Preventing, Perceiving, and Post-Venting Suicide: A Guide for Teachers, for their Students

Author

Justin Vance, Utah State University

Date of Award

12-2019

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Departmental Honors

Department

English

Abstract

To aid teachers with intense time constraints, the following summary includes the bolded, most important points in the paper:

• Thank you for caring about your students; by doing more than just teaching your content, you will change lives ... and may save some.

• Teachers are not responsible for student suicide; we carry enough responsibility already.

• Genuine, assertive communication of confidence and support fosters the safe environment needed.

• Improvements to how we view and speak about suicide can help reshape how young people think about it.

• As young men lose what they care about in pursuit of popular disinterest - they lose what attaches them to life.

• The attachment of grades to self-worth, which students may do naturally, is more likely to project self-worth onto grades rather than increase grades in an effort to improve self-worth.

• Prevent suicide risk by implementing practices that promote positive self-esteem.

• Console yourself by considering that even if it is unclear whether a recommended practice is working, students will recognize that you care and will likely respond.

• Students can greatly benefit not only from learning more about suicide and how to deal with suicidal thoughts, but students who are at risk for suicide will recognize those Teachers as allies, as emotional support.

• The student could feel "stuck," a "failure," unable to see the possibility of something changing in the future, because the brain in crisis can only register what it knows right now.

• Negative thought patterns, if perceived in students' behaviors, can indicate a student's level of suicidal intent.

• Again, Teachers must not blame themselves when they do not recognize signs of suicide, but we should, instead, care about our students and help those that we can.

• Besides contacting others for help, a Teacher who wants to intervene can ask the student directly and empathetically about suicidal thoughts or intent.

• Students who are close to someone who has attempted suicide or died by suicide are more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and depression related to the trauma.

• Experts recommend heavily monitoring high risk students for at least 6 months after another student's suicidal event.

• By differentiating between sadness and depression or other toxic emotional experiences, students will be enabled to experience the grief necessary to cope healthily with their loss.

• While you may want to aid students by more than "just" helping them get help, the key person in my survival was the one who did that: she helped me get help.

View online at Google Doc Link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u3!LxbIF7s9dpbGTEvNPJTkE0lH3ee1sBB7vFw7kmE/edit?usp=sharing

Or through my math webpage at http://5010.mathed.usu.edu/Fall20l8/JVance/

Recommended Citation

Vance, Justin, "Preventing, Perceiving, and Post-Venting Suicide: A Guide for Teachers, for their Students" (2019). Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects. 450.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/honors/450