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©All the material in this website is copyrighted to Kathleen L. Fowler unless explicitly indicated otherwise.  Permission is granted to use and distribute this material freely but please attribute properly by retaining the full header information. 11/16/99 Page revised July 20, 2006

MMET 314 01 and 02 Death and Dying, Life and Living
Course Objectives
Return to Syllabus http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~kfowler/d&df06syllabus.html

Course Objectives: 
The objectives that follow are not sequential or linear in any sense.  They will be approached in various ways, at various times, and in various pieces throughout the semester's readings, discussions, and writings, etc.
1.  Students will understand and recognize the impact on individuals and society of the universality of impermanence, death, and loss
2.  Students will appreciate the various ways that people can live their own lives, and value their lives to address the inevitability of death and loss
3.  Students will be broadly familiar with historical changes in the Western perception, experiences, and treatment of death and dying, bereavement and loss.
4. Students will have a clear recognition of the significant variability in the experience of death, dying, grief, and healing depending on culture, economics, race, religion, gender, nation and a number of other factors.
5.  Students will understand the uniqueness of death, dying, and bereavement for each individual in terms of relationship, manner of death, complicating emotions, age, circumstances etc.
6.  Students will have a basic familiarity with the field of thanatology, and with research techniques and appropriate resources for thanatology, bereavement counseling, care for the dying, etc.
7.  Students will have sharpened critical thinking skills, research skills, and writing skills.
8.  Students will know the primary formulations of the concepts of the "pool of grief," "stages of grief," "grief work", "the tasks of grief," "the processes of grief" etc. and the way that these models have challenged, refined, and built on one another to offer alternative ways of understanding grief
9.  Students will have a special awareness and appreciation for the experiences and challenges of the caregiver and of strategies that can assist the caregiver
10.  Students will be familiar with key legal, medical and health approaches to dying and death such as hospice, palliative care, living wills etc. and of ethical debates concerning death and dying such as euthanasia, availability of transplants, differential delivery of health care, lack of appropriate insurance, etc.
11. Students will appreciate the rich complexity of literature, humor, art, music, and other cultural and artistic media which address death, dying and loss and which help individuals and cultural groups heal, cope, come to terms with and transcend.
12.  Students will appreciate the multiple ways that people seek to "make meaning" of loss, pain, illness, etc. through spiritual care and/or social activism and/or learning and/or creativity and/or relationship strengthening etc.