In the early 1970s, inspired by the introduction of Sex Education classes, some religious leaders and funeral directors suggested adding Death Education classes to high school curriculums. And apparently such classes were introduced, for a while, at some schools.
The Raleigh Register Beckley Post-Herald - Aug 14, 1971
The book Mind and Society Fads, by Frank Hoffmann and William Bailey, offers some info about how Death Education classes were conducted:
High school students were asked to select one literary passage concerning death that most closely reflected their personal belief. The images ran the gamut from those of utter destruction to immense delight in death. Next, elementary school children compiled a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that classified the causes of death, especially the ones that most affected elementary school-aged populations. For high school and above, students completed a personal death inventory, answering such questions as, "Are you afraid of death?" "Have you made plans for your final days?" and "Do you believe that there are people to whom you wish to make peace with, express gratitude to, praise, thank, or express love to prior to your death?"...
Death education classes also required students to write position papers on a controversial death issue, study cryogenics, debate the religious aspects of death, play "Run For Your Life" — what would you do if you only had a limited time to live, and envision what might precipitate the deathblow(s) to earth...
Paradoxically, teaching children and adolescents about death has not raised parental hackles like sex education. During the same time that death education (i.e., the most morbid aspect of living) struggled for a foothold, classroom instruction about sexuality (i.e., the most vivid aspect of living) met with considerable resistance.
According to Harold G. McCurdy, a professor at the University of North Carolina, the first step was to not send your kids to public school.
Not that he had anything against public schools, having sent his own kids to one. And he questioned whether raising kids to be geniuses was a desireable goal, since he believed that geniuses often led isolated, unhappy lives.
Nevertheless, based on his study of the childhoods of 29 geniuses, conducted back in 1960, he determined that "three striking factors seemed to be typical of the childhood pattern of genius":
one, close association with an interested adult; two, relative isolation from other children; and three, a great development of imagination and fantasy.
"Public school education," he declared, "works against these three things."
Apparently McCurdy's study has been embraced by some proponents of home schooling. Although I don't get the sense that it was his intention to promote that.
June 1992: Dick W. Pirkey Jr., a teacher at Harmony High School in Texas, was fired from his job after a student in his animal husbandry class castrated a pig with his mouth. Pirkey acknowledged that he had described such a procedure to his students, but insisted that the 17-year-old had performed the procedure without his permission and before he could stop it.
Seven months elapsed between the incident and Pirkey's termination. Explaining the delay, the School Superintendent admitted that when the board had first heard about the in-class oral castration they had thought it was a joke and that someone was trying to play a trick on them.
Pirkey appealed his termination, noting that oral castration was described in a state-approved textbook, and that it was also "routinely practiced throughout the state, but not in our locale, and is normally performed on sheep."
However, his firing was ultimately upheld by the State Commissioner of Education who pointed out that instead of stepping in to stop the student from performing the procedure, Pirkey had actually taken pictures of him as he did it. In fact, Pirkey even took a picture of the student "holding the testicle overhead in a victory stance."
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.