Happy Teachers Will Change the World

A film by artist/ filmmaker Wouter Verhoeven for Wake Up Schools: Cultivating Mindfulness in Education, a global vision to walk the path of compassion, peace and joy in education through the practice of mindfulness.

This film shows teachers learning mindfulness, true transformation and happiness on our retreats. Please share it to help us reach out to as many teachers as possible—at all levels, worldwide—so that mindfulness, concentration and the insight to take care of difficult emotions may be available in classrooms everywhere. Be the change you want to see in the world, so that the children and students of today and tomorrow will become mindful, responsible, ethical and happy citizens of the global community.

[Plum Village presents]

[Mindfulness is the energy of being aware and awake
to the present moment.]

[It is the continuous practice of touching life deeply
in every moment of daily life.]

[To be mindful is to be truly alive, present and at one
with those around you and with what you are doing.]

Mindfulness is a mental formation

Everyone has a seed of mindfulness

and if we practice diligently,

the seed of mindfulness in us

will grow bigger and bigger.

Any time we need
that energy of mindfulness,

we just touch it and we have
plenty of it to make use of it.

We know that mindfulness
has the power, has the capacity,

to allow us to know what is going on.

What is going on in our body,

going on in our feelings,

going on in our mind,

and going on in the world.

I remember very clearly
one time in Plum Village,

Thay came out with this expression,
'Happy teachers will change the world'.

Since then, Thay has done a calligraphy,
'Happy teachers will change the world',

and we've developed this
'Wake Up Schools' initiative,

which is our offering to bring mindfulness

and Plum Village tradition's practices

to offer to teachers,
classrooms and schools.

Thay, our teacher,
very much wants this to happen.

If the teachers know how to do that,

they will transmit the practice
to their students.

The practice is possible in the classroom,

and the classroom will be happier.

In education we want
to touch happiness and touch freedom.

Those are two points that I feel
are fundamental to any kind of education.

Help teachers be happier in their work,

to help students,
the whole classroom environment,

be a place that is enjoyable.

To make a school become a second family

where the teacher, the students,
and the whole school, the parents as well,

see it as a joint effort to create
a place where it's not about the future,

about your careers, and the jobs,
and the positions, and the money,

but as a place where you actually
enjoy living and enjoy learning,

and enjoy exploring.

When we're born we don't necessarily know
how to touch happiness.

There's a joy in the child
but how do we maintain that joy,

how do we grow it,
how do we make it lasting,

so that it can withstand

all the kind of difficulties we face.

One very wise teacher told me
that a good teacher must first be happy

because you transmit
your presence to your students,

you're like the weather
in the classroom.

The mindfulness, and just being able
to see things with different eyes,

just simply through smiling,

breathing, and moving slowly.

Who would have thought
that it's so simple!

(Bell rings)

To be alive on this planet,

and to be making steps
on this beautiful planet,

is a miracle.

Mindful walking means

you touch the ground
of the planet earth mindfully,

and you touch all the wonders of life.

Mindfulness allows us
to be aware that we are alive,

that we are walking on this planet.

Every step can be healing,
every step can be nourishing,

every step can free us
from the past and the future,

so that we can truly enjoy
the present moment,

and there are those of us
who are capable of healing ourselves,

just by mindful walking.

I walked mindfully,

taking care of my steps,

and at that moment, seeing
these two groups come together,

and merge into one big community,

at that moment I felt tremendous joy.

I remember Thay always asks us
to come back to our home.

Of course mentally, intellectually,

I know it's coming back home to myself,
to the present moment,

but at that moment I just suddenly --

kind of understood what he said.

Coming back to home, the home is

maybe the community
of us walking together,

flowing as a river.

It's not fixed, it's always flowing,

and the interconnectedness,

coming back to home, to this feeling,

this present moment
of interconnectedness,

I felt like, "Oh, how wonderful".

(Bell rings)

(Bell rings)

Effortlessness is the nature
of the practice.

You don't strive, you don't fight,
you don't impose the practice on yourself.

You don't suffer, because of the practice.

You just enjoy breathing in,
you just enjoy making a step.

And when your breathing

is peaceful, deep, harmonious,

your body will profit from it,
your body will become lighter,

more peaceful, and also
your feelings will be more peaceful.

In our daily life, very often, our body
is there but our mind is elsewhere.

In these moments we are not truly alive.

According to this practice
you need only to breathe in mindfully,

and you ride on your in-breath and
go home in just one, two, three seconds.

When your mind is with your body, you are
well established in the here and the now,

and you can touch the wonders of life

inside and around,
for your nourishment and healing.

Right now, I've been using
my mindfulness practice

to help keep me more clear
in my classroom,

with the stresses that come,

and to be present for the students,

and also to know
when I'm not like that.

To try to find a way to bring
more freshness, more presence to myself.

A happy teacher is a teacher that has time

to be there for himself or herself.

Someone who knows
how to take care of themselves,

so they have enough balance,

so that they know how to deal
with the challenges they have.

Because one of the biggest problems
in teaching is actually

that teachers give too much,
without putting anything back,

and we have this big problem
of teacher stress and burnout.

Teachers can look like they're very busy,

were giving this, doing that,
computers are out,

but what do students actually get,

what are we actually
cultivating in young people?

That's kind of a hard question.

I have kids coming in and out all day,
like they may come for 45 or 90 minutes,

a lot of transition,
it can be very hectic.

So, I'd start with that simple practice.

Just as the brother did first here,

I'd have the kids sit in a circle,
and I would ring the bell.

I'd get out my little bell,
and I'd say to my students,

our bodies are here,
but where are our minds?

Our mind might still be at lunch,
it might still be in math class,

and so, if one hand represents our mind,
and the other hand represents our body,

when I invite the bell, and we bring
awareness to our breathing,

our mind and body come together.

(Bell rings)

I listen, I listen.

You are listening very deeply.

You allow the sound of the bell
to penetrate into your body,

every cell of your body.

(Bell rings)

And when you breathe out, you say,

this wonderful sound
brings me back to my true home.

To really be there in the classroom.

I mean, your body can be there,
but your mind might not be there,

and when your mindful,
you're mind and body are there,

and you have more of a chance to really --

If you're there,
you know who else is there,

you know you're there,
and you can have a real encounter,

true communication with someone else,
and real learning can happen

when there's two humans
who really connect with each other,

because they're both present.

And that is a life-giving moment.

Like Thay says,

"The best gift you can offer
is your true presence."

So you have to start with teachers.

You have to have teachers
who are themselves calm, centered,

able to really be there for the kids.

So mindfulness is key,
and it starts with us,

it starts with being able
to come home to ourselves,

and really be there for ourselves,

and then the moment of teaching
and learning becomes a --

a really rewarding
experience of connection.

It has quality to it,

because you're learning information
but you're learning to be a human being

at the same time.

(Bell rings)

Dear friends, eating can be
a deep meditation also.

During breakfast time or lunch time,
we can stop our thinking.

When I pick up a piece of bread,

I may spend one or two seconds

to recognize that it is a piece of bread.

That's mindfulness.

And mindfulness has concentration in it,

and one second
of mindfulness and concentration,

allows me to see that this bread
contains the whole cosmos.

The rain, the cloud, the earth,

time, space, farmers, everything.

When you put that piece
of bread into your mouth,

you're in touch with the whole cosmos.

We can eat every morsel
of our breakfast or our lunch in that way.

And from time to time we stop eating
and we are aware of the co-practitioners,

the brothers and sisters
in the Dharma who are there,

that can help build the spirit,

the energy of brotherhood
and sisterhood, joy and peace.

(Bell rings)

In our Dharma discussion families,

we just sit in a circle and we share -

maybe 25 people that never
met each other before.

People get so much from this experience

because we set it up in such a way,

that everybody has a chance
to share and be listened to,

and the energy of concentration,
of listening, is quite profound.

We don't go into dialogue,
and we're not interrupted.

You don't get advice,
you get people sharing their experience,

and it may relate
to somebody else's experience.

You get authentic sharings from people.

People open up, share from their heart,
what is going on for them,

what is their experience,
what is their difficulty,

what is their success,

what they found to be helpful for them.

So we exchange experiences
that are beneficial,

and also we get to --

put down our load,
if we're having a difficulty.

A lot of healing takes place,
and people experience this feeling

of brotherhood and sisterhood
in this kind of circle,

in a way which seems miraculous.

My Dharma discussions, I just cried
through every session of that,

because there was such sisterhood --

we had a couple of brothers --

but there was
such a sisterhood bond in there.

The sense of belonging to a community,

that is something that happens
here in the retreat,

is so powerful and so inspiring.

There's a tremendous support,

a sense of safety,

there's a protectedness
in the teachings --

A sense of sacredness, a sense of --

deep love.

(Children sing)

(Bell rings)

After four or five days

of just being in this collective energy

of peace, quiet, mindfulness, ease,

not having any projects to work on,
any meetings to attend,

just letting go of their thinking,
coming back to their breathing,

being aware of their body
and their emotions

for four or five days --

I think they felt very touched

that we care enough.

That will always be a core part
of Wake Up Schools -

taking care of the teacher.

(Heavy tribal drumming)

There is a habit energy
in every one of us.

We're used to run.

Usually, people don't like
to go home to themselves

and get in touch
with the suffering inside.

They are afraid of being overwhelmed
by the suffering inside,

so their usual way is to try

to run away from their own suffering.

They try cover up the suffering inside,

their loneliness, their fear,
their anger and their despair.

For a teacher,

for a school teacher,
the first thing to do

is to go home to himself or herself.

The way out is in.

Go back to oneself

and take care of oneself.

Learning how to generate a feeling of joy,

learning how to generate
a feeling of happiness,

learning how to handle

a painful feeling,

a painful emotion.

Listening to the suffering,

allow understanding and compassion
to be born, and suffer less.

This is the first step.

He or she has to do that,
that is the first step.

Five years ago my father passed away,

and at that time I --

it was a an aneurysm, very sudden,

and so --

I retreated.

I can remember at that time,

just, I don't know --

people would try to get it out of me.

My wife tried very hard
to have me talk about it.

I couldn't. I thought, I can control this.

My rational mind thought,
I can control this experience.

But since that time, I lose my temper,

I yell, raise my voice,
things have happened,

but coming here,
at the beginning of the retreat

Thay made a comment, he said,

"Sometimes through the practice,
you can touch your suffering."

Well, I didn't really --

I listened --

but then, there was this sister leading
the 'mindfulness of the inner child'.

We had to visualize the inner child,

take care of our fragility,

and then she went on
to the mother inside of us,

and I love my mother very much,
that was a very painful time for her,

but, though I was trying to concentrate,
I found myself thinking,

move on, move on to the father,
move on to the father in me,

and there was --

so I've caused suffering for my wife,
I've caused suffering for my children,

and for my students,
in not knowing about my anger.

I felt, that moment,

that I actually had touched my suffering.

It's because of all these people,
they have taught me so many lessons.

And it was very overwhelming for me,

and I'm very grateful.

We can speak about
the goodness of suffering.

If you know how to embrace suffering,

to hold it tenderly,
to look deeply into it,

then you will be able to generate
the energy of compassion,

and understanding,

which are the foundation
of true happiness.

It's like when you grow
lotus flowers, you need the mud.

Lotus flowers cannot grow on marble.

Without the mud you cannot grow a lotus.

The same thing is true
with happiness and suffering.

A good practitioner knows

how to make good use of suffering
in order to grow happiness.

We get teachers in our retreats

that want to come and learn
curriculums and techniques,

but in the end, we teach them
how to transform themselves,

and to bring about happiness
in their own lives.

That is more powerful
than any curriculum or technique.

Although it's important to teach
young people mindfulness,

it's even more important
to be mindful yourself, as a teacher,

because kids pick up
on what you embody, who you are,

much more than they do
what you tell them to do.

It's just fundamental
to any kind of teaching -

the teacher needs to master it
before they can share with the student.

(Chanting)

This, being my first retreat,

has been very eye-opening,
very heart-opening to me,

because I consider myself a skeptic.

There's been a relatively small number
of studies, but they are powerful,

and they show that
mindfulness with young people

has very similar impacts
to mindfulness with adults,

where there's a very good evidence base,
showing, not surprisingly,

that young people's minds are the same
as adults' minds, essentially.

They show that mindfulness
appears to have an impact

on mental health, stress,
anxiety, depression.

It can help kids to learn more effectively
and that's very important for schools,

who may not be interested, sadly,
in the mental health side --

but are always inspired by the idea

of improved results, better learning,
better concentration and so on.

Mindfulness would appear
to improve that side of school,

and also appears to help kids to have
better relationships with one another,

to behave better, to be less impulsive,

and to manage their emotions
more effectively.

I felt the difference in me

of walking meditation every day,

sitting meditation and guided meditation,

and what that can do to increase
my ability to be open,

and my ability to notice
my reactions before they spill over.

So these changes are not just subjective,
they're actually visible on brain scans,

and I think that is really
quite influential

for the people who are wondering
whether there's any science here

or whether this is just wishful thinking.

You can actually see
the physiological changes in brains.

(Bell rings)

(Guitar music)

Wow.

It's amazing.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Just the image of so many people -
ordinary people, teachers, administrators,

really being inspired by these messages.

Just the vision of all those people
sitting in the hall, meditating,

listening to Thay,

the depth of discussion that happens
in the little Dharma groups we're in,

the way people open up to each other,
the honesty, the freshness.

It is just a real endorsement
of mindfulness

as a way of being, and a way
of helping people feel more authentic,

which is not always to be happy
in the sense of cheerful and smiley.

There's been a lot of tears,
there's been a lot of opening up,

but just renewing that sense of touching,

touching the humanity
in everyone, and in oneself,

feeling part of a greater whole.

It's just priceless.

Experiencing that suffering is happiness
and happiness is suffering and --

So our mindfulness is not just
a technique to be successful,

but it's a technique
to be a free human being.

If you stay with it the long enough
that will become its intention.

It's not just stress reduction
or being a successful student,

but it's actually coming
to the deepest of your suffering

and finding a way to be free from it,

and to untie these knots
that are stuck in your mind.

This is more like the ultimate concern.

I can do this, and I can share it.

Coming here just made me more eager
and hopeful about a new school year,

and not to impose anything
I've learned on my students,

but to bring to them
a teacher that is happy,

a teacher that can find peace and joy
in being in the classroom.

I have tremendous hope for my future
and what I can do as a teacher.

To know that I can be a part
of this mindful movement --

that can change the world.

We've talked about that,

the theme that happy teachers
can change the world.

It's the happy kids
that are gonna change the world.

We're just sort of a vehicle
to bring that movement wherever we go.

And the long-term project, thinking,

as we could live like this,
and as we could practice this even more,

what an impact
that's gonna have on the world.

That's why we say: "Happy teachers
will change the world."

(Singing)

If we are a happy teacher,
we are a mindful teacher,

and that mindfulness
ripples out around us.

(Guitar music)

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