Do children have to be forced to forgive?

Recently, my underage niece just got in a fight with one of her classmate (teasing that grew in to heated mouth fight). The teacher who saw this incident then ask both of these kids to come to her in front of the class and tell them both to shake hand, apologize, and what is worse, smile to each others, and she won’t allow them to sit back before they do that. This also prompt other nosy kids to say “Just do it!”

So, in order to end this embarrassment they both did that reluctantly in pretentious manner. The teacher then continue her lesson again.

This is, of course, isn’t the end to the issue, when my niece got home she told me everything about that and that she didn’t forgive her friends and she did that because she has no other choice but to do it since her teacher forced them to do that. She still hates her classmate anyway.

This incident reminds me of my childhood, with the same situation. I believe many teachers do this so they could continue their lesson without any prolonged issues, or that they are really that stupid to think this is an ‘easy and effective’ solution.

As an addition, I also saw this kind of problem solving practiced by many teachers in my childhood, and I couldn’t believe the same culture is still preserved till these days.

What do you think?