🧵 8 TIPS FOR TEACHING SUICIDE🧵 A few years ago it struck me that for years I’d been teaching texts featuring suicide - Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, An Inspector Calls - with absolutely zero knowledge of how to talk about suicide in the classroom, effectively and responsibly
I spoke to experts. I spoke to Samaritans and academics working in the field of suicide and suicide linguistics. I did my research. Here’s what you need to know:
1. Signpost suicide support services A PowerPoint giving kids Samaritans or Papyrus contact details you should show kids on days when suicide is a topic of study or discussion
2. Exercise caution when referring to methods of suicide. Don’t talk about which poison Romeo might have used, or how Lady Macbeth might haven died.
3. Avoid ‘over-identification’. Downplay similarities between students and people who kill themselves. Yes, R & J are young and in love. BUT, they are purely literary constructs. They’re not real. Even if they were, they don’t have access to the support services available now.
4. Avoid too much detail Where possible, try and gloss over any depictions or details of suicide. You don’t need to analyse the Inspectors description of Eva Smith’s method of suicide.
5. Never say a method of suicide is easy, quick, or likely to end in death. I’ve had students in the past discuss the relative effectiveness of Romeo and Juliet’s different methods. Shut these conversations down by saying both are avoidable.
6. Avoid aftermath blame talk. People contemplating suicide don’t need the extra burden of guilt, invoked by phrases like, ‘Oh how would their families feel’. Bare this in mind when discussing the end of Romeo and Juliet.
7. Avoid glorifying suicide. IMPORTANT one this. In R&J, it didn’t need the death of two young people to forge a peace between two families led by adult men. It didn’t. Also, we need to talk about Lurhmann….
Lurhmann’s production of Romeo and Juliet glorifies suicide. The death scene has been designed to look beautiful, and the ultimate act of romance. Shakespeare DID NOT INTEND THIS…
In Shakespeare’s death scene there are no candles or flowers. The dead teenagers do not look like they’re sleeping. Shakespeare’s scene is a ‘detestable maw’ of gore and blood. Paris and Tybalt’s mangled corpses intrude on the scene. It’s horrible. Make students aware of this.
8. Use the right language. This should help:
Full details and explanatory notes around the nuance etc can be found in Boys Do Cry, out this May, but you absolutely DO NOT need this to teach suicide, better. Samaritans media guidelines are useful, and free! https://www.samaritans.org/abo...
@Positivteacha Makes it all the harder when you have a pupil in the class whose parent died from suicide.
@AgentApostrophe You’re right. I’m sorry to hear this.
@Positivteacha Thank you. This is such an important, interesting and awakening thread for parents. I have never thought to ask my daughter’s school how they deal with this subject in these texts.
@nataliemynard Pleasure!
@Positivteacha This is excellent. Currently teaching ethical teachings on Euthanasia and this remains relevant.
@Positivteacha Thanks so much for this thread. I taught all of these without this knowledge and wonder how many of the traps I fell in. Have subsequently had lots of suicide support training (not teaching related) so know enough to know this is all superb and potentially life-saving advice!
@Positivteacha @alexbellars Thank you, so useful for Spanish, our play ends with a suicide. @English_MrsD maybe useful for you?
@Positivteacha Well done for researching and sharing such important information. Thank you.
@Positivteacha Thank you for this, I think about this often, especially when teaching Death of a Salesman and Lady Macbeth. Teaching lit can be very bleak. Duty of care to pupils and staff is so important.
@Positivteacha Very timely; I taught Suicide in the Trenches for the first time in a few years yesterday and was perhaps for the first time very conscious of my language and of the potential for this to trigger students.
@Positivteacha @loiskitten there's some excellent points for us to consider here. Thank you!
@Positivteacha This is really interesting. My son is doing both of these books currently in year 11 and one of his cohort died by suicide last week. He’s been studying Romeo and Juliet this weekend for a test… 😕
@Positivteacha Hit me the year I taught AIC after losing a close ex-employee to suicide. If I struggle, how do children cope if they've lost someone??
@Positivteacha Thank you for sharing and raising these important issues. 🙌
@Positivteacha @Manor_HOD @Manor_PE_DSL I’m by no means an expert in teaching texts or in safeguarding but I found this a really interesting thread to read through. Food for thought?
@Positivteacha @Beegale73 - this is the thread I mentioned.
@Positivteacha This is brilliant Thankyou
@Positivteacha About time this was addressed.
@Positivteacha Thank you. Excellent advice.
@Positivteacha Fantastic thread. So important - thank you.
@Positivteacha Thank you. So very important. Many years ago, aged 26, a university friend of mine took her own life. I was teaching Hamlet to Y13 at the time. A few weeks later the sister of one of the students attempted suicide. We had to talk through "to be or not to be", and it was hard.
@Positivteacha @loobey41 Thank you.
@Positivteacha Thank you for this.