When Eri van den Biggelaar, a Dutch primary school teacher learned that she had only a few weeks to live, she asked her friend the woodshop teacher if he'd build her a casket. Erik van Dijk's response "Why don't you let the children build it?"
The students, ages 4 to 11, are now in the process of finishing the casket, made from thin strips of wood, and they visit van den Biggelaar frequently to describe their progress. Sometimes they play in the unfinished coffin, which is being built in one of their classrooms. Their parents gave consent to the project, which the teachers at Iederwijs school believe is a healthy way to help the children process the death of a popular teacher.
Experts in neighboring Belgium have decried the project, saying the children are too young to appreciate the realities of death. Ms. van den Biggelaar feels their opposition just proves the project's point, sharing her feelings as a little girl when her own grandfather died: "As a little child, I stood with flowers at his grave and did
not know why people were crying."
