Abstract:

Numerous authors have been warning about the urgent need to carry out an education for death and tragedy. In the educational sphere, death continues to be impregnated with a taboo that prevents its desirable pedagogical treatment both inside and outside the classroom.

In recent decades, education experts have increasingly advocated for a comprehensive education that is not circumscribed to purely academic matters, but also "educates for life" providing the required basic skills to face life challenges. Our finite condition completely determines our vital process and the way we understand and experience our existence. Without a preparation for death and tragedy, students will be denied the ideas, cognitive tools and pedagogical resources that could help them navigate complicated periods.

In this paper we advocate for overcoming the educational taboo and normalizing debate and reflection on the subject, as silence should always be the last option in such important matters.
This happened in the past with sex education, when the crisis caused by AIDS was a turning point in terms of the educational community's awareness of the harmful consequences of an educational taboo. The pandemic caused by COVID-19, in a way, has come to give reason to all those who have been calling for the inclusion of death and tragedy in our educational system. The mental health of our youth has been greatly affected, finding themselves in many cases helpless and unable to respond, lacking the resources to cope with such a tragic situation.

Consequently, new avenues must be explored to address the scarce presence of death in our current educational context. Death remains a taboo, something we avoid thinking about, reflecting on, even talking about. Likewise, the training of educators in how to better deal with the topics of death and tragedy with their students is practically inexistent, and a long-sustained demand of these professionals.

A first step would be to identify pedagogical resources for an education on death and tragedy. In this paper, Spanish children's folk songs (CFSs) are analysed as a powerful educational resource. Our ancestors did not hide tragedy from the new generations, and infused CFSs with tragic episodes. After carrying out an extensive analysis of the Spanish children's folk songbook, we have found a normalized presence of death and tragedy in its lyrics and messages. We present an analysis of 2,558 CFSs, out of which 506 (19.78%) present at least one tragic element.

Due to their formal and musical characteristics, CFSs have an unbeatable educational potential. They are simple songs, with reduced tonal ranges and lively rhythms, which encourage play and whose ludic component is indisputable and has ensured their survival over the centuries. For all these reasons, they constitute a very interesting educational resource when it comes to addressing death and tragedy, taking advantage of the intrinsic potential of music. Through CFSs, our ancestors have left us a rich legacy, from which we can benefit to achieve the desired holistic education of our children.

Keywords:

Well-being, Covid, Death Education, Folk Song, Resilience.