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Death Education
Death education is used as a tool to help understand all topics of death and dying. It is used to help change peoples fears and opinions of death and all death related topics. The main focus of death education is humans and their emotions towards death. The result of death education should be that American culture and thoughts on death can be transformed to make the process of death seem easier. Providing death education helps the individuals cope with death as well as help the health care professional aid the family through the process. When a professional is well prepared, they are able to help guide the individual throughout the process. The more information and education one receives, the easier it becomes to change the overall attitude towards death. “The overarching aims of death education are to promote the quality of life and living for oneself and others, and to assist in creating and maintaining the conditions to bring this about” (Benoliel)

Death education can be presented in a formal or informal manner. In a formal setting, death education is taught through classes and any education level and for professionals, it can be presented in a seminar format. Informal education happens voluntarily. It can be in any social situation where death is brought up. This approach is mainly for younger children to help them grasp the concept of death and can be looked at as a life lesson.

History
Death education became a popular topic in the mid-1950’s when there was a spark of interest in death. The death awareness movement started in 1959 after the realization that death had started being viewed as unmentionable. People were not acknowledging their own personal death so Herman Feifel wrote a book The Meaning of Death and he sparked the studies of attitudes towards death. In 1977, V.R. Pin established three periods in our history of death education. The first period was exploration (1928-1957), followed by development (1958-1967) and finally popularity (1967-1977). Today (2014), our culture is still in the popularity period. These periods can be divided further into subcategories; applied and pure. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist who developed the five levels of grief, falls into the category of applied death education. This category is the management of dying and the steps taken after bereavement. The pure approach is the processing in educating about attitudes towards death as well as the understanding of grief and the mourning process. Daniel Leviton (1977) also developed goals that should be achieved with death education. The goals include primary prevention, which is preparing the individual for future death, intervention, which helps personal effects of death and rehabilitation, which is the learning and understanding from death. Death education helps all ages and eases the process for all. “Increased anxiety about death and more thoughts about death might be positive in that it might cause students to appreciate their lives more” (Lindbergh 198).

Methodological Approaches
Death education has two methodological approaches to help with the overall process of death. The first process is the didactic approach, which is meant to improve knowledge of death through lectures and audiovisuals. The second approach, experimental approach, is used to provoke emotions that are usually involved with death, which will later help modify these feelings when death occurs. This approach uses simulation exercises such as role playing and sharing of experiences to help simulate the process of death. Death education usually uses a combination of both these approaches.