In the past couple of months, students have experienced peer deaths as well as our assistant principal. Have yall ever wondered why our staff has not spoken about those tragedies that have happened? As a student, I feel that it is really important to speak on those things because if not then it puts off the impression that people don’t care and It can be very upsetting to families and close friends. School should teach us about life, but why is it turned down to talk about stuff like this?

In the past couple of months, we have dealt with the loss of other peers. It is a tragedy about what happened to those that were close or related to them. In December the student body was impacted by the passing of a student and then had to re-experience the feeling of another loss again in January. Unfortunately, we did have to go through it again with the loss of our Assistant Principal Mr. Jackson. A lot of staff and students were shocked by the sad news. It was almost hard to believe. With that being said I really think it is important to allow people to address it or even do a moment of silence for the sad losses just to show respect towards them. 

According to JoinCake.com “Talking about death and dying helps you become comfortable with what it means to die. The more you talk about it, the easier it is to open up to others about your fears and anxieties.” As this article says, it is good that we allow people to have that safe zone to be able to just vent and talk things out. Death is a part of life and the only thing we can do is allow people to open up about how they feel and give them time to heal. Giving someone the environment to talk about it and heal in the right way can prevent them from healing in a bad way. The article Queensland government adds on and says “Having open conversations about death and dying allows us to consider how we feel about different options for end-of-life care, how we would prefer to live our final days, and how we want our lives to be celebrated and remembered. When people who haven’t had conversations about death and dying become seriously ill or injured, often their families have to make decisions on their behalf about the medical care they receive. This can cause distress if they aren’t sure they are making the right choices for their loved ones and might mean the person receives treatments that they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves.” 

After asking around about why the school addresses death or how they felt about it I was told,” They do it so that other people won’t feel the need to harm themselves to get attention.” However, I have heard other students say “That’s a dumb reason” or “Are they serious.” I understand both sides. From a teacher’s perspective students like attention and will do a lot of things to get it. However, while being a student I feel like other students do things to honor the losses anyway and nothing happens then. To other students, it may feel a little bit of the admin not caring or sweeping it under a rug, while the admin is just trying to help everyone stay safe. To avoid the situation of  “ignoring what happened” I think that the admin should make it clear to everyone why they do what they do and help them understand all the way not just a little bit.

With that being said, we should allow counselors to pull those aside who are going through tough things such as losing someone that way people know they always have an adult to rely on to help them in the right direction. Instead of pushing it to the side or not addressing it at all. Or even do a moment of silence for things like that that happen out of respect that things like these are topics that should allow people to be more aware of situations. Another idea could be to have like a course or topic in our advisory class talking about good ways to handle grief.