Tagged: “Future”
Forgiveness Education Is Peace Education
A 10-week forgiveness education curriculum can be an important component of peace education for students according to a newly published study by Dr. Suzanne Freedman, a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa.
Dr. Suzanne Freedman, Professor, Co-chair of the College of Education Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, University of Northern Iowa.
Dr. Freedman, a long-time research associate of International Forgiveness Institute co-founder Dr. Robert Enright, conducted the project with three classes of fifth graders. The resulting study was published in the April issue of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, an American Psychology Association (APA) publication.
The forgiveness education curriculum used for the project was jointly developed by Drs. Freedman and Enright and employed the Process Model of Forgiveness developed by Dr. Enright. The project incorporated Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) approaches that taught students healthy ways to express anger and other feelings, understand the perspective of others, and practice empathy and kindness.
This article illustrates how forgiveness education can be infused into the curriculum and the importance and benefits of doing so. Readers will learn more about forgiveness as well as how promoting forgiveness as a virtue to students can reward the forgiver, the forgiven, and society at large.
Dr. Suzanne Freedman
“Results from this study illustrate that a 10-week forgiveness education curriculum can be an important component of peace education for fifth grade students,” according to the published report. “Students showed increased forgiveness toward a specific offender and increased knowledge about forgiveness after receiving the education, and students’ verbal reports illustrate that they enjoyed and benefited from this specific curriculum using children’s literature.”
Learn more:
Read the full study – “Forgiveness education as a form of peace education with fifth-grade students: A pilot study with implications for educators.”
The Value of Forgiveness – An article outlining the benefits of forgiveness and the forgiveness education work of Dr. Suzanne Freedman at the University of Northern Iowa.
It’s Okay to Not Be Okay – A guest blog by Dr. Freedman on the importance of helping teens understand the role forgiveness plays in their psychological health.
Greater Good in Education Promotes Forgiveness/Character Education – An internationally-acclaimed organization has created an entire “best practices” forgiveness component for educators based on Dr. Freedman’s 5th grade curriculum guide.
The Psychology of Interpersonal Forgiveness – In this article written for SEL in Action, a publication for educators, Dr. Freedman debunks several misconceptions about forgiveness.
My friend and I have a lot of conflicts and yet I do want to reconcile in the hope that these conflicts will be reduced. What would you suggest if such a reconciliation will be kind of rocky yet we both want to try?
I would recommend two points. First, are you both willing to forgive each other first so that you do not bring a lot of anger into dialogue with each other? Second, and if you are willing to forgive each other, what are the small steps each of you can take to help the other feel more trusting? In other words, what have you been doing to damage trust and can you take a small step in a better direction? Is your friend willing to do the same by taking small steps to build up your trust?
Accredited Life Coach in UK Achieves Perfect Score on Forgiveness Therapy Course
Only two individuals in history have ever compiled perfect scores on Forgiveness Therapy, the clinical training course offered by the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) for the past 13 years. The latest is a self-described “married mum of 2 teenagers, a dog lover/rescuer, and a martial artist (Tae Kwon Do)” from Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom, who also happens to be a Relationship and Life Coach.
Clare McCaffrey, Relationship and Life Coach
Clare McCaffrey is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accredited Life Coach (ACC) who has training as a Transformative Life Coach and a Positive Psychology and Alcohol-Free Coach. She is also a Relationship Counsellor and Personal Trainer with her own private practice that she calls Love for Life Coaching.
“I truly believe that mind and body are both important in overall mental health,” says McCaffrey, who graduated with highest honors from the Forgiveness Therapy course last August. “Forgiveness interventions compliment the other strategies we use to help clients have healthy and happy relationships.”
McCaffrey’s 35-years of experience includes stints as a Personal Trainer (she has her own private gym), a Pilates Teacher, and a counsellor for Relate—a charitable organization with centers across England and Wales that specializes in counselling for individuals and couples, families, and young people.
“I prefer to work with people who really want to change and move forward with their lives,” according to McCaffrey, who works with clients via Zoom or face-to-face in Buckinghamshire which is 50 miles north of London. “I use only clinically proven techniques to help my clients achieve their goals.”
McCaffrey achieved perfection on the Forgiveness Therapy course by correctly answering all 120 of the multiple-choice exam questions (8 questions for each of the 15 lessons). She completed the course in a 6-month period while working full time.
Forgiveness Therapy, an online CE Course, is based on the book by the same title written by psychologist Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the IFI, and psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, director of the Institute for Marital Healing outside Philadelphia, PA. The course was developed by Dr. Enright and Dr. Elizabeth Gassin, Professor of Educational Psychology at Olivet Nazarene University, Bourbonnais, IL.
Although primarily designed for licensed psychologists, the course has also proven beneficial for ministers, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and other professional counsellors who have completed it.
Learn more:
- Read about the Forgiveness Therapy online CE course.
Expert Forgiveness Advice from Media Giants
The 6th-largest newspaper in the US and the country’s most popular weekly supermarket magazine have highlighted the importance of forgiveness in the past few days. The Washington Post and Woman’s World recently ran articles offering advice on how to forgive from forgiveness experts including Dr. Robert Enright, co-founder of the International Forgiveness Institute.
“Moving lessons on forgiveness out of religious spaces and into schools”
This full-length article is featured in the Jan. 27 issue of The Washington Post (a 146-year-old daily newspaper with average weekday circulation of nearly half a million). The article
highlights the benefits of forgiveness education work being done by Dr. Enright, one of his research associates Dr. Suzanne Freedman (University of Northern Iowa), and Dr. Frederic Luskin (director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project).
“. . .people who forgive are less anxious and angry and have lower blood pressure, improved cholesterol levels and a better quality of sleep,” the article states, citing the published literature. “Studies also show that children who learn how to forgive are better adjusted socially and have higher levels of self-esteem than those who don’t. They even perform better academically.”
Much of the article focuses on Dr. Enright’s forgiveness education work in Northern Ireland, where both public and private schools have been teaching his forgiveness curriculum for the past 21 years. One school, Mount St. Michael’s Primary School, a Catholic school in Randalstown, 23 miles from Belfast, recently paired up with a Protestant school in the same town to offer forgiveness education to a joint class of 7-to-9-year-olds.
“We really need this over here,” St. Michael’s Principal Philip Lavery said. “We teach children how to read and write, but we have to spend more time teaching them how to live, how to be members of a society.”
At Stranmillis University College in Belfast, forgiveness education is a required subject for all students in its teacher training program, where they learn the protocol developed by Dr. Enright and his team at the University of Wisconsin. In a country that has been torn for decades by religious violence, the article concludes, it is only through forgiveness and unselfish love that “we can leave the past behind us.”
Read the full article in The Washington Post.
“Expert Advice: How Can I Stop Beating Myself Up?”
This article appears in the January 26 issue of Woman’s World magazine (circulation 1.6 million). Subtitled “Sometimes it’s harder to forgive yourself than to forgive others,” the article presents “easy ways to silence the self-blame and welcome self-love.”
The article is based on interviews with three mental health specialists the publication calls its Expert Panel:
- Robert Enright, Ph.D., educational psychologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison;
- Everett Worthington, Ph.D., Commonwealth Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University; and,
- Kathryn J. Norlock, Ph.D., author of The Moral Psychology of Forgiveness and an ethics professor at Trent University in Ontario, Canada.
The first (and, arguably, the most important) bit of advice offered in the Woman’s World article is:
Remember You’re Worthy – The very first step to self-forgiveness is simply knowing you deserve it, says expert Robert Enright, PhD. “This doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook without reflecting on what’s happened; rather, it’s reminding yourself that you’re worthy when you’ve started believing the lie that you’re not.” Just reminding yourself that you deserve this nurturing will begin to transform guilt into self-compassion.
Read the full article in Woman’s World.
I prefer anger to forgiveness. It empowers me. What do you think?
Anger at first when you are treated unjustly is reasonable because you are seeing that you are a person who deserves respect. Yet, where do you draw the line? When is this early anger sufficient? Do you want to keep the anger for a month? A year? How about 30 years? Also, what about the intensity of the anger. Do you want to be fuming inside for those 30 years? Do you think you will feel empowered if you live this way or could it wear you down?
