Grappling with Life After Loss as Educator Leaders: An Invitation to Transformational Educator Grief Healing Work

Abstract

When a student dies, educators must cope with their own grief while supporting the grief of their surviving students. Educators have navigated student death for centuries, but today’s educators face new circumstances—gun-related violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly-common natural disasters—and persistent reminders of student death via 24-hour news cycles and social media feeds. Such experiences occur in the context of a Western propensity to dismiss grief as a distraction from production. Having few or no cultural habits to depend on, school leaders may lack the ability to effectively care for educators in the wake of a student’s death. Outlined herein is the School Crisis Recovery and Renewal project. Described in detail is the Life After Loss Tables: Educators Edition program, a set of practices that aim to rehumanize the educator grief healing process by hosting educators in a co-created supportive and regenerative space. Practical recommendations are outlined.