A wintry yet warm welcome to Forgiveness Pioneer, Professor Enright

Dr Anita Gracie reflects on our recent Learning to Forgive seminar.

Despite the snow and sub-zero temperatures, a pleasing number of teachers, educational partners, academic staff and invited guests attended a seminar on Forgiveness Education which was held in Stranmillis University College on 17^th January. The main speaker at the event, and the reason so many had braved the wintry weather, was Professor Robert Enright from the International Forgiveness Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In the past year, a research team from Stranmillis led by Jill Magennis has been involved in evaluating the impact of the P7 stage of the Forgiveness Education curriculum as part of an international comparative study. Eighteen schools across Northern Ireland taught their pupils the concepts, skills and attitudes necessary if they wanted to forgive someone. Some had already been treated unjustly in their lives and held unresolved anger against others, but even if they had not, there is no doubt that most of them will have that experience at some point in their lives. Professor Enright explained the detrimental psychological and physical impact which can be caused by people holding onto grief, anger and resentment and the freedom, healing and life-enhancing benefits of being able to forgive. Some of the teachers present at the seminars had been involved in the study and were aware of the impact the curriculum had already had on their pupils, their classrooms and the school community.

This seminar concentrated in particular on the potential for impact of Forgiveness Education beyond the confines of one group of children, or one classroom. Already, Mount St. Michael’s Primary School in Randalstown has decided to teach Forgiveness Education to every class in the school during the spring term and is planning to use some of the lessons as part of its Shared Education Programme with their partner school Randalstown Central Primary School. We are all excited at the thought of how powerful it will be in the future when a whole generation of children has learned to see the inherent worth of every person “no matter how………….” and not to forget or excuse the undeserved hurt done to them but to forgive. We are excited to see how a generation of children will share their learning with their families and then older generations, who are perhaps carrying unresolved resentment or inter-generational trauma themselves, might be taught to forgive.

We were so fortunate that Robert Enright was able to make the journey to Belfast, one that he has made many times over two decades, and we are very thankful for his continued support with implementing Forgiveness Education in N.Ireland.

An audio recording of the lecture is available to listen to below.