Educators Retreat Description

This is a Wake-Up Schools Level 1 Retreat.

REGISTRATION OPENS FEBRUARY 1st 2020

Dharma Teachers Valerie Brown, Richard Brady, and Fern Dorresteyn are teaming up to offer an Educators Retreat at MorningSun Community. We invite you to join these longtime educators and wonderful Dharma Teachers from the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for this special retreat. Classroom teachers, administrators, social workers, others in the educational field, and anyone who works with youth is encouraged to apply.

The retreat will offer participants a chance to refresh themselves and cultivate their own personal mindfulness practice as a base for any sharing of mindfulness with others. It will support them to have an experiential understanding of the practices, and develop the language and skills needed to bring the practice back to the communities they serve. They will also learn effective methods to enhance focus, attention, kindness, and emotional well-being inside and outside the classroom.

The retreat center at MorningSun offers an intimate setting in nature that pleasantly supports our communal practice of mindfulness. The modest retreat size is a precious and powerful opportunity that allows for every participant to have personal contact with the Teachers.

We are excited to welcome you to our community of practice!

Learn and Explore Mindfulness Practices

This retreat is a Wake Up Schools Level I retreat. For more information, visit wakeupschools.org

Practices during the retreat will include:

• Sitting Meditation
• Mindful Eating
• Walking Meditation
• Deep Relaxation
• Circle Sharing
• Loving speech & deep listening
• Beginning anew (conflict resolution)
• Stopping, Pausing, and Looking Deeply
• Bells of Mindfulness in Daily Life

The retreat will also include:

• Workshops for sharing mindfulness practice with youth
• Ways to support youth of diverse backgrounds and different privilege
• How to support mindfulness practice among co-workers and school staff
• And more…

Teacher Bios:

Valerie Brown (JD, MA, PCC) transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career as a lawyer-lobbyist, representing educational institutions and nonprofits, to human-scale work with leaders and teams to foster trustworthy, compassionate, and authentic connections.  She is an accredited leadership coach, international retreat leader, writer, and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC, specializing in application and integration of mindfulness and leadership, and is a Co-Director of Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.  

Her books include, The Road that Teaches:  Lessons in Transformation through Travel (QuakerBridge Media, 2012) and the highly acclaimed, The Mindful School Leader:  Practices to Transform Your Leadership and School (Corwin, 2014). In addition to her extensive training in educational leadership, Valerie is an ordained Dharma Teacher in the Plum Village tradition founded by Thich Nhat Hanh, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She is also a certified Kundalini yoga teacher, helping leaders discover the wisdom of the body.

For more information about Valerie, visit her educational leadership website at: http://www.leadsmartcoaching.com/about/

Richard Brady is a retreat leader, writer, educational consultant, and coordinator of the Wake Up Schools Level II Program in North America.  He is a founder of the Mindfulness in Education Network, an international organization with 1,700 participants. In 2001, he received lamp transmission from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh to be a Dharma teacher in his tradition with a special focus on cultivating mindfulness in young people.  Richard has lead retreats and offered workshops for educators in the US, Italy, and Germany. He is an editor of Tuning In: Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning (2009). Other writings are available at www.mindingyourlife.net.

Fern Dorresteyn is a Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition, a founder of the Morning Sun Mindfulness Community, and a mother of three.  She lived in Plum Village monasteries for nine years, training in the meditative arts as a nun for seven. While in Plum Village she worked with the Plum Village community and Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh to organize and offer meditation retreats around the world. She has been organizing and leading children’s programs and mindfulness retreats for families in  the Plum Village tradition since 1996.  In 2006 she completed a training at Sophia’s Hearth Family Center for caring for young children and families.

Logistics:

Arrival for the retreat is Wednesday, June 26, from 3pm to 6pm
Departure is on Sunday after lunch on June 30th, at 3pm.

This is a small retreat and spaces are limited. Booking early is highly suggested as the retreat will likely sell out. The intimate nature of this small retreat size is rare for educators retreats, and registration will likely be closed well before the retreat begins.

You will receive confirmation of your space upon registration and receipt of payment. (see link to registration form below)

There are three parts to the program cost:

1. The program itself (offered on an affordable sliding scale: $180 – 300)
2. Accommodations (costs vary from camping ($30) to dormitory rooms ($150))
3. Dana (sliding scale contribution towards the compensation of the facilitators, suggested between $50-150)

Please begin to fill out the registration form to calculate your total retreat cost.

Financial Assistance: Anyone who wishes to attend the retreat will be welcomed, no matter of financial ability. If the lowest tier is still too high for you, please follow the link to the Financial Assistance Application.

More detailed information about the retreat will be sent out to all of the registered participants in April.

For more questions, please email David Viafora at morningsunoffice@gmail.com

REGISTRATION OPENS FEBRUARY 1st 2020