helps overcome difficulties. Thanks to this path with children, familiesare enabled to openly discuss this argument. Parents are more likely to talk about death and spirituality not only for a more aware and mature children’s growth but also because, maybe thanks to a new awareness of death, it is useful for themselves. In conclusion it is possible to assert the importance of starting death education programs from childhood and especially of planning paths to enhance deep selfawareness and to develop strong beliefs to rely on during difficult times.