To present a controversial topic in an interesting and engaging way in order to provide students with different ideas on death and dying from ethical and philosophical perspectives in a historical overview and contemporary practices.
Lesson plan
Death and Dying
In this class, students will confront human encounter with death and dying and different ethical approaches to the issue. Students will watch a short video of a dying man who intimately talks about the experience he is going through, as well as read a text which is a testimony by a widow of her late husband's wish to go through assisted suicide due to his terminal illness. We will also introduce some philosophical perspectives on death and dying in order to provide a wider consideration of the topic.
| Author / creator | Curator | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Zoran Kojčić | Zoran Kojčić | 04/2019 |
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Aims and objectives
Content
First, we show a short video to students: When I die - Lessons from the Death Zone. This video is easily found on You Tube and Vimeo. It shows an intimate portrait of a dying man facing his biggest challenge in life. After the video, teacher starts the discussion about students experience of the video and what they have seen. Encourage emotions and personal affection which the story engages in.
In the second part, we present students with different historical understandings of the topic, from Plato's Socrates (in Phaedo), then Lucretius, and later Camus and Freud (examples). We shortly show them the outline of these thinker's relation toward death and in Socratic dialogue question student's views on what historical philosophers wrote and said.
In third and final part we turn to text (PDF: Euthanasia), and together read parts from also intimate story by a woman whose late husband went through an assisted suicide. After reading, students comment the text and their own views and thoughts about the subject. Short discussion on the topic of assisted suicide and it's ethical dilemmas.
Learning activities
Students will:
- Learn about new ethical and philosophical theories and views
- Examine what historical philosophers have tought and wrote on the topic
- Express their own thoughts about the topic
- Engage in discussion on the topic after watching and reading real life contemporary examples
Materials and resources
Use of video and text with recent examples of how ordinary people deal with death and dying provides students with very concrete examples and situations people find themselves in every day and how real the situation with death actually is. We choose intimate stories on purpose in order to show the emotion which goes hand in hand with it and drives empathy and care for other human beings.
Location
This workshop was done as part of Ethics curriculum in high schools in Croatia. The workshop was done in high schools in Vukovar and Dalj with students age 14 - 18.
Time
This workshop can be done in a 45 minutes long class, as they are in Croatia. However, depending on teacher as facilitator, it could be prolonged to 90 minutes, given that many new materials or questions could be presented. The time will always depend on the facilitator and their own judgement which parts of the workshop are most important and the dinamic of the group.
Teacher role
Teacher provides students with different set of materials and sources which offer them different views on the topic. In using Socratic style of questioning during the class, teacher engages students to interact with historical ideas about the topic, from Socrates to Freud.
Grouping / classroom
Usually individual work and a group discussion with an entire class.