Wake Up Schools supports educators in bringing Plum Village mindfulness practice and applied ethics into their own lives so they may be happier and more free,

Leaders of the international Wake Up Schools initiative offer stories of building connection and community.

By Richard Brady, Catherine Fiscus, Guillaume Chave, Joost Vriens, Kumiko Jin on September 2, 2025

Wake Up Schools supports educators in bringing Plum Village mindfulness practice and applied ethics into their own lives so they may be happier and more free, and in turn share these practices with colleagues and students in their school communities. We accomplish this through retreats and Days of Mindfulness for educators, regular online educator gatherings, and country and regional educator sanghas and training programs. Because we believe that learning from one’s own personal experience and those of others leads to embodied understanding, stories about practice play a special role. As leaders of the Wake Up Schools initiative, we offer the following stories focused on building connection and community.

Learning for Each Other

In his June 1992 Plum Village retreat, I received a prize lesson about collaboration from Thầy, who’d been my teacher for three years. Before inviting us to leave the meditation hall for our first outdoor walking meditation of the retreat, he asked us to be aware of others walking nearby. “You may notice someone walking very beautifully. If so, there’s no reason to be jealous. That person’s practice is supporting your own. Similarly, your walking supports the practice of others around you.” He then gave each of us a sticker to put in one of our walking shoes. It read “I walk for you.” Seeing the sticker each day as I slipped on my shoes for walking meditation, I felt myself as one with my fellow retreatants.

Later that summer, before school began, I ordered stickers reading “I learn for you.” On the first day of class, when I introduced the small-group work we would be doing all year, I distributed these stickers. They were to be applied to the covers of the students’ textbooks—a reminder, I told them, that their learning was also for the benefit of other students, and vice versa. In Thích Nhất Hạnh’s tradition, practicing mindfulness in a sangha, or spiritual community, is of prime importance. To give and receive support makes a sangha or a classroom a home for all.*

—Richard Brady, US

*From Walking the Teacher’s Path with Mindfulness: Stories for Reflection and Action, by Richard Brady, Routledge, 2021

Teaching Loving Speech and Deep Listening to Teachers

I am a French teacher, and I regularly facilitate workshop days for educators with several friends in the Plum Village tradition at Healing Spring Monastery in Seine et Marne, near Paris.

One of the main Plum Village practices that seems important to educators is to cultivate deep listening and loving speech.

In 2010, when our “Educ’inspir” meetings were founded by Christiane Terrier (who is now physically gone but so present in our hearts and minds), we discovered a wonderful practice: People sit face to face, and for three minutes the first person expresses herself on a situation that she experienced in the past. The workshop theme (such as anger or feeling supported) can be a prompt.

The practice is to share without judging, with loving words, just describing the situation and feelings. The other person listens deeply with all her heart and breathes mindfully, welcoming all the emotions and feelings that arise within her, totally present and silent. Then, after a ring of the bell, both breathe together, and the listener shares her summary of what he or she just heard. Then they change roles. Next, for two minutes each, they share with each other how they felt as they were listened to.

Every time, people cry and hug each other. This practice is very powerful and can lead to better habits in future conversations, such as trying not to interrupt your interlocutor even if you don’t agree with them.

It really could be a step for peace in human relations! 

—Guillaume Chave, France

Connecting with Children, Teachers, and Parents

I am Catherine, and I have been practicing meditation in the Plum Village tradition and participating in “Educ’inspir” days since 2013. I was a social worker in the public schools of Nanterre, near Paris, and I was wondering how to support children (six to twelve years old) who were stressed, had difficulties calming down and concentrating, and had bad relations with others. Their parents were not aware of the suffering of their children, or not ready to accept help from social workers.

I created the workshop “I Breathe,” which I held once a week at lunchtime. For thirty to forty minutes, I welcomed twelve children and one teacher to a quiet room in the school—a quiet time to be kind with oneself and with others, and to rest.

In France, public schools are strictly secular. I never spoke of Buddhism. But I transmitted a lot of Plum Village practices: inviting the bell, exercises of breathing, songs like “Happiness Is Here and Now,” the inner weather report, pebble meditation, the Three Earth Touchings, eating something in mindfulness, movements of yoga, and at last, total relaxation... with children deeply asleep.

At the end of the year, I presented a ‘diploma’ to those who joined more than five workshops. One little girl came forty-six times! The children enjoyed these workshops; for me, it was a great opportunity to practice with them in school. It improved my connection with the children, the families, and the teachers. It also protected me from burnout as a social worker. I offered these practices until my retirement in 2024.

—Catherine Fiscus, France

Sharing Stories of Connection with Teachers

Our Dutch online education sangha started on a Sunday evening in May 2022. In the beginning, a lot of teachers wanted to join because they needed a curriculum for mindfulness lessons in school.

Based on the Wake Up Schools’ foundation that the first and most important step is for the teacher to deepen her or his practice, we offer a guided meditation and some space for walking meditation. After silent meditation, we close with space for sharing.

After some time, I discovered a new practice. Every Friday evening, I write an invitation for others to join the sangha, connecting our practices and insights to the daily experience of people who work in the education field. Sometimes inspiration for these invitations comes from my personal experience as a teacher. I once walked by a school and saw an angry child and an angry teacher. I try to support teachers in their challenges at school, and I use those small experiences as an inspiration for a theme.

“Uncertainty” is one such theme. The inspiration came from a teacher who could see vulnerability and uncertainty at the root of the challenging behavior of her students. One morning, she suddenly realized that she had been using her position as a teacher to cling to things that seemed important, such as knowledge, her profession, or rules because the students’ uncertainty touched her uncertainty. She started sharing this with her students. Wonderful conversations followed and relations improved.

Not everybody who receives this invitation joins the sangha. But we have received feedback that these experience-based invitations nourish their practice. We are now working on a website to make these themes available for more teachers.

—Joost Vriens, Netherlands

A nourishing educator sangha practice: Being present with tiredness and oneself

One of the things we’ve learned in establishing an educator sangha in Japan is that it is very helpful for busy teachers to attend a monthly two-hour virtual educator mindfulness evening. Once every three or four months, we offer an in-person gathering to learn and be nourished by each other’s presence. The practice of total relaxation is always included in the schedule, and I am very happy to see the educators looking more relaxed and at ease at the end of the gathering.

Some of them said that they came to “learn” mindfulness to know how to teach it, but in the end, they found out how tired they had been and hadn’t noticed it before they connected deeply with themselves. This is an essential insight and experience for teachers—to connect with themselves. Being relaxed is crucial in this time when society is changing drastically. Fear and anxiety cover many parts of the world, so it is very important for educators to nurture the capacity to be relaxed and peaceful.

I have learned this from personal experience.

In 2019, I was diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune system disease. I was hospitalized for two weeks and practiced a lot in the hospital. I realized the importance of mindfulness practice for the limited life of this body. My body got tired easily, so I couldn’t do both full-time teaching and sharing mindfulness with other teachers. I had to accept my tiredness. I changed my job to teach part time so that I had enough energy and time to support the educator sangha in Japan. This included starting the translation project of Happy Teachers Change the World with educator sangha members, a project which has profoundly connected us. Time and again, mindfulness helped me choose the right direction.

—Kumiko Jin, Japan