Education

On the Vital Importance of Forgiveness Education

From the pen of Patrick Wells, producer, director, video journalist:

“Formal Forgiveness Education, invented by Robert Enright, is the best idea the Human Race has had since Jesus preached Forgiveness.”

Many people on the planet continue to exist within a tribe, sect, gang, race or mentality, unable to overcome hatred or prejudice against another group. This frequently manifests itself as violence. Learning how to forgive may be the best and fastest way to end systemic negativity against “other peoples.”

The best opportunity we have is to treat forgiveness as a skill and teach it at an early age in our elementary schools. If we can convince our children of the power and importance of forgiveness, when they become adults they will certainly be able to make effective use of this vital skill.


“Forgiveness has the potential to transform our communities that have not known peace for decades and reshape our world.”

First published in WashingtonPost.com, 2010. Read the full article: “Embracing Forgiveness Education to Reshape our World.”

So, Then, Does Forgiveness Education Work?

Short answer: Yes.

Some of our latest findings, soon to appear on this website, are these:

A recent study on forgiveness education, published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, was done with middle school students in Korea who are bullied and who do the bullying.  The results showed that our forgiveness program helped these students reduce in anger and hostile attribution, and increase in empathy. Their academic grades improved and they reduced in behavioral aggression and delinquency. Some of these adolescents were in a correctional facility for their aggressive behavior.

And here are some quotations from school administrators and teachers who have used our forgiveness education curricula:

“The work of Professor Enright has helped us develop the life skills of hundreds of children in North Belfast and is continuing to impact on their lives.” Claire Hillman, Principal, Ligoniel Primary School, Belfast, Northern Ireland

“As teachers we are always promoting the positive attributes and virtues we wish those in our care to portray. The Forgiveness (Education) Programme consolidated our aspirations for kindness, generosity, sharing and understanding. It gave us an extra tool to enhance our pupils’ experiences.” Gary Trainor, Vice Principal, Mercy Primary School, Belfast.

Students celebrate “Forgiveness Class Graduation”
      at Holy Family Primary School in Belfast

Dinah McManus, Principal, Holy Family Primary School, Belfast, has  dubbed Holy Family as a ‘Forgiving School’ because they have imbedded the virtue of forgiveness into their school ethos. Mrs. McManus states, “I can say with confidence and some pride that in creating a ‘forgiveness ethos’ in Holy Family we have provided our children with a very nurturing environment which reflects the essential elements of our Mission Statement: We are a living Faith community, centred on the Gospel values of love, justice and forgiveness, within which each member of our school community is valued and respected.”

“The Forgiveness Education Programme has spent the past ten years dedicated to helping children, schools and communities develop a better understanding of what it means to value all people, to understand our own and others’ humanity and to practice respect, kindness, generosity and forgiveness.” Becki Fulmer, The Corrymeela Community, Belfast

“I will continue to teach the program every year until I retire as I only see HUGE positive life-changing behavior changes in the students who are touched by the program. My wish is that all students in Milwaukee Public Schools and other districts could be touched in some way by the powerful message the program delivers.” Amy Domagalski, teacher, Milwaukee Public Schools

The Generosity of the Rev. Desmond Tutu

I first met Rev. Tutu in March, 1995.  Well, I did not exactly meet him….I met his voice.  We were holding the first conference on person-to-person forgiveness ever held at any university in the world and we were doing so at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Rev. Tutu was kind enough to give the opening remarks by recorded audio to what now is an historical event–the first academic forgiveness conference.

I was immediately impressed with his warmth and wisdom.  He talked of the African word ubuntu, of how we are all persons because of other persons.  He urged us all to try to overcome the animosities that have wounded the world because of a lack of forgiveness.  It was a challenge that is still with me, 19 years later.

Rev. Tutu recently has expanded his vision of stopping animosities worldwide by asking all of us to take the bold step of trying to learn to forgive as a global calling—for each of us—now—-for the good of humanity as well as for ourselves as we unburden from resentments that can pollute human interactions.

The new plan, announced recently by Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu, concerns the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge, a free online program starting May 4, 2014, designed to teach the world how to forgive.

The 30-day program is based on a systematic process of forgiving that the Tutus present in their new book, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Healing Our World.

We have seen how Rev. Tutu guided the Truth and Reconciliation Commission with such compassion as he absorbed a country’s intense pain borne out of grave injustice.  We have read his book, No Future without Forgiveness.  He has lived forgiveness.  He has embodied it.  We can’t wait for his global initiative.  We hope you take a look and benefit from a man and his daughter who have known suffering.

Robert

Why Forgiveness Education Matters

Do you see that 6-year-old over there?  He lives with his mother.  His father abandoned the family two years ago.  His mother does not know it, but deep down in his heart, he is saying this about himself, “I’m not much.  Dad left me and if I was more than ‘not much,’ he would still be here.”

As he grows to adolescence, this young man deepens his conviction that he is “not much” and now even believes that most people walking around on this planet are “not much.”  Deep down in his heart, he is saying this about others, “There is too much hurt in this world.  People are just mean.  They are out for themselves.  Even forgiveness is just an insincere move to keep a false peace….while we all walk around saying ‘no one is much.’”

How many children are heading toward this same set of conclusions about oneself and others?  Too many.

Forgiveness education helps young children, as young as age 4, to know this truth:  We all possess inherent worth.  We all have built-in precious value that no one can take away from us….not even those who proclaim to us, “You’re not much.”

Through forgiveness education, the student learns this answer: “Not only am I of precious worth, but so are you, the one who wants to convince me that I am ‘not much.’”

The world needs forgiveness education so that we can rescue the young from these lies….and so that they can pick themselves up…..and others up…….and create a more peaceful world.

Robert

Why Our Anti-Bullying Forgiveness Program Matters

“Bullying will not be tolerated in this school.”

“You are entering a no bullying zone.”

Consciousness raising is good precisely because it challenges each of us to be our best self, to do good for others.

Yet, sometimes some students are so emotionally wounded that their anger overwhelms the attempt at consciousness raising.  The students are so very wounded that they cannot listen well.  Some are so wounded that they refuse to listen.  Even others are so mortally wounded that they find a certain pleasure in inflicting pain on others.  It is when it gets to that point—others’ pain equals pleasure for the one inflicting it—that we have a stubborn problem on our hands.  No signs, no consciousness raising, no rally in the gym, no pressure to be good is going to work…..because the gravely wounded student is now beyond listening.

Yet, we have found a hidden way to reverse the trend in those who are so hurting that they derive pain from hurting others.  It is this:  Ask the hurting students, those labeled so often as bullies, to tell their story of pain, their story of how others have abused them.  You will see this as the rule rather than the exception: Those who inflict pain over and over have stories of abuse toward them that would make you weep.  In fact, we have seen the weeping come from the one who has bullied others, the one who has inflicted serious pain onto others.  He wept because, as he put it, “No one ever asked me for my story before.”  His story was one of cruel child abuse from an alcoholic father who bruised him until he bled.  And no one ever asked him about this.  And so he struck out at others.  Once he told his story, he began to forgive his father and his pain lessened and thus his need to inflict pain on others slowly melted away.

This is what our Anti-Bullying Forgiveness Program does.  It aids counselors and teachers in bringing out the stories in the pain-inflictors so that their own pain dramatically decreases.  As this happens, through forgiveness, bullying behavior is rendered powerless……because in examining their own hurt they finally realize how much hurt they have inflicted…..and with their own emotional pain gone, they have no desire to live life like this any more.

Come, take our anti-bullying curriculum and save the life of at least one child and help prevent inflicted pain on countless others.

Robert