A companion piece to my previous post...
35 years in education and nearly 18 years as a Head have taught me about the vital importance of 'the normal' in helping children and adults manage bereavement. And what can happen when the children demonstrate care for the adults...
It’s five years ago today that my Dad died.
I was away from school for quite a few days around that time, as I would expect any colleague to be under such circumstances. On my return I shared in my weekly Friday Morning Meeting (or assembly in non-Quaker speak) a little of what Dad meant to me, and what I had learned from him.
I have told the following story many times since, but it bears repeating; it still provokes a shaky voice whenever I tell it.
Many staff and -tellingly- many of the older students at school made a point of expressing their care and condolences is a way that I had not expected. It was, however, in complete harmony with the way that we try to promote the sort of relationship between adults and children in a school that reflects our Quaker belief that all humans have ‘that of God [or good]’ within them and are thus of equal worth.
But the day after my Meeting, as I was standing outside the school building greeting students and colleagues as I try to do every Saturday, a young man approached me. In year 9 and not an easy communicator in many ways, he looked me in the eyes briefly and then fixed his gaze at a point behind my head.
“I’m really sorry about your dad, Chris” he said, using the ‘first-names’ protocol we embrace here to reflect in practice that equal worth thing.
“I hope you’re OK. If there’s anything I can do, let me know. Bye.” And he pottered into school, leaving me blinking back tears and quite slayed!
That he, along with other young people, felt that it was his role to reach out to me and to show me the sort of care that I would expect to show him in such a situation, was a glorious affirmation of the power of the best -and power- of relationships in a school setting.
The other things I remember from that time was how important it was to be back in routine and how school provided a blessed normality at a time of change.
I’ve seen that many times in my career: a young person who has lost a parent or a sibling or a friend who just wants to be back in something ‘normal’ and familiar to be able to possibly make some sense of the upheaval that awaits them at home. I mentioned in my previous post -of which this is, in effect, an extension- that coming into school (in a holiday and on a Sunday) was the first thing that many students wanted to do on the two occasions that we lost students.
In particular I recall a boy in a previous school -really quite a handful in his own way and somewhat disillusioned- who had received the news in the early hours of the morning that his father had died whilst abroad, and who was in school by 7.30am, waiting for it to open.
School is a haven for many for a variety of reasons. To reinforce what my past post suggested, it plays a role that is often not either understood or acknowledged, but one from which countless young people will have gained courage to cope and go on.
And, I venture, it will never be forgotten.
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