Children's poetry as an invitation to a conversation about death: Attitudes of early years teachers, school teachers and parents

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present an investigation of the roles of early years teachers, school teachers and parents in the upbringing of children and the potential introduction of poems with the theme of death into the curriculum. The survey method was used for collecting data. The respondents were a pre-defined group of 110 early years and school teachers and 72 parents. The results of the survey show that the greatest number of respondents are complacent with including the theme of death as part of the curriculum. Justification of their opinion was largely based on the idea that death is an inherent and imminent part of nature. The respondents considered poems which portrayed the death of a plant as the best choice for children. The least appropriate was considered the theme of death of a person. Analyzing the respondents' answers to questions in the survey; we can see that respondents consider it the most desirable to include topics which include situations that children are familiar with, the opportunity for children to learn something from the poem, as well as to establish a connection with past experiences in different areas. There is an exceptional need for expression to be clear and concrete, and it is better for death to be presented in a comical rather than a tragic manner.