Guiding Students Toward Forgiveness Helps Them Refocus on a More Positive Future

Forgiveness can be a hard concept for students, especially adolescents, to understand. It seems to clash with students’ natural wish to see transgressors “get what they deserve.” Forgiveness can be seen as letting people “off the hook,” as somehow excusing them for the harm they have done. Come to think of it, it’s not an easy concept for most adults to embrace!

Yet, in my work, I’ve found that students involved in traumatic events are “stuck” in the past and devote so much cognitive and emotional energy to thoughts of revenge or change that they have reduced energy for learning in the present. Teachers can address this challenge with reflection-based activities that focus on the topic of forgiveness.

Try a Discussion Opener

One activity to get your upper elementary and secondary school students reflecting on forgiveness is to present them with these three sentences (or others of your choosing), and have them respond using Yes-No-Maybe pedagogy:

“I think it is better to forgive than to seek revenge.”

“I cannot forgive even if the offender has apologized.”

“I feel it is easier to forgive when my family or my friends have suggested to me that I do so.”

Read the first sentence for the students and ask them to think about whether they agree (Yes), disagree (No), or are not sure (Maybe). Designate three areas of the room, and instruct students to go to the area that corresponds to their belief of Yes, No, or Maybe.

Once students are in the space, have them gather in groups of three and discuss why they said Yes, No, or Maybe. Note that it doesn’t matter what the distribution of answers is. Even if all students said Yes or No, the conversation would still be about what led them to answer as they did. This is what prompts the most important learning.

After a few minutes, ask one person from each group to share out the consensus of the group’s reasoning about the Yes-No-Maybe activity. After all groups have shared (and have been listened to respectfully), have students return to their seats. Then, repeat the process for each of the other two statements.

Note that the teacher’s role is to facilitate this process of peer sharing. It’s not to summarize, correct, or otherwise comment.

After the third round, ask students, in groups of four, to create a definition of the word forgiveness, and then have learners share their definitions and write down each one. Next, after having heard all the definitions, ask students which one or two they think are the best, and why. Of course, their choice can include their own definition.

A next step in the lesson sequence is to ask students to comment on the question, “Is forgiveness a good thing?” Invite them to share—if they’re comfortable—times in their lives when they have found forgiveness to be helpful or difficult.

This Yes-No-Maybe conversation can be used as the culminating activity, focused on the following sentence:

“Letting go of grudges and being forgiving can make us healthier.”

Remember, Yes-No-Maybe works via genuine peer sharing. Hearing peers’ ideas can break up the certainty that students often feel about their beliefs. Not every student’s ideas may be shifted, but you will be opening cognitive and emotional doors toward seeing things differently.

A Follow-Up Writing Assignment Helps Assess Students’ Outlook

These conversations can lead into a writing assignment. Ask students to write a page or two (linked to current objectives in the language arts curriculum) based on the theme, “Here is a story about something that happened in a way I wish it wouldn’t have.” Have them share their stories with peers in two or three rounds of think-pair-share. Center the group discussion around the following questions:

“Did any of the stories you wrote or read about involve forgiveness in any way? How?”

“Did any of the stories you wrote or read about involve regret in any way? How?”

“What do you see as the similarities and differences between forgiveness and regret?”

Of course, it’s always interesting to see what students come up with. The key points you want to draw out in the discussion are that when things happen that we can’t change, it can be difficult to stop thinking about what might have been, and, especially, what someone else might or should have done differently. Help students see that the time and energy put into looking at the past with regret can be better spent looking into the future. This is where teachers can communicate their belief in optimistic future-mindedness—their unwavering belief that students can improve their situations by actually trying to do so and not looking into the past. Your belief in your students and a better future is extremely powerful, especially for students who have been locked into the past and convinced that the future can’t possibly be good.

Highlight Forgiveness in the Curriculum

A valuable supplement to a focus on forgiveness is to highlight its presence in the academic curriculum. It can be discussed in the context of historical events, biographies, and fiction literature. It also can be introduced as part of studying science in the context of life-changing inventions and technologies that may not have been as harmless as anticipated; sports and physical education with many examples of actions by a player that inadvertently led to a team’s defeat (including local examples); and visual and performing arts where an individual who was part of an ensemble didn’t perform as expected, or how an artist lost support or patronage.

As noted earlier, the greatest need for forgiveness is to help students who are stuck in thoughts of revenge or retribution for past traumatic events that cannot be undone. These thoughts are extremely difficult to address in a regular classroom context. But, as implied earlier, the activities above may open doors of reconsideration and set the stage for students to be open to, if not actually directly seek, the help of a school mental health professional to help them manage difficult feelings.