Finding joy in your work featuring Dr. Joy
Updated: Aug 3, 2022
Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of the Edumagic podcast."My name is Dr. Sam Fecich, and I am so excited today to have with me, Dr. Joy."You may have seen her work on Twitter, or maybe yyou'vechecked out her work with eit'stchIt's. Sheit's is an amazing educationalwho'ser who's going to share the power of owning your joy.
Tell us about your teaching story, where your journey has led you and where you where you are today in education?
I have always loved to learn as a student.
I loved every part of the school, so learning was just something I love to do.
But I think the spot for teaching came for me when I was in high school, and I had this job as a playground instructor.children'sThere are different playgrounds around the city, in our neighborhoods, and during the summer, we had groups of kids, and we just spent the day with them.that'sIt was like a camp, and we taught them dances, and we had a big fair at the end, and we did lessons with them, and it was just neat.
Now Doctor Joy, I know there's a story behind your name, so I'd love for you to first share the story behind doctor Joy and the story behind why. Why did you choose the word joy?
When I left the classroom, I transitioned into a role that professional learning special st.We'reI remember thinking like schools need joy.
I had a chance to see schools from like the outside view.
I had realized though, even though it was just an idea we were talking about and it connected to that name I've my parents gave me. I also realized that I've been empowered with joy throughout my entire life, both personally and professionally.
I love how you embrace the nicknayou'vet your dad gave you at a young age, and you've just incorporated thit'soyfulness throughout your career. I think it's so inspiring to hear that, and I know as future teachers you were talking about; you know, in your college career like.
Why is it important for our future teachers who are listening today?
Weyou'recause you have a lot of challenges that you're goididn'tface.
When I was in school, I really didn't understand the depth of some of the challenges that I was gonna face as an educator
Just the idea of balancing my personal and professional life and just the whole dynamic of teaching and building relationships and trying to get everything done within a day.
I did not realize how many challdon't I was going to face as a teacher.
You don't talk about t don'tut then we do talk about it, but then we don't talk about how we can confront these challenges in a healthy way. I realized that, throughout my career as an educator, I kind of went through this lens that all these challenges from the outside, if they would just fix themselves, I would feel better.
But then I realized that it was me that I had to fix. It was my personaldidn'that I was responsible for my joy, and I didn't matter how many accomplishments couldn'tet or how many I could achieve.
Doctor Joy how can we work to capture that joy to find that within ourselves?
There's something I read about not too long it's called the broaden and build theory, and it's this idea that we practice these different. We will use this different toolIt'snd we practice these different routines.
It's not always going to be comfortable at first, so when challenges arise, it's like we built our resilience to respond in a positive manner. It's not saying that when you don't feel like you want to be positive, but when you intentionally.
Put things into practice, and you work at it, and you work at it.
When those big challenges occur, you find out that you look at things from a whole different perspective because eventually, you start It'sticing those things naturally.
It's working on those areas where you feel those virtues you feel you want to have that will add to your joy without working on those intentionally.
As educators, self-care is something that I struggled with so much because oftentimes, we try to go with the flow of our organizations.
Some of their practices may not be in can't with our self-care needs. You can't forget about yourself. It can be as simple as having lunch for 30 minutes by yourself in your classroom. You may need that t