Grief in the Classroom When Teachers Are Grieving Too
Sometimes we need to talk about hard things, like grief in the classroom. Because real life is hard, and real life is in our classroom every day. Our students and we as teachers — we all deal with death. I had to this past school year, and it was hard. It still is. And not everyone experiences it the same way. There's no one-size-fits-all.
On this show, first-grade teacher Haleigh Bresnan and school psychologist Rebecca Brigner share how to help grieving kids and yourself. Their precious children's book about grief, If You're Lucky Enough to Know a Unicorn, honors Kennedy, a baby girl who lived just four months.
I knew this show would be about grief, but it took such an honest turn that it became one of the most authentic conversations about grief in the classroom that I've ever heard. I'm glad we had this conversation and I hope it helps people better understand both what teachers have to help kids with and what we deal with ourselves.
A gentle note: this episode talks about the death of a baby and about miscarriage. If little ones are listening, you may want to save it for later.
When a student is grieving, do you bring it up or let them be? Some kids want to talk. Others just want a normal day with their friends. Haleigh and Rebecca are cousins who work in the same Connecticut school district, so their advice comes from the children they see every day.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How does grief show up in a classroom when a child never says a word about it?
- The one word a school psychologist says every teacher needs when a student is grieving
- Why Haleigh wrote a poem a few lines at a time for six years while rocking her baby son to sleep
- What it's like to show up for your students when you're grieving yourself, and why Haleigh says no one talks about it
- How Kennedy's family reacted when they first saw the book, and what happened the day the first copies arrived
Haleigh Bresnan teaches first grade in eastern Connecticut and wrote If You're Lucky Enough to Know a Unicorn. Her cousin, Rebecca Brigner, is a school psychologist in the same district and illustrated the book.
Full show notes, research, and transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e1003
