Ten Years of Teaching Forgiveness Education in the Schools of Greece: Looking toward the Future

Abstract

This article presents the accumulated experience and outcomes after ten years of forgiveness education (FE) in the schools of Greece. The author implemented the program throughout Greece by publishing new books on FE adapted to the Greek culture and training an interdisciplinary team of educators through both in-person and online workshops in several Greek cities. Using feedback from the experiences of the trained teachers and the participating students, a lot of valuable information was obtained for the future expansion of forgiveness education programs. Our objective is to provide a conceptual map for educators so that they may be better equipped when designing their own implementation plans for forgiveness education programs in other schools and countries. Dissemination practices and innovative methods are suggested. Recommendations for the future also include steps for the development and growth of FE in institutions and settings outside the school environment, thus spreading FE concepts and the resultant new ways of thinking and practices throughout the community.

1. Introduction

One empirically verified way of reducing irritability and anger is through the process of forgiving those who have been unjust to an individual [1]. Forgiveness is a moral virtue in which people are good to those who are not good to them. As the research literature on forgiveness has expanded across several types of social groups, there has been a lot of emphasis given in recent years to FE as a new field of study within schools. In the schools of Greece, FE has a significant impact on both teachers and students and is rapidly expanding, year by year, to many more schools all over the country. Greece, being a country with a lot of political traumas, wars, austerity and financial crisis, refugee crisis and many conflicts within the country and outside its borders, carries many painful memories that need to be addressed by the new generation from a unique perspective. The monetary crisis that hurt the country during the 2010–2020 decade, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown that was longer and stricter compared to other countries, has accumulated a lot of anger that was expressed through violent acts. Forgiveness education has a great potential to end the cycle of violence, bullying, and conflicts among the students in schools, but it is a challenging area to operationalize in a complex world with a lot of hatred and confusion.

History of the Greek Forgiveness Education Program

The Greek Forgiveness Education Program (GFE) was first implemented in Greece in 2014. The program’s director, a native of Greece who had moved from Greece to the US, was inspired by Professor Enright’s forgiveness research work and, as a visiting scholar at the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, decided to implement FE in Greece. Having worked as a school counselor in the schools of Athens for several years, the author and director of GFE had established a strong connection with local teachers, school principals, and superintendents. The program’s first year consisted of a pilot attempt including twenty Athens-based schoolteachers and was met with an extremely positive response that propelled the continuation of the program into the following academic year. The overwhelmingly positive response by teachers participating in the pilot program during its inaugural year created the necessity to design curricula specifically addressed to primary and secondary education teachers. More specifically, there was a dire need for culturally relevant educational material that would allow teachers to successfully implement the program in the classroom. As such, the seventh-grade curriculum of the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) [2] was adapted to the Greek culture and educational needs, and the first book in forgiveness education was published in Greece by the author in 2015, titled “Living with your Best Self”.

2. Obstacles

As with any educational program in Greece, the Ministry of Education and the Institute of Educational Policies needed to approve GFE before it was implemented in the country’s schools. Although the appropriate procedures were followed, there was a hesitancy to use the word “forgiveness”, arguing that this is a religious term that needed to be changed. Although the Greek Orthodox religion is still recognized by the state constitution, there is an ongoing effort by the state to become more secular, and this consequently results in resistance to accepting and supporting any effort, such as FE, that might connect to religious beliefs. To persuade the governing bodies that forgiveness is not only a religious term but is also a psychological and philosophical one, Professor Enright and the author collectively held several meetings with the authorities of the Ministry of Education and the Institute of Educational Policies, but there was a lot of skepticism and resistance, especially from the Ministry authorities. For a brief period, it seemed that the program would not continue any further until the discovery of a law that gives Greek universities the ability to sponsor educational programs such as GFE. This paved the way for a collaboration with the Department of Philosophy and Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, resulting in the Ministry of Education granting its approval for the implementation of FE in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another obstacle encountered was the negative reaction from certain principals, who, again, on hearing the word forgiveness, thought this to be a religious program and did not approve its implementation in their schools. There was a need to explain again that GFE is unrelated to religion. On the other hand, a small percentage of religious education teachers were also skeptical, especially about educational material coming from an “outside the country”, “unknown abroad” environment and school system.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a good crash test for GFE. During the lockdown, virtual meetings provided an alternative method to continue hosting the workshops online, including several digital activities that made the training more interactive. This online format also enabled teachers from smaller towns, islands, or other isolated geographical areas to participate, something that was not feasible when workshops were held in person. However, the ability of trainers to interact directly and in person with the trainees through group discussions and networking was notably lacking, since the social interaction that naturally evolves out of the face-to-face training session was limited.

Besides these obstacles, GFE was very positively accepted by most of the elementary and secondary teachers and principals. Its Aristotelian origin made it more familiar and welcomed by the Greek teachers. Aristotele teaches magnanimity, inherent worth, moral love, kindness, respect, and generosity—virtues that lead to forgiveness. The Greek teachers are well educated on these virtues, as they are being taught in the Greek educational system. FE is based on Aristotelian philosophy, especially as presented in Nicomachean Ethics [3], which inspired Professor Enright to create his forgiveness theory. Since 2014, many cities and towns all over Greece have adapted GFE, with the total number of participating students exceeding twenty-five thousand.

3. The Forgiveness Education Curriculum: Adaptations

FE can be achieved through two approaches: the Enright Process Model Approach and the story-based approach. The Enright Process Model of Forgiveness [1] is a therapeutic forgiveness intervention that has no standard lesson content but has four phases divided into twenty guideposts or units: Phase 1: Uncovering Anger (Units 1–8), in which the individual confronts the depth of his or her anger; Phase 2: Decision to Forgive (Units 9–11), in which the individual decides that what has been done has not worked and decides to commit to forgiving; Phase 3: Working on Forgiveness (Units 12–15), in which the individual focuses on the person who offends and views this person through a wider perspective; and Phase 4: Discovery and Release from Emotional Prison (Units 16–20), in which the person discovers the meaning of suffering, the deep need for forgiveness, and the freedom of forgiveness.

The story-based approach is a forgiveness education intervention in schools and group settings that teaches children and adolescents the benefits and process of forgiveness through the medium of stories. In contrast to forgiveness therapy that is taught to adults through the Process Model Approach, forgiveness education interventions for children and adolescents are designed to be administered in classrooms. They are not therapeutic but rather educational interventions, like social–emotional learning programs, that refer to the development of specific skills and are usually taught in the form of stories [4,5].

As Freedman argues, anger often leads to increased absences from school and increased violence and aggression [6]. Keeping in mind that our major goal of teaching forgiveness in the classrooms is to reduce anger that leads to violence, aggression, and school absences and to increase collaboration between students, we followed the story-based approach presented in up-to-date descriptions studies [4] and the curriculum guidelines published by Professor Enright and the International Forgiveness Institute Inc. (Madison, WI, USA). These guides span from pre-K through grade twelve and use stories to teach forgiveness and other important virtues underlying forgiveness, such as inherent worth, kindness, respect, generosity, and “agape” love [7].

These stories serve as an important part of teaching social–emotional learning (SEL) skills, helping students learn deep and essential thoughts in a simple and fun way. Furthermore, to make the content more engaging, we introduced videos with stories highlighting core concepts of the curriculum to be played in the classroom. Teachers can choose among written or digital suggested stories or even choose stories other than the ones recommended. The stories usually include positive thoughts, words, or behaviors that display love and goodness, courage, justice, perseverance, balanced living, and forgiveness. In some stories, the students will meet characters who are not all good or all bad but have human mixtures of both. This way, students learn that we are all capable of anger at times, and we are all capable of forgiving [8]. When the heroes do not display these positive characteristics or virtues, teachers need to discuss with the students the reactions of the heroes. However, stories with beauty and goodness are highly recommended.

Following the initial phase of the program, many teachers started to recognize the positive influence FE had on their students, and more schools began expressing interest in participating in the FE program. However, given that the adapted material was only addressed to seventh graders, there was a need to create supplemental curricula for primary and secondary education. This was a big venture, requiring an interdisciplinary team of volunteer teachers of all grades to help design new curricula addressed to all ages. The goal of this team was to propose books, stories, and activities appropriate for students of various ages. The result was the creation of new educational material for teachers of all grades titled “Conflict and Coexistence”. The “Conflict and Coexistence” book covers three major age spans: from kindergarten to third grade, from fourth grade to eighth grade, and from ninth to twelfth grade.

This new 350-page curriculum book starts with a theoretical part spanning 170 pages that is divided into three sections. In the first section, the author presents forgiveness education as a new method proposed for anger management, bullying, and conflict resolution based on long-term research studies. Since bullying and violence have been major issues in the classroom in recent years in Greece, there is a great need to use practical methods to reduce these phenomena in schools. In this first theoretical part, students learn how to see behind the lines and find ways to reframe the “offenders” and “perpetrators” into victims who are trying to attract attention and seek a sense of belonging. There are suggestions offered about how to create a school atmosphere based on empathy and forgiveness and not on punishment and resentment. There is also emphasis given to peaceful coexistence between groups and nations. Since Greece suffered from historical collective traumas and now deals with issues of the inclusion of thousands of refugees coming from Middle Eastern countries, a broader way of peace and reconciliation between communities is presented to prepare the teaching of a multicultural school that has emerged during the last fifteen years.

The second section introduces restorative justice (RJ), the interconnection between RJ and FE [9,10], and explains the reason students and teachers need forgiveness education in schools as a method that goes beyond RJ and completes it. Restorative justice is a new idea in the Greek school system, and there are many implementation instructions for RJ offered (cycle, dialogue, etc.). However, the proposal of forgiveness is the highest level in the restorative justice process, and teachers learn how mercy can be combined with justice in healthy and productive ways.

The third section offers lesson plans on FE for the three school class spans (K–3, 4–8, 9–12) as described above.

In addition to the basic five Aristotelian moral virtues already mentioned in the US curricula, the author of the Greek curriculum book “Conflict and Coexistence”, being a native of Greece, incorporated innovative ideas based on cultural values and practices that hold resonance and importance in Greek society. These are the virtues of empathy, gratitude, and humility. These three ideas are interconnected [11]. Gratitude and humility arise from empathy. Humility is one of the basic concepts that promotes a healthy act of forgiveness [12]. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, one more virtue was added to the curriculum and workshop training, which was resilience. Although the curricula refer in a separate chapter to “Bearing the Pain” or “Courage”, there was an extra emphasis given during and after the pandemic to resilience as a skill for handling personal or collective trauma and overcoming traumatic experiences [13].

4. Implementing Forgiveness Education

Introducing children to the idea of forgiveness and how to practice it at a very young age is useful to prepare young people for the challenges and injustices that they will encounter as adults [14]. This goal is one of the fundamental concepts of GFE. These concepts must be translated from theory to practice by implementing FE in a well-structured design based on research outcomes. Success is also dependent on implementation by teachers skilled enough to sense the hidden culture that characterizes each classroom community and to understand and address the unspoken needs and beliefs of each specific child.

Forgiveness interventions aim to help the injured person think about the offender in broader ways than just in terms of the offense (reframing) [11]. Reframing is promoted in almost every GFE lesson. Through the experiential activities that accompany each lesson and help students learn the objectives interactively, children learn how to see themselves or other people, like their parents, siblings, teachers, friends, or classmates, from a different positive viewpoint. They reframe a negative thought with a more hopeful and positive thought, which offers an alternative perspective on the traumatic situation or the person who hurt them. They also learn to transform upsetting and painful moments into valuable stories by using a different narrative. Through storytelling and experiential exercises that generate positive value, the remembered negative experiences can be transformed into a more positive mindset that could facilitate a more positive appraisal of future events [15].

An example of that kind of experiential activity is the exercise of scribbling. Students are asked to draw with a black pencil a scribble, then embellish this unpleasant mess with light colors and make a piece of art. Students are then asked, “Where do you focus? On the black scribble or on the colorful outcome?” They are taught to train their minds to see everything with new eyes by focusing on the beauty around and inside people or trying to transform the ugly into the beautiful. Students learn how to see the piece of art inside every person they meet, find the hidden beauty in every situation they deal with, and learn to appreciate it. This process also includes themselves, their inner beauty, their inherent worth, and their potential for transformation and change, as FE curricula present.

Based on an analysis of twenty published and unpublished FE programs [4], research has shown that engaging in forgiveness education for as little as one hour per week for 12 to 15 weeks is enough to see a decrease in student anger and depression levels and can even increase academic achievement. As a result, Greek educators were instructed to teach at least 16 h of FE throughout the academic year. The Greek-adapted curricula offer eight lessons per level/grade, and each lesson needs two school hours to be completed, meeting the minimum of 16 h of FE teaching recommended by the IFI.

However, a few teachers may miss the target due to some unpredictable situations or incidents (school closing due to a snow day, sickness of a teacher, field trips on the day of the program, etc.) and teach fewer hours. Although most of the teachers keep the 12- to 16-h plan, some go beyond that and expand the 16-h teaching by doing extra activities outside of the curriculum. These activities may include inviting popular speakers to talk with them about forgiveness, visiting specific sites (like the Holocaust Museum) to trigger more in-depth discussions, and going to theatrical plays (like Fjodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”) to initiate and trigger discussions relevant to forgiveness coming out of life. There are many innovative ideas created by the teachers that go beyond the textbook material and are always presented at the end of the year as an exchange of knowledge and experience among teachers.

Any teacher of any subject can teach FE after appropriate training. Most of the teachers teach GFE as an after-school extracurricular activity. Given that religious studies or social studies teachers often touch on subjects that closely relate to those highlighted by GFE, they often choose to integrate FE lessons into their regular lesson plans. Elementary teachers can also incorporate FE chapters into their curriculum. The inclusion of GFE in the regular class is not suggested, especially for high school students, who, in Greece, are struggling to cover the curriculum required for their challenging college entrance exams. Sometimes, teachers of different subjects choose to teach FE using an interdisciplinary method by dividing the FE curriculum amongst different teachers of various subjects.

During the FE training and teaching period, the trainee teachers have the chance to contact the director of the program and the coordinators assigned to each different city. The coordinators, who are experienced teachers trained in previous years, supervise the implementation of the program and, together with the director, assess and measure the program outcomes at the end of the school year.

5. Teachers’ Workshops

Training the teachers to understand the concept and methodology of FE is key to the success of the program. Teachers who choose to teach FE are asked to participate in 20 h of training workshops throughout the year. The teachers are invited to participate through the Directorate of Primary and Secondary Education, by the Superintendent, or by the school counselors at the beginning of each school year. A limited number of 30–35 teachers per city is included in each training course. Although many more teachers applied, resource limitations and, primarily, the need to maintain high-quality training standards did not permit the program to meet this large potential demand for training. The first phase of GFE workshops takes place at the beginning of each school year. Usually, there are three 3-h workshops held in September and October in several cities, such as Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa, and Crete. The author of the curricula and a supporting team of teachers that have been created throughout the years offer these workshops free of charge. In the first phase of the workshops, teachers are taught the basics of forgiveness, what forgiveness is and what it is not, and how to implement FE in the class. Apart from the in-person workshops, and because of the great demand for training teachers in smaller cities, there are also free online workshops offered at the beginning of each academic year during the first phase of the training.

Furthermore, another set of online or in-person training workshops is provided to all teachers in January (the second phase), with the last phase taking place in May when the teachers present their work in the classroom. Throughout the year, teachers have constant communication with the training team any time they seek advice, ask questions regarding the educational material, or troubleshoot any problems that may arise.

In response to the insistent requests from many school principals, the author of the curricula also offers free online workshops directed towards the parents of participating students, as well as other teachers who want to learn about the program. Finally, in June, there is an in-person meeting where the teachers discuss their experience teaching forgiveness in the classroom, present the final work of their students, and receive the certificate of attendance and program implementation in their class.

6. Dissemination in the Community

During the last decade, Greek researchers have come to know the FE program and have become rigorous in evaluating the effects of teaching forgiveness in Greek schools in Greece and various other settings [16,17]. PhD students have also started authoring their theses on forgiveness education, inspired by the training they have received as participants. Currently, at least four doctoral theses focused on FE are in progress at several Greek Universities.

One major dissemination step was the recent, after ten years of efforts, integration of GFE in extracurricular activities approved by the Ministry of Education, following the Instituteof Educational Policies recommendation for such an act. This resulted in delivering and making FE available on a national-wide school level. There was a special announcement sent to all schools in Greece with accompanying information about FE and inviting the teachers interested in participating to apply.

The concept of forgiveness that has spread extensively through GFE books and teachers’ presentations has prompted many reporters to learn more about the program’s aim, its benefits for the students’ wellbeing, and its potential to reduce bullying. For example, a well-known reporter for the national Greek TV station held an hour-long interview with the director of the program in Greece, launching the popularity of the program nationwide.

The most important disseminating source, however, has been the inexhaustible creativity of the teachers. There have been many innovative ideas promoted by many schools all over Greece.

One FE class of a high school in Athens, in collaboration with a private radio broadcast, produced a weekly talk series about forgiveness. The FE students, together with their teacher, created the program, inviting classmates, parents, neighbors, and the whole community to attend and learn about the benefits of forgiveness in everyday life. This school participated in a school contest for broadcasting and earned an award for their work.

Another interesting national activity was the contest to create videos with the theme of forgiveness. With the help of their FE teachers, students produced their own stories about forgiveness, either in digital form with cartoons, students’ acting, or as theatrical plays. The contest was organized among all participating schools, and an award was given to the top three submissions.

Another very innovative idea from an FE class was to establish a “Forgiveness Room” in their school. In this room, the FE teacher gathered students who had a quarrel or misunderstanding during the school day and guided a discussion based on the FE principals, helping the students solve their conflict and reconcile if both sides agreed. According to the principal, the teachers, the students, and the parents, this innovative idea was immensely helpful for all.

At the end of the school year, many schools choose to present their FE work to the community. Parents and other community authorities, such as the mayor, municipal counselors, school counselors, and superintendent, are invited to see how students present in an artistic way—through songs, dancing, theater productions, and art—what they have learned throughout the year about forgiveness. Sometimes the dissemination efforts expand beyond the school’s district and involve other schools that teach FE as well. Such was the case in the city of Patras, where there was a collaboration between three schools that presented a play about forgiveness in the central theater of the city. This sold-out performance led to the local press publishing articles that praised this event.

There is an effort by many schools to also involve parents in this final presentation. In a recent case from a school in Athens, the parents were invited to a school event about forgiveness and were asked to think of some family ancestors’ forgiveness stories to share with the audience if they wished. Since Greece is a country with many painful memories from wars, families have many recalled stories from grandparents or great-grandparents who described situations of forgiveness towards the enemy or person(s) who had hurt them.

Seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students from a school in Thessaloniki are presenting this year at a national conference the therapeutic value of forgiveness in healing collective trauma through dancing. Dance is the oldest way of expressing human emotions and one of the main forms of social expression. The healing power of dance, as imprinted in the long three thousand years of Greek tradition and reflected in both ancient and contemporary creations, from tragedy plays through the most recent folk songs, inspired the students of the GFE program. They selected, together with their teachers, Greek traditional dances from the past that speak about pain and forgiveness through the centuries. Through dancing, they were able to send a message about how people can manage negative emotions in a healthy way, heal wounds, and understand that empathy and forgiveness are invaluable means for human relationships.

One of the lessons suggested in the book "Conflict and Coexistence" is derived from the book “The Diary of Anna Frank”, which is based on Anna Frank’s diary entries during the Holocaust. The reading of the book’s stories results in an experiential exercise that guides the students to highlight all the reframing, resilience, and forgiveness elements reflected in the diary. A secondary school in Athens put on a theater performance presenting Anna’s forgiving and optimistic attitude during her incarceration. The forgiveness idea in the cruel time of the Holocaust through the eyes of a girl of the same age as the students who performed was a very powerful idea and illuminated many of the main values presented in the GFE curriculum to the audience.

Finally, schools that participated in Erasmus programs have traveled to European cities to share their forgiveness knowledge and how it can be applied as a conflict resolution and anger management proposal for violence and bullying.

In all, throughout the previous 10 years of establishing FE in Greek schools, the word of forgiveness has been spread in many ways. Countless articles, three books, and several TV and radio talks by the director of GFE have made the FE program well known beyond the school and academic settings. Most importantly, there is a talented team of teacher-trainers that transmits their knowledge and enthusiasm to the community.

7. Future Considerations and Innovative Implementations

Conceptualizing forgiveness is a complicated process, and future research can open fruitful paths. Because forgiveness is so easily misunderstood, it is essential for those who are the disseminators of the idea of forgiveness to express an accurate understanding of the definition of forgiveness [18]. Educators and those involved in the forgiveness process need to understand the absolute, objective, and universal essence of forgiveness and apply it when practicing forgiveness [19].

There are already studies published in Greek and English about the views and perceptions of the teachers [20] and the students about how they perceive forgiveness and their beliefs about FE. Indicative quotes by teachers (that can also be found at the website forgiveness.gr) include the following: “The strongest part of the program was that the students became aware about the benefits of forgiveness in their own life”. “They feel like members of a team that struggles for the common good”. “After being a teacher for over 30 years, I have realized that I cannot forgive in depth, nor do I have good thoughts for other people. I have a long way to go. This program has been a life lesson for me because I have realized that if I become a better person, then there is hope for a better world in the future”. “One of the best programs ever attended. It changes the way my students think and makes school life better”. Students also wrote the following: “This program made me a better person”. “We discussed and learned things that we never had the chance to learn about before”. “By listening to some very important stories of people who forgave other people I got the incentive and the willingness to work with myself more seriously”. “I have learned that no matter what bad things happen in my life I have to forgive and move on”.

The published information helps educators be more creative in designing curricula, planning lessons, and implementing workshops. There is also a study in progress about the needs and views of parents on FE. Both schools and families are essential stakeholders in the wellbeing of children and adolescents, and there is a broad consensus that both represent crucial settings not only for learning but also for acquiring social and emotional skills [21,22].

As the program develops, we consider future steps to be the following:

(1)

Extending the focus to educating the students’ parents. Based on our experience, we strongly recommend the involvement of parents in the forgiveness education journey, whether through workshops in school settings or online. Parents need not only to know but also to reinforce what is taught in school. Many parents have already expressed the desire to also become educated after seeing the positive results FE has had on their children. For that reason, every academic year we offer an introductory online workshop addressed to the parents of the students participating in that year’s training, with the aim of extending this offer to other parents as well.

(2)

FE curriculum reformative development is essential in the future. With time, education needs to adapt by implementing new programs or policies, taking into consideration the potential utilization of the new or revised instructional resources, the potential adaptation of innovative teaching approaches, and the future of changes in beliefs underlying new policies or programs [23]. Reforms and adaptations of the GFE curriculum are essential as a result, based on our 10 years of experience teaching FE in schools. Through forgiveness education, there are values, virtues, and norms transmitted explicitly and implicitly (hidden curriculum) through formal and informal educational efforts, exerting a significant influence on shaping students’ attitudes, behaviors, and learning experiences [23].

(3)

Another recent innovation that needs to be considered in the future and expanded to all schools teaching FE is digital storytelling (DS). DS is a new trend that is gaining increased ground in education. The GFE curricula are based on stories and consider storytelling a major pedagogical tactic [24]. Students in our time are very familiar with the use of technology and storytelling, and technology can harmoniously interact to teach the content of the GFE curricula and any kind of SEL skills [25,26]. In GFE, teachers and students create their digital stories together, which permits them to cultivate discussions and something to consider. Students are asked either to create their own entire stories or just the end of a particular story presented. Through DS, students learn to explore their experiences and apply the virtues learned in GFE and other SEL skills on a deeper level. By adapting and internalizing skills through their personal involvement, students can then transfer them more easily to real life.

(4)

Teachers who completed the one-year FE training have expressed the desire to continue the support, coordination, or supervision of their work by an expert for the following years, continuing to teach GFE. By having over fifteen hundred teachers trained for the last 10 years, we realize that there is a need for a coordinator who will address all the issues that the educators are facing, especially after the bullying and violence incidents that seem to have become a frequent phenomenon in the schools in recent years. The Forgiveness Room has been a good model for alleviating anger and resolving issues of conflict between students. However, an expanded and fully funded interdisciplinary team of FE-trained and experienced educators guided by a supervisor would provide support for teachers who need guidance and make GFE a more effective school-based prevention program.

(5)

Furthermore, a new research study titled “Trauma Transformation through Forgiveness Education” is in process, funded by the Niarchos Foundation and the Greek Diaspora Fellowship program and managed by the Institute of International Education. Five hundred ninth grade students from four Greek cities were randomly selected from a total of sixteen classrooms, four from each city. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of FE in reducing anger and ethnic prejudice and improving empathy and forgiveness in Greek adolescents.

In addition to the future considerations within the school setting, there are great opportunities for new innovative interventions in the field of forgiveness education that can have a significant impact on the community. Some suggestions, already in process, include:

(1) Adapting the FE curriculum to adults so that it can be used in other educational settings, like universities and “Schools of Second Chance”, attended by adults who did not have the chance to go to school as children. Also, students attending school units hosted by correctional institutions provide another target audience with a population that has had adverse experiences leading to unresolved anger and hurt. Experienced teachers working in the above settings constitute creative teams, providing both information and opportunity for new curricula based on the specific needs of these student populations.

(2) Focusing on different at-risk populations. For example, a social worker in the Fire Department asked to be trained in FE so that they could help their colleagues with the traumatic experiences they were facing. Another request for implementing FE was made by an institution that houses and supports single mothers. Many of them carried a lot of anger, and FE was considered a prominent healing process. Other traumatized adults might benefit from material adapted to their own specific needs.

(3) Greece is one of the European countries heavily affected by the refugee crisis, hosting thousands of refugees from Middle Eastern and African countries. While the Ministry of Education has made admirable efforts to integrate refugee children into public schools, there are still too many obstacles to overcome. The anger and insecurity that both sides are experiencing in the efforts to integrate refugees into society can be alleviated through the teaching of forgiveness education. Focusing on diverse cultures and a wide representation of different populations outside of the western, educated, internalized, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations [18] is critical when designing FE curricula for promoting harmonious living between various ethnicities in the school. Experimental studies were conducted by Gobari et al. with eighth-grade students in Iran and found improvements in the areas of forgiveness, anger, and ethnic prejudice, which were maintained at follow-up [27].

We believe that FE can function as a beneficial integration method for various groups. Forgiveness cuts across many religions and philosophical traditions and offers such versatility that it can be applied to a variety of contexts [4,11,19]. Given the challenging situation in Greece, a country that was unprepared to adapt to such a large human rights refugee crisis, the importance of educating all students, coming from various cultural groups, from an early age in forgiveness, acceptance, inclusion, and non-discrimination, on both a personal and social level, is obvious and demanding.

(4) Persistent sports fan violence has been a pervasive issue in Greek soccer in the past decade, frequently extending its reach to affect other sports like basketball and volleyball. The Departments of Sports Psychology at the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences of two major Greek Universities asked for collaboration and required teachers and students to be trained on forgiveness as an anti-radicalization vehicle for the “No Hate Speech Non-Violence in Sport” Erasmus Program. We believe that this collaboration would confirm and intensify the benefits of FE through multicultural studies and spread forgiveness training beyond the borders of Greece to other European countries.

8. Conclusions

The implementation of FE in a new school environment requires a multidisciplinary approach from a group of experts. It begins with educating these experts on the virtues of forgiveness before reaching out to the target groups. The effort should involve well-planned and multilevel approaches that initially include both administrative (local, regional, and higher-level national) steps as well as the development of curricula that adapt to each area’s and/or country’s history, traditions, customs, and needs. Furthermore, the development of a core of trained teachers who, with supervision, can further train other schoolteachers is of paramount importance. It is important to emphasize the significance of continuous supervision of the FE teacher body throughout the school year and the development of a process for the teachers to have constant communication and feedback from the supervising experts. Actively involving parents in the process also increases the success rate of the program. To create a sustainable future, FE programs will need to be implemented in broader settings, beyond schools, to meet the essential needs of an increasingly multicultural and multidimensional society. Finally, the development and use of quality insurance reporting tools as well as the implementation of both local and multinational outcome studies on FE will help evaluate and manifest the importance of FE in anger management, conflict resolution, and the overall wellbeing of the students.