Empowering Our Teachers To Transform The World

When I was a kid, following my uncles’ death, my father felt it was appropriate to move closer to the city where my grieving cousin and aunt lived. This is how when I was 9 I came to move from Ankara to Istanbul with my family.  That is how I ended up having two primary school teachers.  I remember being very sad and crying for having to leave my teachers and friends.  Looking back I realize how this move was to become so positively pivotal in my life. What made the difference was that my teacher in Ankara was unhappy whereas my teacher in Istanbul was a very happy person, and also a loving person.  Today I am writing about how empowering teachers is one of the ways to transform the world.

Sadiye Suna Balta was my teacher’s name. I was her student only two and a half years.  That was enough time to make the impact for her to transform my world.  As we were graduating she gave us a letter.  In the 35  years since receiving this letter I have moved several times countries and houses; I have left books, clothing, cherished objects imbued with memories of the past behind. One thing that stayed with me was this letter that guided me all through my life:

My Dear Ones,

Today is your last day in primary school……

You will continue your life journey.  Wherever you are, aim to do the best in all.  When I am sending you to your new life full of health, happiness and success I have few last wishes from you:

Don’t ever make having good grades and passing your class an aim. Aim to learn and to make use of what you learn.  Certificates are not everything if you do not develop yourself.  Remember your success is foremost dependent on your work….

Do not stray from honesty even in the most difficult conditions. Love people and support each other. Do not feel spoiled by your successes and persevere without being discouraged by your failures.  Competition will take you to success; but first compete with yourself.

Let each of your day be better than the one before……

Stop seeing friends who you feel will stray you in bad way…..

All the goodness be with you….

Your teacher

Sadiye Suna Balta

 

As I read these lines after 35 years, as I have done many times since I first received it, I am overcome with very strong emotions.  It touches me at a depth difficult to describe.  Maybe more than what is written in these lines the love and the care my teacher felt as she was writing them that I feel and moved by.

As a psychotherapist many of my clients are teachers.  They come to me with personal, family and work related difficulties, struggling to make their life and work meaningful.  Surrounded by bureaucracy and consumerist materialistic social system our teachers feel more and more disempowered to shape the new generations in a fulfilling way.  Only happy teachers can help their students.

Often a teacher who fails to look after his or her own well being create more suffering in and out of the  classroom in their relationship with their students, their parents and their colleagues.  Most of us don’t know how to approach the suffering we encounter and lose contact with our own happiness.

I would like to share few insights I learned in my practice about how we can transform the suffering we encounter and imbue the happiness that heals us all:

• Listen to your own body, mind and soul with acceptance. Find peace within you.
• Release and clean your body, mind and soul from the conditionings of yours and your ancestors’ lives.
• Realign your body, mind and soul so that they are all united most of the time.
• Feel the gratitude of the simplest things: Air, water, flowers, clothing, students, limitations, even suffering as they are the agents of transformation.
• Experience transforming emotions like anger, fear and jealousy both in yourself as well as in others by creating moments of happiness.
• Listen to your pupils, their parents and colleagues to truly hear and understand with an empty mind.
• Approach problems and conflicts from this place of unconditional love of the united body, mind and spirit.

Healing our teachers means sending our kids to spend their days with a happy teacher.  And this is so vital for our communities!  This is the basis for peace in the world  where the wars are fueled by adults whose childhood wounds and unhappiness are not healed.

Finally I would like to share this video titled ‘Happy Teachers Will Change The World’.  It is prepared by ‘Wake Up School Movement’.  In this video teachers share their experiences of self discovery, healing and transformation in a retreat.

With gratitude to my teacher Sadiye Suna Balta who taught me the power of love through her own happiness.

Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) image:Ilmicrofono Oggiono