A Qualitative Exploration into How Teachers Understand and Practice Forgiveness

Abstract

Forgiveness, though hard for many to simply define in concrete terms, is not necessarily a foreign concept or practice for the average individual. In an attempt to further understanding of forgiveness, the present study gathered the thoughts, opinions, and experiences of a specific community of individuals, public school teachers. Using a series of six focus group interviews, analysis of data produced insights and conclusions related to how teachers understand forgiveness in theory and practice, how they practice forgiveness within their jobs, and their thoughts on forgiveness or virtue education within schools. Thematic analysis is presented with quotational support and a discussion of application to both forgiveness theory and future forgiveness education pursuits is offered in summation. Due to the many mental, emotional, and physical health benefits associated with forgiveness, the value of exploring forgiveness and forgiveness education is readily evident. This study provides a glimpse into the experiences of a community of individuals who practice forgiveness regularly within the context of their jobs as public school educators.

1. Introduction

Despite the growing body of research related to forgiveness and forgiveness education, there is still some disagreement and obscurity related to the theoretical makeup of forgiveness. Some view forgiveness as an evolutionary adaptation, a motivational shift from revenge to preservation of relationship due to potential future needs or benefits [1]. Another well-reasoned theory is that forgiveness is a dual component coping strategy for stress, including both a decisional and emotional aspect within the forgiver [2]. Finally, there is the virtue theory of forgiveness, which presents forgiveness as overcoming resentment through a gift of virtuous benevolence, similar and related to other virtues such as compassion or love, and able to be developed through practice of said virtue [3]. Researchers have sought understanding of forgiveness through analysis of theory [1,2,3], model [3,4], health correlates [5,6], virtue correlates such as compassionate love [7], categorical representation [8,9], and contextual influences [10,11,12,13]. Each study offers some additional piece of insight into what forgiveness is or what it looks like in practice.

Even with any remaining lack of consensus on what forgiveness truly is in construct, there is agreement by most experts that there are many physical, mental, relational, and emotional health benefits related to forgiveness including, but not limited to, increased peace, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and well-being and decreased anger, depression, and anxiety [5,6,14,15,16,17,18]. The plethora of benefits associated with forgiveness provide the foundation of purpose underlying forgiveness education and research. With the ultimate goal in view of improving individual, community, and societal health, encouraging forgiveness seems to be an appropriate pursuit.

Based upon the previously presented summation that practicing forgiveness improves mental, physical, and emotional health, it seems reasonable to argue that effective and sufficient forgiveness education from an early age can help improve health throughout life. Every individual learns what forgiveness is and how to forgive in some fashion, whether through church, school, culture, or other [19]. Given the increased utilization of social-emotional curriculum in today’s public schooling system [20], effective evidence-based forgiveness education can be infused into schools fairly conveniently with the purpose obviously of helping students learn how to forgive and ultimately accessing the many emotional and physical health benefits associated with increased forgiveness. Social emotional curriculum covers a wide range of topics such as self-awareness, self-management, building and maintaining relationships, communication skills, and more [20]. Thus, it is through, or aligned with, these similar educational endeavors that virtues such as forgiveness could reasonably be integrated and taught. In a world where modern students are facing increased struggles with anxiety, depression, bullying, suicidal ideation, among other similar challenges, finding ways to help students better cope and emerge from schools as healthy adults cannot be viewed as detrimental.

Recognizing that forgiveness education can be infused in schools for the benefit of students, the next phase of discussion relates to best practices in forgiveness education. What should be taught? How should it be taught? Who should teach it? Research has shown that forgiveness education can be implemented effectively within schools, teaching students about what it is and how to forgive, and producing positive benefits for students on an individual and campus-wide level such as reduced anger, anxiety, depression, bullying behaviors and improved relationships, coping skills, and resilience [14,21,22,23]. Most of these forgiveness education pursuits have utilized organized curriculum of some sort, typically based on either the Process or REACH Model [21,22,23]. Additionally, research has shown that student learning is strongly influenced by teacher passion, instruction, and modeling of any social emotional construct [24,25]. For example, qualitative analysis of student character strength learning and exhibition following social emotional lessons focusing on character strengths, such as kindness and forgiveness, was highly influenced by attachment to the teacher and teacher modeling of character strengths [25]. In another study, parents were interviewed and identified that their children learned forgiveness from the significant adults in their lives, including teachers [24]. Therefore, analyzing how teachers understand and practice forgiveness should have some direct impact on approach to forgiveness education as perceived gaps in teacher understanding that might affect the implementation of forgiveness curriculum are identified.

Lastly, there are some distinct recognized benefits for teachers related to an increased understanding and practice of forgiveness within their jobs. Research has shown that forgiveness is related to decreased burnout, increased teacher self-efficacy, reduced incivility between coworkers, and improved relationships and prosocial qualities around campus [26,27,28,29]. This is important to identify, as it further validates the purpose of this present study. Though ultimately much of what educators strive to do in K to 12 education focuses on the potential benefits of students, there is value in recognizing the benefits that forgiveness provides for teachers as well in the discussion of implementing forgiveness education and training within school systems. The foundation the research presented here stands on is that in focusing on teacher understanding and practice of forgiveness, the educational system can both provide beneficial training and education on a relevant life topic for the benefit of teachers themselves and also, through them, providing benefits in the more effective education of their students.

In the end, the identified gap in research was, as touched on above, a lack of discovery related to teacher understanding and practice of forgiveness within their jobs. Therefore, the following three research questions guided the study:

• RQ1: How do public school teachers understand forgiveness?
• RQ2: How do public school teachers experience forgiveness in the workplace?
• RQ3: How do public school teachers perceive forgiveness education?

2. Materials and Methods

As the primary goal was to delve into public school teachers’ understanding and practice, or in other words, their experience, of forgiveness, a qualitative phenomenological approach was deemed appropriate as the primary research design. Qualitative research can provide a notable depth of discovery and insight, and since not much research has focused solely on teachers prior to this study, there is value in exploration that could lead to further quantitative or qualitative studies down the line. Data consisted of six transcribed focus group interviews. Each focus group was comprised of two to five teachers. Focus groups were comprised of teachers from the same level of education due to the probability of more shared experiences. Though teachers across grade levels do share experiences in many ways, a group comprised solely of elementary, or secondary, school teachers would have more shared experiences due to the developmental level of the students they work with.

By collecting groups of teachers that were all teaching the same level of students (elementary, middle, high), each group was able to go deeper into the discussion of forgiveness and forgiveness education as they had more shared experiences in their day to day responsibilities and interactions. For example, in talking about logistics of enacting forgiveness education on their campus, a group of teachers who have the same bell schedule, similar ages of students, and the same administration can reach a depth in their discussion that accesses some of the potential hurdles or solutions for teaching forgiveness that are not as surface-level. In the present study, two groups were made up of elementary level teachers, two of middle school, and two of high school. The two elementary groups were comprised of three teachers at one site and four at the other. The two middle school groups included three teachers at one site and two at the other. The two high school groups included two teachers at one site and three at the other. Total number of participants were 17 teachers. Parameters for inclusion were that participants had to be 18 years of age or older and a teacher in a traditional public school classroom. There are a lot of other staff on public school campuses and each would have valuable experiences and perspectives, but in order to narrow the focus of this study, only those in traditional K to 12 classrooms were invited to participate. Further discussion of recruitment and other procedure is offered below.

There has been some criticism of the use of focus groups in phenomenological studies, but there was intentional purpose behind this decision. As teachers have not usually been prompted to think about or discuss their experiences and understanding related to forgiveness in their jobs, there was value in offering an opportunity for a brain trust to form within a group setting. In discussion with others, participants were able to bounce ideas off each other, which arguably produced a deeper discussion and level of insight than individual interviews would most likely have provided. Other researchers have found similar positive results and outcomes from using focus groups to gather phenomenological data [30] so this approach is still evidentially sound and an appropriate methodology for the study of focus here.

Recruitment of participants was a three-step process. First, all participants were recruited from one large school district in the state of California in the United States so approval was garnered from the district office and then also from individual site school leaders prior to initial contact with teachers. Second, a schoolwide email was sent out to all teachers at various school sites within the district, with some general information about the study and then obviously a request for participation. As soon as at least three teachers had responded from a site, an attempt to schedule a day, time, and location for the focus group was made. The third step was if there were two volunteers on one campus, a type of snowball sampling method was used to get at least one more committed participant through recommendation of those already volunteering. The aim was to get four committed originally in case someone backed out at the last minute, which did happen in a couple groups, but in some cases, the group was scheduled with only three original volunteers.

Once at least three teachers on a site had agreed to participate, a time, day, and location were determined. Typically, the interview was hosted in one of the participant’s classrooms. On the day of the interview, all gathered, and after reviewing the informed consent form and collecting signatures, participants completed a very brief demographic form and then the interview began. For the focus group interview, a semi-structured interview guide was used (see Figure 1). As there were three primary research questions, the interview guide needed to include questions that would guide the conversation towards answering each question. After reviewing other qualitative studies with similar aims, thinking through a logical progression of discussion, and critically contemplating what collection of questions would provide the information sought in this study, the eleven questions below were selected or designed as the semi-structured interview guide. All interviews were recorded on two devices, a handheld lockable recording device as primary and backed up on the researcher’s phone as secondary. All participants received a Starbucks gift card as an incentive and gift of gratitude.

Data analysis consisted of three stages and followed an inductive thematic analysis approach. First, all interviews were transcribed utilizing ATLAS.ti 23 and checked by the primary researcher line by line for accuracy. Along with checking for accuracy, this step also provided an in-depth read of every interview. Any statements, words, or stories that were too specific to an individual participant were swapped out with either a pseudonym or the following phrase: [removed to protect participant identity]. All participants had the opportunity to review their interview data to ensure that there was nothing included that could easily be traced back to them personally. Second, each interview was read a second time, this time with the goal of coding each idea or statement that addressed in any way one of the three research questions. Codes consisted of short words or phrases that emerged from quotes in the transcriptions. Third, using the list of codes, patterns in the data were identified, and themes emerged and were recorded under their appropriate research question heading. In cases where there was a noticeably large quantity of data under one theme, appropriate subthemes were generated.

3. Results

As described above, themes and sub-themes emerged from the transcribed interviews, addressing each research question. All themes are presented below with a brief discussion and evidential support in the form of participant quotes. Additionally, some demographic data was gathered at the start of each interview for the purpose of evaluating the sample make-up and an overview of that descriptive data can be found in

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of participants.

Sample Characteristic	n	%	M (SD)
Gender
Male	4	23.5
Female	13	76.5
Age			42.94 (13.07)
21–30	4	23.5
31–40	3	17.6
41–50	5	29.4
51–60	4	23.5
61–70	1	5.9
Ethnicity
Caucasian	13	76.5
Latino	1	5.9
Caucasian/Latino	2	11.8
Asian	1	5.9
Religion
Protestant Christian	12	70.6
Catholic Christian	3	17.6
Hinduism	1	5.9
Prefer not to say	1	5.9
Household Income *
50,000–100,000	6	35.3
100,000–200,000	8	47.1
More than 200,000	2	11.8
Prefer not to say	1	5.9

* Household income is measured in USD.

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3.1. RQ1: How Do Pubic School Teachers Understand Forgiveness?

Five themes emerged related to this first research question. As one of the primary goals of the research was to gain an understanding of how teachers define forgiveness and what they understand it to look like in practice, groups were guided through a discussion of forgiveness theory and procedure. In data analysis, quotes were pulled from throughout the interviews if they offered some insight into how a participant defined forgiveness, either in construct or in practice.

• Faith and religion play a significant role in one’s understanding of forgiveness.

Across groups, many participants expressed that they garnered their present understanding or definition of forgiveness from a religious text or training. Relevant quotes included “that to me that I guess as a Catholic, we always hear that, right? You know, you have to turn the other cheek. You have to, you have to forgive”. Also, there were some that referenced faith as a reason for forgiveness: “that’s where I was going to go is to working and being a Christian, you know, you have to forgive and you know, pray for that person”. Finally, several statements stated quite literally that they “would take my personal definition of forgiveness from the Bible” or “mine is a biblical definition, and it’s represented in the Bible that Christ forgave us of our sins”.

2.

Forgiveness is complicated and beliefs or understanding of composition varied.

The second theme emerged due to the wide variety of definitions and conceptual understandings offered throughout the groups. While there were often comments at the outset of the discussion recognizing that forgiveness was “hard to explain”, “deep”, or “vague”, most participants were able to reach a point where they expressed some aspect of how they defined or practiced forgiveness. Those expressions were as similar as they were different, and so from the data gathered, there were six sub-themes that emerged related to the composition of forgiveness: behavior/relational component, cognitive component, contextual/situational factors, different types of forgiveness, emotional component, and virtue. Those that recognized a behavioral or relational component might say something along the lines of “if I fully forgave that person, then it would look like I treat that person like I would treat somebody else and I wouldn’t treat them differently”. A cognitive component example is “if you are really going to forgive somebody, you have to be able to try to, you know, walk a mile in their shoes, look at their perspective”. If participants referenced something like “so then you forgive them if they’re willing to apologize in those aspects”, that was noted as a contextual or situational factor. Some groups discussed the different types of forgiveness such as this statement recognizing self-forgiveness as a different dimension than interpersonal: “it’s not just a one-dimensional thing that it requires forgiveness of self”. There were many who recognized an emotional shift of some sort within the forgiveness process, exemplified in a quote like, “not feelings of anger or any animosity towards a person or situation, I guess, that’s how I would know that I’ve forgiven them”. Finally, there were enough comparisons to other virtues offered in discussion that warranted its own subtheme. Virtues that were mentioned or related to forgiveness included “peace”, “love”, taking “the high road”, “guilt”, and “pride” (presented as a converse to forgiveness).

3.

Certain factors can make forgiveness harder.

Although not presented as absolute reasons not to forgive, there were a wide variety of quotes that referenced some factor that made it harder to forgive an offender. This included contextual or situational factors such as intent, severity of offense, potential for change on the offender’s part, or lack thereof, or even whether an apology was offered or not. One participant described a situation where “that was intentionally meant to be mean or rude or meant to hurt my feelings and I have a harder time forgiving”. Another commented “that person is never going to change the way that they are” as a reason why they found it hard to forgive someone in the past. Again, though, many of these explanations were not offered as an absolute measure for why someone should forgive or not, but simply as a factor that made it more difficult. However, there were comments in a couple groups that a participant believed “I don’t always have to forgive” which means there is an underlying belief for some that there are situations where unforgiveness is the more desirable alternative.

4.

There are many different reasons for forgiveness.

In spite of the factors mentioned in the previous theme that were identified as making forgiveness harder, most participants still easily referenced reasons for why they personally, or just people in general, should forgive. Throughout the discussions, quotes such as “but by forgiving, we can move on and keep growing and continue with the relationship” and “if I’m choosing not to forgive someone, I don’t understand the forgiveness that I’ve been given” (in reference to God’s forgiveness), revealed relational and spiritual reasons for forgiveness. Others identified an emotional release or acquirement of peace that came with forgiveness in stating “what I find detrimental is when I do have that negativity still towards someone and again probably doesn’t affect them at all” or “the peace that goes with it”. Whatever the reason provided, this part of the conversation was naturally incorporated into every part of the interview discussions, sometimes in the course of defining forgiveness and other times in conjunction with describing a specific experience of forgiveness.

5.

Forgiveness is a process.

Finally, the last theme related to teacher understanding of forgiveness was the recognition that forgiveness is not a one-and-done step, but a process of some sort. Any quotes that referenced either the time and effort that forgiveness takes or any statements identifying different steps in the forgiveness process contributed to the emergence of this theme. For example, “it’s repetitive, like you have to do it again and again. It’s not that you didn’t really mean it the first time. It’s just, it’s just something that, it’s, it’s a difficult thing, I guess, to do”. Also, “the concept of forgiveness, that means that I’ve, like, processed whatever has happened, that I’ve worked through it and that I’m like, ready for that next step of like moving past it”.

3.2. RQ2: How Do Public School Teachers Experience Forgiveness in the Workplace?

Three themes emerged from the data related to this second research question. Any statements or comments related to situations, examples, or the practice of forgiveness were coded and applied to this section of results. As many of the stories shared were lengthy and fairly individually specific and thus identifiable, many cannot be directly quoted here, in which case, the summed situation will be presented so as to protect participant confidentiality.

• Forgiveness seems to be a common and almost expected part of a teacher’s day.

As mentioned previously, when prompted to discuss situations where participants identified that they had practiced forgiveness in the workplace, it was not difficult for any group to be able recount many relevant experiences. Due to that reality and the presence of specific comments stating as much, the first major theme was that teachers believe they practice forgiveness often, almost daily, as a part of their job. Statements such as “I think we do it every single day of our job, for sure” directly relates this sentiment. Additionally, there seemed to be an understanding that forgiveness is a necessary or expected part of the job of teaching, exhibited in quotes such as “we can’t do our jobs if we can’t, you know, forgive our kids” and “in this job, there’s so many different like relationships you have between like colleagues, your students, the students’ parents, things like that, where you’re practicing forgiveness daily”. Whether participants had previously identified their interactions as the practice of forgiveness or not is uncertain, but in the course of this study’s discussions, there were many examples that seemed to easily come to mind for the teachers involved.

2.

Situations involving students.

The second theme starts to focus in on the types of situations that were presented as examples of forgiveness in the workplace. It makes sense that a majority of the situations described would involve students in some fashion due to the majority of time that teachers spend with their students during a work day. However, there are a couple key aspects of this results section that are interesting to note. The types of experiences identified as forgiveness of students were typically either grace given related to class performance, such as extra time for an assignment, or in response to misbehavior of some kind. Examples of relevant quotes included “at that moment where they’re struggling or they need extra time, like, I’m willing to forgive them for not having it done and allow that extra time” and “forgiveness in the sense of this student has disrespected me multiple times”. Participants expressed that it was generally easier to forgive students, though reasons for that belief varied. “I think it’s easier for me to forgive a student because I enjoy, like, the teaching moment in that” reveals one motivation. Others expressed their reasoning for readily forgiving students in terms that likened it to a coping mechanism of sorts such as “but I’m seeing my kids every single day and, like, I can’t do my job if I’m holding this, you know, resentment towards the one kid that just, like, triggered me yesterday”. As a third avenue of reason for why it might be easier to forgive students then adults, “if we’re talking about students, I think it would be a little bit different because we’re an adult, they’re a kid” reveals the impact that intent and developmental stage have on how easy or difficult it is to forgive someone.

3.

Situations involving adult stakeholders.

All other experiences offered by participants as examples of forgiving in the workplace involved the various adult stakeholders with whom teachers might interact during their daily work lives. These included a few statements related to lack of support from administration or leadership, such as “I was very frustrated with administration for not speaking up for me as well” and some related to conflict with coworkers, such as “the biggest one I think of is with coworkers, just having to withstand being spoken to in a really mean way”. However, most of the adult situations involved parents of students. As a prime example of such a quote: “you know, this year has been rough, but specifically this year with parents, I’ve had more issues than I’ve ever had. And just kind of like some passive aggressive messages and things where I’m like, no, that was intentionally meant to be mean or rude or meant to hurt my feelings”. If there were comments expressing an inability to forgive, it was related to these experiences with parents of students. However, even in situations where unforgiveness was identified by participants, they still focused on the importance of loving their students in spite of struggles with an adult, stating “I think something that’s hard in that situation is to make sure that we don’t take out that feeling towards the parent on the kid”.

3.3. RQ3: How Do Public School Teachers Perceive Forgiveness Education?

Due to the increased utilization of different kinds of social emotional curriculum in schools [20], it seemed pertinent to gather data related to teacher opinions, experiences, and perceptions of forgiveness education, either as already in place or considering the potential of. Additionally, this course of discussion was deemed relevant due to one of the driving forces behind the study, the desire for application of results within future forgiveness education pursuits. Quotes or statements related to past social emotional curriculum experiences of any sort or thoughts on present or future forgiveness, virtue, or SEL education were coded and analyzed in response to this third research question.

• Current or past experiences with SEL and/or some kind of virtue education.

Experiences and perspectives shared by participants related to social emotional learning (SEL) or any kind of forgiveness or virtue education varied. Many of the teachers interviewed had taught social emotional curriculum at some point in their career, especially at the lower grade levels. Programs that were specifically mentioned included Character Counts, Character Strong, CSI student support groups, AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination), Positivity Project, and Second Step. Initial thoughts on these experiences included some negative descriptions, such as “it feels like it’s a box being checked off” and “we’ve been doing it for quite a while also, and I certainly would not say our students are better behaved by any means”. Others described more positive experiences, such as “we actually each week pick a virtue, and the idea on Monday is we talk about what it is and their job is to look at our classroom throughout the week and find somebody who’s modeling it”.

2.

Potential obstacles to forgiveness/virtue education in schools.

In discussing the potential of forgiveness or virtue education in the public school classroom setting, teachers recognized a variety of potential obstacles to effective teaching or student learning of such subjects. Some expressed concern with the modern-day student’s capability of engaging in such a deep topic, arguing that “their attention spans are not getting better” or a more generic age-related concern such as “I don’t know if they are at the correct stage in their development to understand that was forgiveness”. Others indicated they were concerned about loss of instruction time, stating they “would also be a not huge proponent for it being in math classrooms, taking away time of our math teaching for me to sit down and say, okay children, let’s talk about forgiveness”. Though most were not intimidated by the prospect of teaching forgiveness or virtues, there was an acknowledgement that training would be needed so teachers wouldn’t be wondering on the back end: “am I teaching them the right way of this?” The last notable obstacle presented was the potential reaction of a community that might distrust social emotional curriculum at face value, most likely due to certain topics that have been equally celebrated and denigrated in media. Therefore, there could be parents or community members who push back against social emotional learning of any sort as “many parents who do teach their kids those things feel very strongly about teachers teaching their kids things that they don’t think the teacher, that’s not their business”.

3.

Forgiveness education might be good, or even needed, in schools.

In spite of the potential obstacles that were identified, many participants felt that forgiveness education could be good for kids and that schools could play a role in teaching students how to forgive and what forgiveness is. This sentiment was expressed sometimes very directly such as “I wish it was taught in schools; I would be a huge proponent for it”, and other times in just recognizing that kids need to learn about forgiveness or virtues somewhere and schools might be the appropriate place. The following quote expresses this very well: “if church enrollment is declining and then schools don’t teach any kind of ethics or morality or anything, right then, and then if the parents are giving them like, a phone to entertain themselves when they go do something, you know, it’s tricky, right? There’s a vacuum there”.

4.

Suggestions for effective virtue/forgiveness education.

The final theme that emerged with application to forgiveness education was that when teachers were prompted to think about forgiveness or virtue education, they were able to identify and iterate suggestions or recommendations for future endeavors in this area. One of the most commonly stated suggestions across groups was that perhaps the best avenue for teaching forgiveness was through more organic methods infused into already existing classroom curriculum and daily activities as opposed to an additional curriculum piled onto a perceived overload of teaching responsibilities and expectations. “Is a curriculum always the most effective? No. I think it really is more effective and just like taking a situation and having a conversation and guiding them through that and helping them process like how can we best problem solve this? Forgive if forgiveness is necessary. Work through it. That type of thing”. Such a quote, along with other similar expressed sentiments, revealed a desire by teachers to avoid adopting another character or virtue curriculum, but instead to be taught more organic methods for infusing forgiveness, or virtue, discussions into their classrooms.

However, if there was going to be more of an organized curriculum, teachers would like it to be age-differentiated, recognizing that “it’s going to look different at every age level” and consistent in application, timeline, and expectations. Regardless of approach, organic or organized, teachers identified a need for training themselves before attempting to teach forgiveness, with an emphasis on the “why” behind the topic and encouraging an in-depth understanding of what forgiveness truly is and why it is beneficial for students. One participant claimed “it’s less about, like curriculum, and more about making sure that those conversations are being had amongst colleagues and like whether it’s within a training”. Another similarly alleged, “but you know, making sure those conversations are being had with teachers” as a final recommendation for ensuring effective forgiveness education in a school setting.

4. Discussion

Though there is certainly no desire to oversimplify the true complexity of human experiences shared, it does seem prudent for the sake of producing consumable conclusions to summarize this discussion as efficiently as possible. Therefore, two broad categories of discussion to drive this final section are presented: theoretical application and practical application.

Beginning with a discussion of results application to forgiveness theory, the struggle by teacher participants in this study to concretely define forgiveness in theory or in practice is certainly consistent with past research as there are even experts in the field who present vying, or perhaps simply varying, theories on the construct [1,2,3]. Some expressed forgiveness in the vein of dual decisional and emotional transition components, aligning more with Worthington’s dual-component theory of forgiveness [2]. However, the large quantity of virtue comparisons and verbiage used seems to best align with Enright’s virtue theory of forgiveness [3]. Whether teachers were expressing that they forgive because they love their students or because they felt compassion, the strong correlation with other virtues, in their perception of forgiveness, was evident. As an additional vein of discussion, is it possible that the inherent complexity of forgiveness, exemplified in the struggle to concretely define it, is support in and of itself for the virtue theory? For are not other virtues, such as courage, hope, or love similarly difficult to define? Another consistency across groups was that almost every group identified that forgiveness is a process, which is consistent with both Worthington’s REACH model and Enright’s Process Model of forgiveness, which present forgiveness as more than a singular moment in time [3,4].

In the discussion of forgiveness, there were some indications of mixing up forgiveness with other similar ideas, such as reconciliation with the offender, and excusing or condoning behaviors. This aligns with past research where people have been asked to define or describe forgiveness and similarly have confused it with reconciliation or the rebuilding of relationship with the offender [31,32,33,34]. For example, the expression of knowing that forgiveness has been achieved if they could interact with the offender in a healthy way could be evidence of talking about reconciliation, an external measure dependent on both parties, as opposed to forgiveness, an internal process solely dependent on the forgiver. However, it could also be evidence of the release of resentment, which would be consistent with forgiveness. Another example of a possible misidentification is the discussion of allowing students to make up assignments for missing class. Such situations might be better identified as mercy or excusing as opposed to forgiveness. Was an offense even truly committed to be forgiven? Teachers, as with most people, are not often prompted to think or talk about their understanding of forgiveness so it is pertinent to recognize potential misunderstandings or misidentifications. The lack of consistent definition and understanding of forgiveness necessitates training and education of teaching staff first before engaging in forgiveness education for students.

To summarize the results related to teacher practice of forgiveness, teachers believe they practice forgiveness a lot and with everyone they come into contact with in their jobs, students, parents, and colleagues. Due to how often teachers practice forgiveness, a statement supported both by past research [25] as well as the present study, this is definitely a community of people worth continuing to gather insights about forgiveness from. It was interesting that, as they talked about forgiveness, several participants eventually reached a point where they verbalized a sentiment along the lines of not even recognizing it as forgiveness anymore. It just became a natural response to their students, or others they were forgiving. Within the virtue theory of forgiveness is the understanding that as a virtue is practiced, understood, or developed more, the individual becomes more virtuous and thus exhibits that virtue more easily in future situations. Though worthy of some additional exploration in future research before claiming with utmost confidence, it is reasonable to propose that teachers, who practice forgiveness almost daily, are therefore developing the virtue of forgiveness to the point that it takes less conscious effort to forgive. A developed virtue could then produce statements similar to those of this study, where forgiving is a more natural expression of love or benevolence towards another individual, with decreasing conscious decision or effort.

Moving into more practical applications, there are some key takeaways that can be applied to forgiveness education that are worth noting, primarily drawn from the themes under research question three. Although much of the research conducted on forgiveness education has utilized an organized curriculum of some sort [14,21,22,23], there was a general consensus by this study’s participants that, while forgiveness education would be good for students and might even be something teachers would enjoy teaching, the prospect of another curriculum added to a teacher’s responsibility load was less desirable than training teachers how to organically infuse forgiveness and virtue discussions into existing curricula and regular classroom activities. This opens potential avenues for future research that would focus on creating more of a culture of forgiveness on campus or the adaptation of forgiveness education curriculum into professional development for teachers as opposed to asking teachers to implement a series of designed lessons on the topic. In a world where there are ever-increasing expectations for teachers and where teachers are feeling overwhelmed and burned out at a higher rate, perhaps another curriculum for them to teach is not the right approach. Instead, could an intervention be created where teachers learn how to intentionally integrate virtue and forgiveness education into their existing assignments and activities?

If a curriculum is to be used, participants gave some realistic and well-reasoned recommendations for effective implementation that are worth summarizing for the sake of application in future forgiveness education pursuits. The three primary requests were for grade-level scaffolding, with age-appropriate discussions on forgiveness, a well-defined purpose presented for the “why”, and consistency in timeline and expectations. Finally, regardless of whether an organized curriculum would be utilized or a more organic approach is taken, there is a need for intentional teacher training on what forgiveness is and how they are to teach it. Consistent with past research [31,32,33,34], there was some crossover in understanding between forgiveness and reconciliation which, when combined with the general struggle to consistently define or describe forgiveness, reveals the need for preemptive education for teachers before they pass along knowledge and skills to students. Administrators, researchers, or any other educational leaders who aim to institute forgiveness education should take heed of these recommendations and findings to help encourage buy-in from staff and thus ensure more effective teaching of the material. Additionally, future research could focus on the development of teacher training tools, resources, or trainings and evaluation of their effectiveness.

Limitations

There are some limitations that are important to recognize as they could possibly influence the results and conclusions from the present study. First, as with many qualitative methodologies, generalizability of results is limited due to the small sample size. In addition, the demographics of participants in this study were somewhat skewed due to the large quantity of Caucasian and Christian participants. This could significantly influence responses and perspectives on a topic like forgiveness, especially notable in Theme 1 under the first research question, where faith was recognized as a foundational element in one’s understanding of forgiveness. As the study was conducted in California, USA, the majority Christian professing participants is not necessarily abnormal, but the large number of Caucasian participants is most likely representative of the particular district utilized for recruitment. Extensive generalizing should therefore be cautioned in this case across wide ranges of demographics. Another potential limitation to note is the relative inexperience of many of the teachers in the discussion of forgiveness and forgiveness education. As they discussed potential future forgiveness education pursuits, offering recommendations, hurdles, and such, many were speaking in very hypothetical terms, having little to no actual forgiveness education experience. This could influence their perceptions and opinions. It could be interesting and beneficial to explore and compare the perceptions of teachers who had experienced an organized forgiveness curriculum to evaluate where proposed concerns are valid or perhaps misleading. A final potential limitation is the possibility of researcher bias in analysis and interpretation of data. Had resources been available to provide alternative perspectives through secondary or tertiary analysis by other individuals, that would have provided additional validation to results and conclusions, but in this case, only one researcher reviewed and interpreted the data. However, adherence to consistent data analysis procedure helps to reduce bias as much as possible given the circumstances of this particular study.

5. Conclusions

In the end, building a culture of forgiveness on a campus would be beneficial for students, teachers, and all others involved due to the many mental, physical, and emotional health benefits associated with forgiveness described above. So it is worth continuing this research and discussion on how to do that most effectively. And if those implementing forgiveness education in public schools can continue to improve methods for teaching forgiveness to both students and teachers, the many long and short-term benefits of understanding and practicing forgiveness for the overall betterment of society at large can be garnered.