No 20 How to create a meaningful life with Thomas Nielsen and Neil Hawkes

Thomas Nielsen,  is an Associate Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia.  Born in Denmark Thomas brings to this podcast his deep humanity and scholarly understanding about how to create a meaningful life.  

He has served in several of the Australian Government's values and wellbeing education projects across Australia.

His publications have been peer reviewed and published by high impact journals and esteemed book publishers (www.thomaswnielsen.net), and he is the recipient of national teaching awards, including the 2008 Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (http://www.olt.gov.au/list-awards?text=thomas+university+of+canberra).

Dr Nielsen advocates a ‘Curriculum of Giving’, his research showing that giving and service to others increase wellbeing and resilience in students—something much needed in the world with high youth depression and suicide rates.

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For more information about the transformational work of the IVET Foundation and its global Affiliates visit http://www.ivetfoundation.com 

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Well, hello everybody. Good to be with you all again. My name's Neil Horse, and it's my privilege to organise these wonderful uh talks. They're called Noble Conversations, and uh I'm really enjoying them, and I know I'm going to enjoy today because I've got a lovely colleague of mine and friend, Thomas Neilsen, who's who's in Australia. Uh hi, uh Thomas, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. How are you, Neil? I'm very well. Now, the first thing I notice is you don't come across as an Aussie. Uh, can you tell us tell us about your history a bit?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Yeah, I was I was born in Denmark, which interestingly I have come to learn later is a country steeped in values in many ways that many countr other countries are not. So it's been an interesting thing growing up as a child in in Denmark and and um being Danish up until I was in my young 20s. It's been interesting then traveling to the other side of the world and um and rediscovering at the same time my old country in different ways, seeing it from the outside. Um, and maybe that's something we can touch upon today because it's interesting when we talk values, they did just seem to be embedded so much more in not just Denmark, of course, but in most of the Scandinavian countries. Um, so uh there's something for us in the rest of the world to look towards, I think. Um but yes, that's why I probably will never I'll never get the real Aussie accent. Um, and uh everyone is always curious where I come from when when I'm teaching at the university.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yes. Um we'll look at your university uh career in a minute, but I I'm fascinated by what you said about what really has sort of got it under your skin, really, to do with values uh coming from Denmark. Could you could you just open that up a bit? What what happened in your childhood uh that you would say it's sort of values-based?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah. Well, it's interesting in Denmark there's a saying where you you grow up with it actually, and all kids is just embedded in their consciousness that you should never think of yourself more than anybody else. It's just it's even it's called a law, it's called yentelone, and it's like it's like a folk law that everyone is to be taught that they're not to see themselves as more than anyone else. And I feel that is very um symptomatic for what Denmark and the Naughty countries do on a general basis because there's nowhere in the world where it's safer for women to get their job back after having giving birth to children. There's nowhere else in the world where you look after by the collective more when you lose your job or you lose your house or you're in some other distress. And there's no other place in the world where you trust authority more. It's the least likely place for people to think that a policeman can be corrupted. There's so many interesting statistics you can look at, but almost everything you look at, Denmark just seems to be a place where values are embedded. And I grew up feeling that. I mean, for once I was I was lucky to have very loving caregivers and family, and and I've grown up with with with love around me and the family. But when I think about it, also my teachers and in school, even though I was not particularly interested in school and thought it could pop possibly have been more imaginative, or it did didn't didn't really catch my my interest and fascination too much. But but at least I do feel that there was this very sort of respectful approach to children, very respectful approach to to young people, and um and a very progressive at the time uh approach to to education, I think. So I grew up with all of these all of this um care and love, some might say, or unconditional regard for for everyone around me. And um and so I think I've I've it's it's it was embedded in me from from child and as a young person. Um and then I've become interested in as a research, you know, topic, and and now I'm sort of looking at it and have even gone to Denmark and done some studying and written some papers around why. Why also Denmark, interestingly, should also realize what they have, because of course there are neo-Nazis walking in the streets of Denmark too. There are people in the government who says, no, we shouldn't pay for everything and that people should look after their own health care. And we've written papers now saying, look, you could lose it all in the span of a couple of years if you're not careful and you go down the same route as many others have. So we are as a world, I'm not I'm not naive and think that Denmark, all the naughty countries are perfect, or that they are not in danger of all the sort of tendencies we see more generally in the world today. But it is an interesting place to see where things have been done slightly differently for quite some time now, and how that has changed the psyche of the populations, not to speak, of course, education, and because again, we just look at education. Where are the where are the students performing the highest, not just on normal PISA scores, but also in terms of independence and in terms of um um social concern? Danish kids are uh in studies, you know, in the top when it comes to critic critical independence. And that that interestingly might seem as a little bit like a paradox, you know. Um you look the collective look after the individual, but the interesting thing is that when the collective look looks after the individual and really gives them free, then you actually find that individuals become um more autonomous, they become more capable. In fact, they become more critically thinking. I remember teaching in Danish schools. I've never had students anywhere in else in the I've taught in Australia and I've taught a bit in America, but in Denmark, I've never seen kids being so free to say, Thomas, you shouldn't be doing this if I did something that they thought was wrong. And it wasn't kind of sort of in a disrespectful, uh out-of-control in terms of classroom management, where it was like they knew their rights, they knew what was supposed to happen, and you couldn't get something uh uh by them, and usually it was because I was just not something I was aware of or whatever, and I would usually say, Oh, I'm sorry, I bowed to your greater knowledge and and then just conform to what it was that they were saying. But it was just it was just noticeable how even in grade five, they are so fiercely independent and so fiercely aware of what is just and what is not. So uh yeah, it's uh it's a really interesting place that I think we could all learn a lot from.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Um as you probably know, I've done uh a lot of visits and uh to Scandinavia, and uh I agree with everything you've said from my outsider's perspective. Um, but what what I don't understand, what are the drivers that make Scandinavia like you've just spoken? What's behind it all? Because I think if we learn some of that, perhaps we could export it a bit.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

That's why it gets difficult because I don't think it's one thing, and I'm actually not sure if if what I'm going to say is is an answer in any achievement. Only thing I can point towards is some historical. It's interesting that, you know, in France and many places, as you know, American revolutions, change often happened with heads rolling and warfare. Whereas the story of Denmark is that, you know, there was a revolution and every all the peasants went to the king and said, we want change and we want democracy, and the king came out and said, Okay. And so uh there seems to be sort of historically a longer, longer time back at a tendency to sort of soul conflict, not through war. Maybe that changed with the war against the Germans, where apparently Denmark was big-headed and thought they were um a great nation above others, and Germany completely annihilated them. And after that, it seems to have broken something in their mentality around war. Uh, and after that, there seems to be this sort of tendency to solve things. So you can probably point to a lot of historical things, and it's probably a very complex mix of things that have created, but why is it also not just Denmark? It's because, and here now, see here here's another interesting thing because people talk about what is it that unites the Nordic countries? Why, why, why do they all have this high emphasis on social concern? And it's interesting because they actually have quite different systems in terms of education and policies. They don't have an overriding sort of factor that all unites them, except for one thing. The one thing that unites the Nordic countries is the high emphasis on social concern, not just to the collective, but also to the individual. That balance between the collective and the individual. That other countries we have seen gotten wrong. We have seen where the collective becomes so strong that it overrides the will of the individual. And we've seen also, of course, again, you know, uh it's very much present at the moment, this collective drive towards the individual and independence at the expense of not looking after others. So you have to pay for everything yourself. And unless you are lucky and you get float to the to the top, you are in problem in terms of your health care and so forth. So you can have individualism that doesn't pay attention to collectivism, and you can have collectivism that doesn't pay attention to the individual. But when you get both, you don't just get something in the middle. No, you seem to get something that goes up in a higher unit. And that social concern to both the individual and the collective seems to be the only common denominator for Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway, and why they're doing so well. And also seems to be the happiest countries in the world. They're always up there whenever they do the happiness surveys in the world. So historically, it's really hard to put a finger on why is that so? And maybe we got it out of our system when we were Vikings and were roding, and maybe the German war broke the last bit of resistance in us. I don't know. But one thing we do share with the rest of the Nordic countries is just this high emphasis of social concern. And then we're back to values, of course, because again, that's not a cultural thing, that's something we all could sort of instill if we want it as societies, because that's really just the the fundamental value behind all values that we look after each other and we care about others, not just ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

One thing I've noticed is the um the place of women in those societies. Um women are very powerful, you know. I have the privilege of knowing the president of Iceland and uh listen to her on numerous occasions, and she leads Iceland in a very, in the way that you've said, you know, this focus on both collective and individual, uh, with an incredible amount of heart, not just logic. So, you know, I think there is a sort of combination of of those two things, the thinking and the and the feeling, which so many uh countries in the world seem to have lost. I don't know if that's your experience.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Absolutely. Uh absolutely, I think women are very powerful and strong in Denmark and and um yeah, I definitely wouldn't wanna wouldn't wanna uh impart my 1950s male masculinity on any Danish women because they will quickly put you in your place, which is lovely. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

There's a lovely word that I've heard you use, and I will mispronounce it because I don't speak Danish, so you'll correct me. And it's the word uh ligge l-y double G E uh cozy togetherness, I think it means. Oh, Hugo, yes, hugger, yeah, it's an interesting age. Hugo. Yeah, Hugo, yeah. Could you tell us something about that?

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, that's actually again something that that goes across some of the Nordic countries that they have similar concepts of that. And I th and I actually, you know, together with Jennifer Ma, my my partner in life and and good colleague, we've actually sort of also written on how that actually is more than it's more than, you know, it's become fashionable that the whole world wants to hug with cookies and candlelights and so on. But we we're writing that it's actually more a reflection of something deeper, and it's more a reflection of this social concern that we were just speaking about. Because fundamentally, and I also remember that in my own childhood, real hugue was not really the cookies or the candles, they were just sort of add-ons to uh what was the real hugue. And the real hugue was getting together, being together with your loved ones, your friends, even other people. Um, there's an interesting other uh Danish word called fellascape. It's kind of togetherness, but it also denotes more than the usual English word of togetherness, and fellascape you can have with everyone, and you're and and it's it's highly prized in Denmark that you are you you it's it's part of the education and you talk about it a lot and you prize that very, very uh highly that you have fellascape, you have you unity, togetherness. It's kind of a word that denotes social concern as well, social concern, togetherness, and unity all in one word, fellascape. So we wrote this this article about Huguen really just being sort of a reflection of something much deeper that is very worth taking taking note of.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yes, it reminds me of a word that I was taught in uh in Sweden, uh, which is trigget, which uh we don't have an English word for that, but it means that togetherness, that social cohesion, that working together, which is a and when you were talking about the Danish word, uh I I know of FICA, it's FECA in Switzer Sweden, and I I was taught there that it's not just cake and tea, it is that meeting together and lovely coziness. Um Thomas, you were you are associate professor of at the University of Canberra uh in teacher education. Um can you tell us about your journey to that position? Uh why are you there?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yeah, that's uh it's interesting with in you know, and probably m most people's life stories is again a curious mix of little steps that takes you in a direction you would never have predicted in the beginning, but that slowly sort of emerges step step by step. And it's been a little bit like that in my case, where I guess it started with me having my first teaching job without having a degree in Denmark where I looked after kids uh in an after-school care center, and and actually maybe I should start with saying I I f when I was a kid I wanted to be a policeman. That was what I could consider would be the most coolest and funnest job in the world to be a police, and particularly policeman on a motorbike, because I like motorbikes as well. So that's what that was how I saw my future, and it actually stayed that way up through my whole high school. And but in in Denmark, the what they would like in police is some uh I don't know if that's the case now, but back then they they preferred people with uh trade um qualification because you can't apply until you're 20 21. And so I had time after high school because high school only goes to year 10 in Denmark, and you have to choose something else. And I chose uh a sort of technical education uh because again I wanted to be a policeman, so I wanted a technical education, so I had more chance of getting into the police academy, and um that technical education took me actually into the Navy, where I became uh uh uh sort of a diesel and ships repairman of uh working on U-boats and uh uh Danish Navy ships, and um had an interesting time there, but also realized by the end of it it was not really my forte, and I wasn't particularly good at all of these mechanics things, and uh I mean I don't know if I should say this, but you know, I had almost a traumatic experience where after my education there I didn't at that point I wasn't sure. Should I that was the first time really I began to doubt, is it really policemen I want to be? I had a respect for that occupation, but I was starting to know myself being more sort of a sensitive soul. I wasn't and I suddenly realized that maybe I'm not cut out to the to the rigor and uh hardship of being police people because they have to encounter a lot of things, of course. So I was doubting a little bit and I thought, okay, maybe I can earn some money as a diesel mechanic. And I went to an interview, put on my best jacket, and I combed my hair. And then in the interview, they were asking me how many degrees should a piston be in a diesel engineer when you are adjusting this and that. And I was like, oops, maybe I should have listened a bit more in that degree because I couldn't answer any of those questions. And you know, uh, no point in telling you that I wasn't called back for the interview or anything like that. But then I suddenly realized that I had four years of an education that I probably wasn't going to use. So, what am I gonna do now? And uh many things happened, but I ended up teaching, uh, taking a position in uh after-school daycare, and there, and this is why I was thinking what brought me to there, um, it was kind of sort of killing time, not quite knowing exactly what to do. But then uh there was kids in that institution who asked me questions, and particularly one little child I I will always remember, who always asked me questions when I was there, and and I noticed that I enjoyed answering those questions. So suddenly it dawned on me that maybe I was a better teacher than I was a um ship's repairman, and so uh slowly different experiences, uh different teaching positions actually gave me opportunities to teach in in in in different in different arenas. And uh and um I've taught in primary school and secondary school, and I've now teaching university students because what happened was that I like uh I wanted to do my higher degree, and so um I took uh a PhD and I noticed that I enjoyed the research and the writing. And so I sort of um I sort of drift drifted towards the academy in a kind of sort of natural way, not because I didn't like the schools and the classrooms, because I actually had a little bit of a moment where I had a bit of a heartache thinking of leaving the the kids and the classes in schools for the for the university. But I decided that you know this this is where I could do the most good. Um use most of my uh sort of talents and qualities that the most. So I decided for the university eventually. So I tell my students that I've taught, even the little ones, I've taught in early childhood as well, early, very early on as well. And so I've taught early childhood, primary, secondary, and now university students. So I sometimes joke to my university students that my next ambition is teaching the elderly, but it is probably only a joke since I seems to be seem to be comfortable where I am now.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Oh that's wonderful. But why Australia? You know, you didn't stay in in Denmark. Why did you did you flee to Australia? What what was the reason?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

That is maybe also a long and complicated story, but the sort of the short version is that I fell in love with an Australian girl who lived here and took me along and and with whom by the way I'm only good friends now in in fact very good friends with. But um but um that's how I suddenly ended up here and and taking my PhD here in Australia and um now I have a job here and Jennifer my my my partner now is we've been to Denmark and she loves Denmark too.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

So it's not impossible that perhaps we will spend some time uh um back in Denmark but we also love it here in Canberra both of us she's an academic too and um but that's sort of the short version of why I ended up on the other side of the world and and and I'm still here um you're you're well known for uh your research in well-being and happiness research and uh I think you have a very neat way of talking about happiness that the two ways the two different sorts of happiness I think listeners will be fascinated by your your your description of of what happiness is yeah I find it fascinating that that I always acknowledge that there are you know many many types of happiness of course because people are different and so on but they all seem to fall into roughly two groups that are really important to make distinctions between they're not mutually exclusive but it is important to understand that if we don't have one the other doesn't help so much in terms of our resilience and our well-being the first the the one that doesn't help so much towards our resilience and well-being and deep sense of satisfaction is what most researchers talk about as pleasurable happiness.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

It's a wonderful aspect of life usually involves in our senses but it doesn't give us and the other thing is that when we have adversity and stress and trauma in our life which by the way as I say to my students as well in the university if you're human and you're on this planet there's gonna be stress adversity and trauma in your life we hope not too much but there's going to be some aspects of those things. So it's not really a matter of whether those things will be experienced. It's more a matter of how resilient, how capable are we of transforming those experiences into something that might be valuable for our wisdom, our experience, our ability to give to others so it's interesting that when you primarily only have pleasurable happiness in your life you don't recuperate as quickly from those events in your life stress, trauma and adversity as when you have the other type of happiness which most researchers now talk about as meaningful happiness. The ancient Greeks knew about this they called it eudaimonia they just didn't have the research to prove their their claims but we have that now because we know that if you have meaning in your life you recuperate much quicker from those events of trauma stress and adversity and you also seem to have a deeper sense of happiness that doesn't disappear just because you're not doing the activity that perhaps gives you meaning in other words it's a much long sustained much more much longer sustained effect you get from let's say doing this interview together we get the we get some meaning from having these discussions that is about furthering thought and progress in the world. Even though we say goodbye and we switch off the Zoom and I go and put my feet up and I watch some Netflix there's a sort of gentle sustained happiness from that and I might even feel tomorrow I might even feel it next week oh when I have remember I had that conversation with Neil whereas of course if we eat an ice cream yes if we get really good food that can be a memory too but it tends to be sort of a little bit more shallow a little bit more quickly. And the other problem with the second and the third ice cream of course as we all know is that it doesn't taste as good as the first one. So the pleasurable life often depends on moderation on spacing on some sort of wisdom you might say and that wisdom seems to be linked very much with that meaningful life. So again they're not mutually exclusive they are not dichotomies if you can have pl you can have lots of meaning in life and and lots of pleasure at the same time they just have to be balanced and moderated and what is important is that you don't just have the pleasure that seems to make you very susceptible for not recuperating well in the face of adversity. And that I think is important even though you might have all sorts of different ways of putting labels on your happiness because when you look at what people say is meaningful it's it's also interesting that that that means so the next question might be what is meaning because that can also be a thousand things to a thousand people but yet if you look at the research all over the world across cultures across religions across ideologies there's one common denominator for that as well and that is being something for someone or something other than just ourselves. In other words some sort of giving or some sort of social concern we were talking about for others that seems to be what people say is meaningful all over the world even little kids in their own language will talk about how looking after a puppy or watering a pot plant will be meaningful to them. So it's really really interesting that even though meaning can be so many different things it seems to be what people say is meaningful all over the world is this common denominator of being something for others.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

In other words that fundamental thing that's underneath all our values that both you and I are so you know um devoted to because we know that that's what's going to make a difference in schools let alone society in general Thomas that's good that's profound and I'm sure listeners have gained so much from that I once heard you talk about your mum and uh you said uh when I listened to you that she liked a spoonful of jam whereas you would you like to eat a big cake a chocolate cake what was all that about I haven't done so much lately but when I come I have come in sometimes just to you know you you gotta get people's attentions uh these days because there's so so much exciting things going on on students' phones as well sometimes and laptops.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

So sometimes I've come in and I started semester by saying hello are you aware of how much I earn and of course they look at me a little bit perplexed what he said what is he on about and say I earn so much that I could buy a whole chocolate cake every single day and sit and gorge myself. That is how much I earn and then I go on to tell them about my mom who only had a spoonful of jam on a Friday night because of food rationing. She was a little girl growing up during the Second World War when when Germany was occupying Denmark but the interesting thing was my mom always told me that's the best dessert she's ever had that spoonful of jam and I remember thinking how can a spoonful of jam be the best dessert you ever had when I can have a whole chocolate cake and then of course my students and I get into this interesting discussion about that there's so much so much choice. There's so much more affluence in our modern world than my mom had and maybe that has something to do with the moderation and the spacing not in her case out of wisdom but out of necessity that now that I have to have standing in front of the fridge contemplating how much chocolate cake I should really have today because I can have a whole cake if I want it whereas my mom was forced to a spoonful of the sweet things. So it's really interesting having these discussions with my students because they realized that we are two times, three times Japan is seven times richer now than they were at the end of the Second World War. And yet depression and suicide risk have remained flat or even gone down according to many people who study the topic yes we are studying it more now but the ones who are experts in the field say yes it's still worse now than it was you know 50 years ago and why is that why is our happiness why have our material wealth increased so much why we put people on the moon why do we have more technology in our smartphones now that they had in those computers going to the moon and yet our happiness has remained flat or even gone down according to a lot of commentators our spiritual happiness our spiritual sense of meaning has become compromised in many ways have been challenged and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we might have a lot more chocolate cake on many levels because of course by then in the discussion students have caught on to that it's really just a synonym. It's really just a reflection of all the choices we have to become addicted to all sorts of things some of them more healthy than others but um really it brings more onus and maybe the wisdom levels have not gone up with the same amount as our material wealth. And hence again why it's so important the work that you do that Terry does and many others do in the world talking about these things because it really is not just about doing it's also about having the wisdom behind the doing that certainly is needed more so than ever because now we have the technology to not only create entirely new ecosystems but also create our destroy our own in the blink of a second. So it's even more important now so yes the chocolate cake and this the story of my mom's jam is all a way to get my students to start thinking about how important the meaningful life is in relation to the pleasurable life and how we can think about this in relation to education but of course also on a grander scale of society and how we want this world to be and how it can be a safer world if we have more of that wisdom in it. And how perhaps we will elect different people in the world that reflects more of those values rather than the more selfish values.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yes it it makes me feel sad listening to you talk when I reflect how the world is and how profound what you said is about what happiness really is. And that's my only experience of happiness is is that um I get my pleasures from from going out talking about values and uh helping people to be the best people that they can be and and in doing that I seem to help myself um that's what people with high levels of meaning say that they they actually have lots of pleasures and they often combined and then suddenly they become part of the same thing meaningful activities can have a lot lots of pleasure as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So yeah what's your recipe for helping uh you know one's so aware of technology and the the all the the powerful players who are are are wanting to make more and more money and therefore in my view manipulating the the general public but how can how can we wake up people to these in one way more complex but in underneath it it's more simple really way of being that uh you know what's your formula for for rescuing humanity yeah it probably works on many levels because you know on a theoretical level I think we have to have conversations like we have now where we talk about for example Grundtv who is one of the considered the one of the founders of the Danish democracy because he was he was actually interestingly enough Grundvik was uh a pastor and a philosopher and a dominant thinker at the time when they were thinking about making Denmark a democracy and he was thinking ah is this gonna work you know because people are not educated and so on. But when it became apparent that the the masses wanted it he said okay well if we're gonna have democracy we have to have education that does two things. This is really important he said and maybe this is also part of the explanation why Denmark and perhaps the naughty countries are different because 150 years ago he said these things he said if we want democracy we have to educate against two things we have to educate against egotism because if we are egotistic we will only vote for those who would look after our little plot of land or our interest which will never be good for the whole or for the future because we all depend on each other in the end because we are all connected and we're all in terms of long-term visions we have to look out we have to vote for the collective whole not for just individual so egotism has to be educated against he said the other thing we the other thing is that we have to educate we have to educate against ignorance because if you don't know if you don't know who to vote for not just because you may not be egotistic but you don't have the knowledge and you don't haven't cared to put yourself into the intricacies of of uh what's in in front of you and what's at stake you might not vote for those who look after the collective interest. So it's really interesting 150 years ago he educated that we have to educate against egotism and against ignorance. They are the two greatest enemies of democracy he said but isn't it interesting how relevant that is in 2026 and how the problems we have to a large degree is because we haven't voted um without egotism and without ignorance and they're the two biggest culprits for why we are in the situation we are now and then then suddenly it comes back again to some sort of education that really sets up critically thinking independent citizens that actually knows that these are the two enemies of any society not any democratic society and who really values that. So I think there's a way there's an intellectual pursuit we can do and we can do that through education we can do that through conversation. Then of course there's an emotional this will to to to like to to to uh to your point about reaching people who perhaps is engrossed in their own emotional pursuits that they find interesting not even knowing that the chocolate cake is killing them we have to find ways where we make the intellectual truth of what we're talking about at the moment and the intellectual evidence because again the the my my whole point now is that this is not a moral argument it's a it's an evidence based it's it's a pedagogical argument because we got the evidence to show it. And so the so what we we have to find ways of letting those truths be felt by people. And so that really comes back back to educators now. How can we because we all know that education has to be fun as well as insightful. And we and then the third aspect we have to make it actionable we have to get the hands active we have to get them to do because it's often through doing that they not only experience but they also get to feel some of the the benefits that we're talking about. And it's really interesting that research is quite clear again if if you get into any secondary school and you say to them oh this term we're gonna clean up the river at the same time as learning about the properties of water you will have many teenagers sitting there rolling their eyes smacking their lips and saying ah Mr Nielsen why are you making me do that but once they've been engaged in it for a term guess what on average most of them will be interested in doing more. We know now that this social concern through giving through volunteering through contribution through community service we know now that that actually makes you want to give more it actually makes you more compassionate. So in many ways it's also about just getting young children to do you don't have to have these conversations which would be too deep and too much over their head that we are having now they just have to give they just have to look after little pot plants in there in the garden of the school and look after the community and look after each other and help clean up and make sure that an environment's clean, have body systems and looking after each other through through giving to each other and the school and the community they will automatically experience what we're talking about. And so and they will automatically feel some of these things it's more difficult when they're 16 and they never had an opportunity to give to others to suddenly then make them make the switch and that's probably why a lot of them sit and roll their eyes and smack them lips. But even then we know now from research that they will turn around as well if they get the right treatment, if they get the right and so what I'm saying now also often I'm saying we are not asked we're we're never asking teachers to to uh think whether it's okay to teach the fractions and uh the nouns and the then and and the verbs because we've just decided as a collective that's what we need to help them understand for them to be to empower them to be critically thinking people in in society. So I'm saying more and more we should not even this is not a question this is not this is not this is not optional. It should be embedded in our educational structures that not only every day should a teacher be asking how can I get them to do some calculating and some reading today but I they should also ask themselves how can I get my kids to give my how can I get my students to give at the same time because it's often not an either or often you can do both things and it'd be more exciting for the students when they actually see faces of the elderly community that they are singing for now than actually now doing a performance to the elderly rather than just singing inside of the class with a music teacher. Now they're actually you know helping uh you know whoever it is in the community that you're connecting to the learning. So uh this is this is my whole thing that this is not an added curriculum on top of everything else. No, it's the it's the underpinnings of how we do things in smarter ways. So unfortunately there's no silver bullet it's an intellectual pursuit it's an emotional pursuit and it's a very practical actionable pursuit and it starts with actually using your hands getting out there and do something for others because we know that that's what gives you the meaningful happiness and and and that will just make you make you want to do more of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

And it won't be so hard when they get to high school to just continue that that would be sort of some of the thoughts when you ask me but oh that's brilliant you know I'm so aligned to you you know being someone who's always talked about children having firsthand experiences and being real writers real scientists and doing things in the community real you know that puts their education into practice. And that's what was behind our thinking uh with the the Values education project in Australia um you were a member in of the 2009 to 10 National Values Education Project Advisory uh committee uh and that was at the sort of towards the end of the time when we were uh you know instilling at the at the federal level you know the values and it was doing really well but then politicians changed and uh back to basics was rolled in as the the wonderful sort of panacea but it of course was shown that that was a a false trail yet again to follow and I I hear now that people are now asking well bring back the values well you're in Australia what's your your take on all this I think unfortunately net plan and PISA scores are dominating because that's you know it it when you put especially then when you start publicising how well schools are doing against each other and and um you start public publicizing results

SPEAKER_01 44:00

And you're on a list. And by the way, if there's a list, somebody's always going to be on the bottom. That's the unfortunate thing about lists. So um, and and that's and actually you can do this, you can still do testing. I'm not opposed to testing uh altogether, but I am opposed testing without this knowledge that we sit and talk about at the moment. Because if you do it without this knowledge being front and center of your understanding, you will automatically create perverse incentives for teaching to the test, which is not showing anything about social concern, which is not is it's not uh has nothing embedded about giving or altruism or being kind or anything. When it's only about reading and writing and so forth, and that's what you feel as if you have to perform to as teachers and as schools, you will always put an emphasis on that. And so I think unfortunately that emphasis in Australia has gone lost a little bit. But at the same time, there's a grassroots root movement because a lot of people understand a lot of the things we're talking about, at least intuitively. So there are a lot of schools who are implemented by own accord, not because the government says so, but out of own accord, various initiatives that you could call values-based to some degree, values and well-being-based. And there are things like socio-emotional learning, things like uh positive education and positive psychology, uh, things like character education, things like civics education. But that's another sort of challenge in itself, because often you will find teachers who almost get a little bit values and well-being fatigue because they've done two years of socio-emotional learning and now the executive is leaving and a new principal comes in. And so now they're doing restorative practices or something like that. And they go, oh no, a new framework on and on top of everything else we are we are accountable for uh in terms of NAP plan and so on. But that's that's part of what I'm trying to sort of argue for and work for a lot too, to try and see the underlying principles about social concern, about the meaningful life, about giving, because if we understand that suddenly it doesn't matter so much what we call things or whether you have a framework with 10 little actionable things or another framework of if underneath we deeply understand about the meaningful life, if underneath we deeply understand about social concern and kindness towards each other is the fundamental value around which all other values revolve. Because justice without action is just theory. Uh, compassion without action is just theory. So with it, but if we do understand these underpinnings, then I think it doesn't matter so much what we call it. Obviously, they have different emphasis and different benefits and different strengths and different weaknesses, and that's all fine. They're all initiatives are worth researching and doing and talking about, and which one might be better for this and that. But that I'm actually not as concerned about as having this meta-understanding, this meta-understanding that I feel cuts across all of these initiatives, and that even goes back to what Grunt Grundtwit was saying that Danish education should be about, and which in fact I think Denmark has done for many years. They've called they've called it different things as well, but underneath there's this deep fundamental understanding of the individual in relation to the collective and how social concern is the only thing that brings those two together in a higher harmony.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

That's beautiful. Um a few years ago, a group of us uh got together and uh we decided to form something called Gabe, the global uh the global uh um alliance. Yeah the Global Alliance of Values-based education, and um and you have been at the forefront of that development and and uh chair of the sort of national committee, international committee. Um what's your hope for uh an organization such as uh the Global Alliance?

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Well, it is perhaps a bil a work towards that meta view that because I feel GAVE in many ways are also, even if it's implicitly, is also saying, look, we're interested in anyone who works for the values, the values that benefit humanity. And you have a home here if you do that. And um we can be stronger as together than we can be apart, and we will actually get over some of the perhaps um differences that are mainly sort of maybe perhaps partly because of lack of understanding and lack of awareness of each other and misunderstandings, and get more towards this idea that oh yeah, we're working for the same thing, and it's really sort of for the same purpose, and we're actually supporting each other because again, one thing usually cannot do everything, and certain places will have a little bit more of a need for this type, and and um other places that had really huge problems with behavior management might have more benefit of a restorative practice approach as opposed to something else. But again, if we understand that we are working for the same thing, that can be really powerful because again, we're not working in isolation and we're we are we are larger than we might seem when we understand that we are a family, um, a family with a similar viewpoint and agenda, even though on the surface some of our techniques might be called this and others might be called that. So I I feel gave us an opportunity to try and create that in the world a bit more, where we are not also seeing ourselves working in silos, and also not succumbing so much to what you also alluded to. It's easy to get depressed in the present world because the news unfortunately also tend to emphasize what's going wrong in the world. They won't say on the news tonight that, you know, Neil and Thomas had a really uplifting conversation today about how there's that's lots to be happy about and to be proud about and be excited about in the in the world. So I think again, gay is also a way of not only uniting us in terms of practicalities, but also in terms of again this this sense of there is a movement I feel in the world manifesting, not just in Gabe, but in many ways, because it's interesting. I often talk about this, that it's not just education that says a similar thing to me. Like there's an UK economist called Tim Jackson who says, you know, why does it make sense to keep thinking about financial business as being constant growth? When is enough enough? And when can we talk about our global finances being something that creates enough for everyone? And so he he thinks about finances not in that old model of supply and demand and constant growth, but in a social concern sense. So I think that's actually happening in agriculture, in the environment, in education. There's there's a groundswell of people who at least intuitively understand that we have to look after each other and this planet if we are to survive and not only survive but also thrive. And so it's about uniting us on all the levels we can. And then slowly over time, I do believe that we will get other leaders who reflect that more and will take us in better directions and unite those forces that are in the grassroots a bit more from the top as well. And we'll make nap plans and PISA scores and international testing, just one little snapshot of the human picture of what we are about, the whole human being. And yes, it's a valuable little snapshot on one aspect of our capabilities, but we're not gonna set it up in such a way that it suddenly fills everything, which is what presently it does, and we forget about what we really are as human beings and and perhaps even our spiritual nature. But that's also one of the things I'm really always so eager about saying. You know, the great thing about what I'm arguing is that it doesn't matter whether you are having a whether you think this really this giving element and what it does to our physiology and the health and the well-being and the longer life it gives us, it doesn't matter whether you think it's a divine gift, a spiritual gift, or you think it's just an evolutionary trait, because I if I give something to you, I increase productivity, and if we have productivity, it's great collaboration, it's a higher chance of survival. It doesn't really matter whether you think either the spiritual uh um argument and um and and uh explanation or the evolutionary, the conclusion is the same. So that that I think is also a meta-understanding that you that kind of sort of unite us more than separate us in a way that's needed today, I think as well. Because if we can realize that the conclusion from an evidence-based perspective is the same, we need values, we and we need social concern for each other, and we need to not exclude each other. And when our in fact, I think we also have to be brave to have these conversations sometimes, and that's why Gabe, it's gonna be interesting to see whether Gabe can also be a brave voice in that regard. Because I think we have to say that everyone is welcome, but we also have to be be aware that that we sometimes have to conversations because where our religions or ideological perspectives perhaps sometimes exclude people. That's why we have to be brave and say, why do you think so? And why do you think that is beneficial? And why, how does that fit with the evidence-based research that shows that giving for all seems to be healthy and to be having antagonistic feelings towards anyone seems to be not so healthy. In fact, that's one of the most unhealthy things you can be in life, is to have negative, prolonged feeling against anyone or anything, even yourself, is not very healthy. And so I think we have to have conversations also in the future now, really challenging that. Because, of course, as we also know, there are many sort of values-based things that exclude pockets of the population or certain behaviors or the way people love other people, and all sorts of things that we have to challenge because even though they might claim that they are values-based, they might be to some extent, but there might be some of their values that has to be changed in order for it to be truly healthy, truly healthy for the collective whole, not just certain parts within that collective. That's part of the interesting, important work that I think Gabe and all of us involved in this can also perhaps have an opportunity to do.

SPEAKER_00 55:56

And indeed, it's at the forefront of thinking in the Ivert Foundation, the International Values Education Trust, of which we're delighted you're one of our esteemed affiliates. Um, there are many people listening to you, I know, who will be asking themselves, as I'm asking, you know, uh, what can we do to achieve your vision of the world? What individually can we do?

SPEAKER_01 56:23

There's many things you can do, but it really gets to go back to the really heart of what you should you should start thinking of this. Oh, if mean the meaningful life is what makes me healthier, it makes me live longer. Then I have a choice. It's up to me. No one is saying you should do it, but if that's the evidence, I think most people, if they really understand that evidence, will start asking themselves, well, what does the meaningful life look in relation look like in relation to my life? And there I've developed some categories you can think about, like an ecology, where you can think of it has to start with yourself. You're part, you're you're the first point of the ecology, because we actually know now that there's a threshold. If you're not looking after yourself, it doesn't matter how much you continue to give, you're not getting the benefits of giving anymore, you're starting to have the opposite effect. Even though you might continue to give, now you have the opposite effects. It's because you're gonna be above the threshold of what you need to do in order to give to yourself. And that's where I've developed another little framework where you the all the evidence-based areas of looking after self I've collected in a little in a little acronym uh called self-care aims, and they actually sort of let us standing for the areas that you have to look after yourself, like sleep, exercise, and so forth. And so I think you we have to everyone can do something around this if they start thinking about the meaningful life, the giving life in relation to themselves, and it starts with themselves, and then of course it goes to others around them, it goes to the community around them, it goes to the natural environment that they can either help, uh be a help towards or the opposite. It goes towards the whole, whatever you consider the whole to be. You might be religious, it might just be just the stars and the trees. Whatever that whole is, you are in a symbiotic relationship with that whole. So thinking about the meaningful life, the giving life on all those levels, I find is quite useful because often when I give these talks to schools, schools often start by saying, Oh yeah, we are doing a lot of giving, so I think we'll be fine. But after we've had these PDs or uh conversations together, they realize, oh yeah, we did a lot of giving in this area, but we realize that there are all these other areas we could consider in our school where we perhaps we could give to self. We could learn, teach our students and our staff to give to self in a more sort of informed way. And we could also help them to give to each other in a more intelligent way. We could also help how we could give to our environment inside of the school, and perhaps the environment around in our community, and perhaps the environment as a natural resource, and perhaps the whole as a spiritual or just evolutionary entity that we have a relationship with. So they certainly open their minds to all of these levels in which we can be giving to others and ourselves. So that would be always my suggestion. Think about it in relation to yourself if you want to. If you want to think about being healthy, being happy, and creating happiness in others. If that's something that that sort of uh feels interesting and intriguing to you from this conversation, more so than perhaps it already has been, then start really interrogating those aspects in your life in which you are giving and perhaps where you can be more giving, because I find that people really sort of sometimes become empowered to implement these principles more in their own lives and therefore the lives around them in sort of concentric circles inside of that ecology that I'm talking about. So that that would be my first suggestion. Really bring it back to self. There is one question that really helps to towards that, and it is what gives me the most joy. Because then interesting thing, again, whether it's evolutionary or a spiritual thing, that our soul is joy, and therefore asking what is most joyful connects us with the vibration of our soul. I am not to say, and in some ways it doesn't really matter, but it seems when you ask what is most joyful, this tends to it tends to connect you. Or some people also say, what am I passionate about, or what makes me excited? It seems to sort of connect you into your heart and your emotional side and what would make you excited about doing things. And so that's also a good way to start because it may be that you're excited about walking the neighbor's dog. And so you are go tomorrow, you go and knock on the door if you're a teenager and say, Can do you want your dog walked at some certain times? Yeah, I want to. And I okay, I love dogs. And now suddenly you're doing something very pleasurable because you don't have a dog, but now you spend some time with a dog, but you're also helping out your neighbor, and you just find happiness and and and joy from that. So sometimes that the these giving tasks is often linked to also our joys. And whether it's our soul sending little impulses and guiding you to that would be fun for you to do, and here's a way that you can give, or it's just our natural evolutionary processes for helping us to survive. Again, I leave with the listener to decide, but that would be a suggestion for me to uh from me to also think about how can I live the meaningful life and what gives me my most joy thinking about these things.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

I always ask uh Thomas uh guests on my podcasts. I always always ask them, what are the key values? Maybe one or two, or possibly three values that are driving your thinking and behavior. What are yours and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Oh, that's a good question again. I think because I'm so driven to synthesis. I I mean I in fact I often tell my students when we have these conversations around different frameworks, and sometimes you can imagine the discussions at university when people do come with very different backgrounds and different beliefs, and how that clash in the clo in classroom sometimes, and how it's an opportunity sometimes to have really fascinating discussions where sometimes people are moving a little bit along their thinking. Um, but I often say in those times and those moments, I say, look, I only have one value really when it comes down to it. Everything else is up for discussion. That means I'm happy to discuss, except for one thing, and it's this this is my only value in life. I want not just myself to be happy and healthy, I want that for you as well. That's my only value, and everything else is up for discussion and and interesting and different theories and different angles. But with that, in some ways, I'm also pointing to what we've talked about today because it's kind of sort of I'm going beyond myself, I'm going to this social concern, concern for not just myself, but also others. And then, of course, through through conversation, I can extend that to everyone. And I mean everyone, even those who don't look like me, even those who don't wear the same clothes as me, even the ones who don't love like me, and there's no exception. The only thing, and even the people who who don't agree with any of this and do all sorts of things that are unhealthy for themselves and others, I have concern for too. And that concern would be to have conversations with them. Sometimes also police and justice and incarceration is needed. I'm not I'm not I'm not naive, but you can see that can be a kind of concern again, and again, an interesting little side note here is that you know the Nordic countries have also been at the forefront of restorative justice in prison in prisons because we know that in prisons, it's once you get into the prison system, you are so likely to re-offend. But we know now that restorative justice, compassionate care for people in the prison system makes it less likely for them to re-reoffend when they get out. So we're back to this idea of social concern for everybody. And so I don't know, even know if I can name three values, because to me, that is the key value around which all values really revolve, if they are true values, if they are enacted values. I love justice. I've always maybe that's where the policeman desire from early on came that I really loved justice and I still love justice. But at the same time, that justice can only come from that place I just mentioned of me not just having wanting me to be happy and healthy, I want you to be happy and healthy too. So it really again it comes back to that key value there.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

Having listened to you for the for when we've been talking now, having listened, I, you know, looking at your face as I've been doing, you know, you and I'm not wanting to put a word in your mouth, but uh, you just emanate love. Oh, thank you. And I think that loving energy is coming out from you into the world uh that gives you the concern for others and uh that deep commitment uh to young people and their development that you have. Uh Thomas Nielsen, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Before we finish, is there anything that you haven't said today that you would like to sort of say as a conclusion?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

You've been a very good interviewer, Neil, and uh we've been around a lot of areas. So I actually I can't think of anything. Um I can't think of anything. I think it's a it's a wonderful th way to end on love because it's interesting, some of my colleagues uh in the academy, and and there's no judgment in that because of course it's a long tradition that's been trained in kind of squirming a little bit when they hear the word love. But I I just see love as you I can hear yours. It's it's it's just that quality we're talking about. Um so um I often, if I can see that any colleagues in the academy is squirming in the chair when I say love, I I usually sort of switch it around and says say unconditional positive regard, and then I can see that they're comfortable again. But that's also a way, I think, for me to just understand we're talking about the same thing and it doesn't matter really whether someone does. But I I love I love the way that you have finished on that note of uh love and I know and appreciate your observation because if there's one thing I would love to to be a reflection of, it's the thing that I'm talking about, so that I'm walking the talk as much as I can. So love is a wonderful way to uh end end on. Thank you so much, Neil.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

Thomas, thank you so much. Uh heartfelt thanks for joining me today. I've been so uh enjoying this conversation, and it has really been truly a noble conversation. So thank you very much. I've learned so much about you and your ideas. It's it's a real inspiration. So thank you. And I'm sure you're going to inspire the listeners too. Listeners, it's good to have been with you again on one of our noble conversations. Uh, I know you will have enjoyed it as much as I have, and uh, I look forward to joining you on the next occasion. And from Thomas and Lee, bye bye, everybody. Bye bye.