Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

The focus of this course is to provide the student with an in-depth understanding of the process of dying. By examining the process of dying, one's personal response to death as well as society's reaction and responsibilities toward dying, the student will gain new insights in caring for the dying person.

COURSE DETAILS:

A course about death is in effect, a course about life. Life expectancy and the quality of living and dying shift across historical time and geopolitical space, and our cultural values, social organization and psychological orientations to death and dying vary accordingly. The media commonly portrays and often sensationalizes stories of death and dying, and these reports shape popular opinion. In this class, students are encouraged to adopt a wide view of the topic so as to be able adopt a more critical stance that considers how death and dying might be variously encountered depending on the intersections of age with ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, stigma and cultural values. Topics of enquiry include but are not limited to advance directives and living wills, the right to die/physician-assisted suicide, palliative care and hospice, dying at home vs. an institution, life-sustaining technology and DNR orders, burial rites, the meaning of death and the afterlife, and grief and bereavement. In the sixth week of the course, up to ten Continuing Studies 55+ students join the class. This blended format provides an opportunity for all students to learn from one another’s diverse experiences in relation to course materials.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

By the end of this course, the student should be able to
1.       Work collaboratively with classmates in a supportive manner that draws on each other’s strengths to solve problems.
2.       Identify and summarize key themes in the literature on death and dying as it pertains to older adults;
3.       Apply critical thinking to interpretation of assigned readings as evidenced in class discussions, mini-presentations and writing
4.       Use the evidence available to present balanced arguments with respect to controversial media coverage of death and dying issues;
5.       Demonstrate a clear understanding of the diversity of meanings and experiences associated with end-of-life by older adults in Canada.
6.       Integrate evidence on different topics in order to identify priorities for research, policy and practice in the area of death and dying.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: