Student Died

[snowflake]

Yesterday a friend of mine called to tell me that one of his M3 students died 3 hours earlier. He was in my M1 computer class and in my M2 English class, new the boy well.

RIP

Question, how to talk to his friends about what happend? (He was sick, but it happened in less than a week).

[romulus]

Yesterday a friend of mine called to tell me that one of his M3 students died 3 hours earlier. He was in my M1 computer class and in my M2 English class, new the boy well.

RIP

Question, how to talk to his friends about what happend? (He was sick, but it happened in less than a week).

Are you fluent in Thai? You may want to talk to the school counselor. Most schools should have a teacher in charge of counseling.They would be trained to handle grief and trauma.

[Ijustwannateach]

When students and their family members die, it can confront a teacher with his own fears and past experiences surrounding family and death. Make sure that you examine and take care of your own feelings about this sad occasion, too.

My observation about the *public* attitude towards death in Thailand is that people project an unconcerned air over it, even in regard to their own family- I presume that private mourning may be quite different.

[snowflake]

I might be over the top but I have never felt that sad when people around me die, I look at it as a normal part of life.

yes it is sad that he died, I personally will not be sleepless over this, just as i did not lose any sleep when my father died long time ago. I feel more for his friends and family now that they are left behind and have to put up a brave face.

I have spoken to some of the students today and their M3 teacher is taking them down to the temple. I will go on another day as there will be millions of people there.

I do not think that Thai teachers are trained to deal with anything like this, what happend makes them sad but still they continue the classes in a normal way.

Each person handles this differently and I am sure that if this was one of my M2 students I would be down there all the time, he "left" me last year. Still, the school will be more quiet without him.

Thanks for your replies.

[bruceboy]

What did the student actually die from? Regardless, so sad and young.

[PeaceBlondie]

The only tragedy I've suffered in six years here was the death of my best, brightest student. Students cried upon hearing it, but even his best friend would stop talking about it later, to avoid crying. Only the widowed mother was allowed to cry openly at the cremation. It broke my heart. Sometimes when older Thais die, it is no big deal. I still miss him, and I think his Thai friends do, too.

[Scott]

It's very sad when someone so young dies. I currently have a student who has a progressive disease (no one seems to know what it is), but he isn't expected to live very long (I am guessing a few years--unless he gets pneumonia or something like that). I had another student who drowned.

It's always sad.