Life, Death, and the Teacher: Negotiating the Personal and Professional in Holistic Teacher Education’s Shadow of a Taboo

Holistic teacher education calls for nurturing the ‘whole teacher’, yet often omits the foundational themes of life and death, particularly within cultural contexts where they are potent taboos. This Grounded Theory study investigates how Chinese university educators’ perceptions of their preparation in life and death education can inform more holistic teacher training. Data from eight educators reveal a core phenomenon of constantly Negotiating the Personal & Professional in the Shadow of a Taboo. Our resulting theoretical model illustrates this negotiation: educators’ practices are shaped by personal realms of experientially formed understanding, constrained by professional realms of perceived risk and rigid role definitions, which in turn generate a systemic gap in support. This analysis moves beyond identifying a training deficit to propose a tripartite solution. Educators envision a holistic teacher education that is awareness-based, creating space to explore personal journeys, one that is boundary-conscious, equipping them with practical skills for triage and referral rather than counseling, and one that is systemically minded, integrating teacher development within a robust institutional well-being ecosystem. We conclude that by addressing all three realms of the model, personal, professional, and systemic, teacher education can begin to fill the existential void at its heart, fostering the resilience and compassion essential for educating the whole person.