Bringing Back Joy

“I’m at my wits end over here! I just don’t think teaching second grade is for me. I can’t do it anymore! I’m working too hard. At the end of the day, my classroom is trashed. Little scraps of paper. Crumpled up bits of tissue, forgotten fidgets and sticky mochis sprinkled about. They can’t even pick up their cheez it crumbs after snack. I can’t stand it. I’m working way too hard here..” 

As I walked outside on a warm October day in Texas, I listened on the other end of the phone to my educator friend wavering back and forth between quietly quitting or sticking it out for another day. We are all at our wits end here.

I’m having more and more of these conversations every day. I’ve probably had more of these conversations this year than I have in all my thirteen years as an educator combined. 

Teaching is harder than it ever has been before, and anyone who has spent more than 30 seconds in a classroom can tell you why: the joy has been sucked out of teaching. One book ban. One lockdown drill. One mask mandate. One state test score at a time. One million tasks added and nothing taken away. Slowly, and quickly all at once, the joy of teaching has left the building. 

As a second grade teacher in the 2020 and 2021 school years, I did my best to cling to joy like my life depended on it. When the pandemic hit, I made the decision to go back into the classroom after four years as a literacy coach because I knew deep in my bones that children brought me joy. 

I quickly realized teaching had changed, becoming harder in ways I couldn’t yet articulate. I could feel myself slipping into burnout range so I made joy my number one goal. 

Each day as we logged into zoom or looped our masks behind our ears, I made a conscious decision to smile. To laugh with the kids. To enjoy their presence. Let the joy of their creativity and surprise inspire me to be the same. 

Most days I didn’t feel successful. But there was one thing I did every day that guaranteed to bring me and my students joy:

We played I spy. 

Every day amidst the chaos of pack up time – after our last lesson of the day but before our closing circle – I would secretly choose a piece of trash on the floor and sing song shout “I spy with my little eye….” 

From there like magic, seven year olds would stop what they were doing and jump onto their hands and knees to swarm EVERY nook and cranny for that one piece of trash I was spying. Collecting the tiniest cracker crumb, forgotten crayons, and inevitably someone’s ipad on the floor that was just waiting to get stepped on, cracked. Just like that. Magic. A clean classroom.

It didn’t matter what piece of trash I picked to ‘spy’, I would wait to reveal who had found it until every last bit of mess was cleaned. A small teacher hack they never caught onto. We would all gather around for our closing circle, with the students eagerly waiting for me to announce who had found the piece of trash. 

Never mind that the ‘winner’ wasn’t rewarded with anything other than the pride of finding the spied item. To be honest, there were some days I didn’t spy anything at all and just made up a winner out of pure teacher exhaustion. 

Yet, the joy of watching students ignite with excitement over a simple game of interactive I spy really kept me going as a second grade teacher each day during the pandemic. 

I shared this on the phone with my friend who was at her wits end with snack trash. I am happy to let you know she reported that playing I Spy Clean Up has in some ways rejuvenated her teacher spirits and helped keep the frustration at bay, for now. 

My point of this all is not to say you should play I Spy Clean Up with your students. What works for me and my students might not work for you and your students. 

My point is to say:

if you haven’t already, find that one small thing you can do with your students every single day that will spark joy and keep you going.

Maybe it’s a quick game of Wordle. Or a good morning dance off. Or something your students creatively come up with together.

We all need more joy inside the four walls of our classrooms. Now more than ever!

If you’ve already found that thing that sparks joy, let me know what it is. I’d love to have more recommendations of joy for the educators I interact with each day. 

Click this link for a free printable poster to inspire joyful moments with your students. 

My hope for you, my hope for us, is to add more joy to each day.  

Noelle from Solara Learning