Interpretation of Poetry for Children as an Opportunity for Death Education: the Whys and the Hows

Владимир М. Вукомановић Растегорац, Учитељски факултет, Универзитет у Београду, имејл: vladimir.vukomanovic@uf.bg.ac.rs
Иновације у настави, XXX, 2017/3, стр. 82–93

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doi: 10.5937/inovacije1703082V

 

Резиме: Први део рада указује на потребу за образовањем о смрти (death education) у раном школовању – за то се дају аргументи са психолошког, социоисторијског и библиотерапијског аспекта. Реално стање ствари, међутим, показује да такво образовање није лако замислити, некмоли спровести у оквиру садашњег школског курикулума: чак и кад би постојао простор који би се њему уступио, не постоји кадар компетентан да такав предмет спроведе у дело. Ипак, то не значи да треба одустати од образовања о смрти унутар већ постојећих предмета. Отуда други део текста нуди један могући приступ овој теми на часовима српског језика и књижевности кроз интерпретацију поезије за децу у чијем је средишту мотив смрти. На темељу интердисциплинарних проматрања феномена смрти, указаћемо на аспекте разговора који се на часу могу укључити у интерпретацију књижев-ног текста и тако с ученицима дискутовати о теми која у данашњем образовању има статус табуа.

Кључне речи: смрт, поезија, књижевност за децу, настава књижевности, интердисциплинарност.

 

Summary: The first part of the paper emphasises the need for education about death (death education) in early formal education, for which the author provides arguments from the psychological, sociological and biblio-therapeutic perspectives. The reality, however, shows that the education about death cannot be created easily, let alone implemented, within the current school curriculum: there is no empty slot in the curriculum that could be filled with it, nor are there teachers in Serbia competent enough to carry out the burden of such education. Still, if there is no room for a complete course, we should not give up on the idea of introducing partial education on the topic of death within the existing individual school subjects. Therefore, in the second part of the paper, we offer one possible approach to this topic in the Serbian language and literature classes through the interpretation of poetry for children with the motive of death in its center. Based on the interdisciplinary observation of the phenomenon of death, we will point out the aspects of discussion on this topic that can be involved in the interpretation of literary texts inside the classroom – this could also be helpful in discussing with pupils the topic that has the status of a taboo in modern education.

Keywords: death, poetry, literature for children, teaching literature, interdisciplinarity.

 

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Copyright © 2017 by the authors, licensee Teacher Education Faculty University of Belgrade, SERBIA. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original paper is accurately cited.

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