Wake Up Schools
Wake Up Schools support educators to bring the practices of mindfulness and applied ethics into their own lives so they may be happy and free and in turn share these practices with colleagues and students in their school communities. With mindfulness, teachers and students can experience more peace, learn how to take care of difficult emotions, and create conditions for a happy school and a happy world.
- Thich Nhat Hanh“I think it is the good teachers who will be able to change the world. That’s my belief, because a teacher can nourish, can heal, and can build healthy, happy human beings.”
Watch this introductory video to learn more about the Wake Up Schools movement to bring Plum Village practices into the lives of teachers and schools around the world.
Mindfulness in Education
Wake Up Schools is a world-wide movement believing in the transformative power of mindfulness, especially in learning environments. It includes a global network of dedicated practitioners who are committed to establishing a steady personal practice (breath, walking, movement, body scan, eating, and more). In a spirit of service, educators explore how to integrate core practices into their educational setting with children, teenagers, young adults and all members of their school communities.
Happy Teachers Change the World
A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education
Happy Teachers Change the World is the first official, authoritative manual of the Thich Nhat Hanh/Plum Village approach to mindfulness in education. Spanning the whole range of schools and grade levels, from preschool through higher education, these techniques are grounded in the everyday world of schools, colleges, and universities.
Beginning firmly with teachers and all those working with students, including administrators, counselors, and other personnel, the Plum Village approach stresses that educators must first establish their own mindfulness practice since everything they do in the classroom will be based on that foundation. The book includes easy-to-follow, step-by-step techniques perfected by educators to teach themselves and to apply to their work with students and colleagues, along with inspirational stories of the ways in which teachers have made mindfulness practice alive and relevant for themselves and their students across the school and out into the community.
Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing
In congruence with the values and principles of Wake Up Schools, Deer Park Monastery is building the first Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing in Escondido, CA. Learn more about this project here.
Explore Online Courses
From time to time we offer multi-week courses related to mindfulness, the teachings and life of Thich Nhat Hanh, and a variety of similar subjects. Please see our schedule of upcoming courses.
Plum Village App
Take the Deer Park Monastery and Plum Village community with you wherever you go. The Plum Village app is designed to cultivate mindfulness, compassion, and joy through guided meditations, deep relaxations, practice poems, bells of mindfulness, and other practices — all through a mobile device.
