ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies sources of concern and consolation and presents materials and techniques for eliciting and expressing emotion. It explores the “mutuality” of each subjective experience. The expressive arts convey a rich variety of human experience. Death education is in many ways a misnomer. Life Cycle, an abstract animated film, is an involving, non-threatening instrument that can help students focus on perceptions of life and death. The classroom can be a repository of death experiences, anxieties, and feelings. Art expressions in the form of film, story, dialogue, and drawing can give focus and voice to deeply felt concerns that are present in the student of any age. The classroom provides a conducive yet structured setting in which to become aware of varied views of life and death, different styles of coping with loss, and the grieving process. Death education is not group psychotherapy; nonetheless, open expression in a once taboo area can ease feelings of fear and loneliness.
