Tagged: “forgiveness”

Greater Good in Education Promotes Forgiveness/Character Education

An internationally-acclaimed organization that provides research-based tools for professional educators is touting the most recent International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) curriculum guide by creating an entire “best practices” forgiveness component for educators on its website.

Forgiveness for Elementary School is a collection of four practices that provide students with tools to help them understand and begin a journey toward forgiveness. Published on the Greater Good in Education (GGIE) website, the module is dedicated to helping teachers implement learning techniques that focus on forgiveness, mindfulness, and character education.

Those techniques are presented in the new IFI Curriculum Guide The Courage to Forgive: Educating Elementary School Children About Forgiveness. The guide was written by Dr. Suzanne Freedman, forgiveness researcher and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa, and Dr. Robert Enright, IFI founder and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Courage to Forgive is a social-emotional learning (SEL)/character education teaching guide that features 16 lessons, each approximately 45 minutes in length. It includes a comprehensive 15-page introduction that explains what forgiveness is (and is not) as well as why forgiveness is such a crucial subject for grade school students. The guide becomes the 15th volume in the IFI’s library of curriculum guides (for students in pre-kindergarten through high school) and the 19th educational training program offered by the IFI.

“Although the new curriculum was written specifically with 4th and 5th grade students in mind, it can be used with younger students as well as those in middle school,” according to Dr. Freedman. “We designed it so that the instructional activities can be modified as necessary for different age groups–even adults.”

The GGIE website component includes these four modules which are based on The Courage to Forgive curriculum:

1. Creating Space for Forgiveness by Letting Go of Anger
In this module, students discuss the negative consequences that anger can have, identify the benefits of letting go of anger after expressing it, and brainstorm ideas for how to cope with anger.

2. Introduction to Forgiveness
Students develop a working definition for what forgiveness is and what it is not, and consider its relationship to justice, revenge, the role of apology, and reconciliation.

3. Understanding Inherent Worth: A Path towards Forgiveness
As a class, students read the book Let’s Talk About Race by Julius Lester to begin a discussion on inherent worth, then think critically about how inherent worth and forgiveness are related.  Links to a virtual reading of the book are included.

4. Learning from Courageous Forgivers
Students read The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles and reflect on the value of being a forgiving person, as exemplified by the story. Again, links to a virtual reading are provided.

“Forgiveness education focuses on recognizing and validating students’ anger, as well as teaching students to express emotions in a healthy way, understand the perspective and humanity of others, and practice empathy and compassion toward others,” Dr. Freedman added. “It is almost impossible to go through life without experiencing hurt, and knowing how to forgive gives students the opportunity to choose love and kindness over anger and hatred.”

Greater Good in Education is produced by the University of California-Berkeley’s award-winning Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). The Greater Good Education Program presents education professionals with practical, scientific insights that help them better understand the roots of kind, helpful–or “prosocial”–behavior and emotional well-being, and how they can build those skills in themselves, their colleagues, and their students.

The 65-page The Courage to Forgive curriculum guide is available in downloadable electronic format on the IFI website for $30. GGIE readers are able to purchase the electronic version at a discounted price of just $15.

My identity is kind of damaged since I left an abusive relationship.  I forgave, but because I did not reconcile, I think of myself as a failure.  I need your help on this.

I recommend that you make this important distinction: Did you fail in the relationship or did the one who abused you cause that failure?  For instance, if the other stopped the abuse and you were able to trust, would you have left the relationship?  I think the answer is no, you would not have left the relationship.  My point is this: You tried, but the other did not make it possible for you to continue with the relationship.  You did not fail and I urge you to say this to yourself so that you can stand in the truth that you did what you could.

If I choose not to forgive, do you think my happiness in the future might be ok if my situation changes for the better?

While the changed situation can lead to more happiness (if the new situation gives you satisfaction or even joy), your degree of happiness might be compromised by resentment in the heart if you were treated deeply unjustly and have not reduced that resentment.  Forgiving can reduce or even eliminate that resentment, opening you to increased happiness in the future.  So, an improved situation and forgiving others for past injustices both can contribute to your happiness.

What if, when I forgive, I am not as happy as I was before the person treated me unfairly.  Then might it be the case that I have not actually forgiven?

When we are treated unfairly by others we sometimes lose something, such as a relationship or we leave our job.  This can lead to unhappiness in the short-term.  This unhappiness does not mean that you are unforgiving.  It means that you have a difficult situation to confront.  The unhappiness in this case is not because of unforgiveness.  Your forgiveness, even if it is to a small degree right now, may help you achieve happiness in the future as you adjust to the new situation.

As a follow-up, do I have to engage in what you call “deep forgiving” to say that I actually forgive?

Actually, no, you do not have to engage in what I called “deep forgiving” (in my answer to your most recent question) for you to be forgiving.  We can forgive to lesser and greater degrees.  If you wish the other well, but you still have anger and are not ready to give a gift of some kind to the other person, you still are forgiving.  There is room to keep growing in the moral virtue of forgiveness and so more practice may prove to be worthwhile for you.