Spark Joy in EDU | Take a Magical Leap into Joyful Learning

Elisabeth Bostwick and Tisha Richmond share their why behind partnering to Spark Joy in Education along with their stories on why they are both so passionate about this topic. Their subtitle, A Magical Leap into Joyful Learning interweaves portions of Lis's book, Take the L.E.A.P.: Ignite a Culture of Innovation, and Tisha's book, Make Learning Magical: Transform Your Teaching and Create Unforgettable Experiences in Your Classroom. This episode serves as an introduction to the podcast, Spark Joy in EDU. Be on the lookout for upcoming episodes featuring guests who will share their voices! 

Connect with  Elisabeth Bostwick on:

LinkedIn

Bluesky

Instagram

X

Connect with  Tisha Richmond on:

LinkedIN

Bluesky

Instagram

X

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Tisha Richmond 0:01

Welcome to the Spark Joy in EDU podcast.

Elisabeth Bostwick 0:04

Where we take a magical leap into joyful learning.

Tisha Richmond 0:08

Your hosts, Elisabeth Bostwick and Tisha Richmond will encourage you to actively cultivate joy in your EDU journey through reflection, inspiration, and practical strategies.

Elisabeth Bostwick 0:18

Our vision is to leverage Tisha's message from Make Learning Magical: Transform Your Teaching and Create Unforgettable Experiences in Your Classroom. And Lis's message from Take the LEAP Ignite a Culture of Innovation to inspire educators to not only seek joy in education, but understand how we can create our own joy, even amidst struggles.

Tisha Richmond 0:39

There is so much joy in education and we are excited to highlight various guests who will be sharing how they cultivate joy and practical tips and strategies for educators to use in both their personal and professional lives.

Elisabeth Bostwick 0:52

We are so excited to be launching our podcast and as we both grew to know one another more through collaboration and connection, we began to recognize how complimentary our work is. Even the messages in both of our books have common threads. Both of us are incredibly passionate about intentionally seeking joy in life, particularly in education. Tisha, would you just share with our listeners a little bit about who you are and why joy is so meaningful to you?

Tisha Richmond 1:22

Absolutely. I'm so excited about starting this podcast with you, Lis, and joy has been really important to me and in my educational journey. I've been an educator for over 25 years. Many of those years were in the career and technical education classroom. I was teaching culinary arts that even taught some interior design. And then I moved into a district role as a tech integration specialist, and now a student engagement and professional development specialist, and then also am a Canva Learning Consultant. But, there was a point in my journey of education that I had lost my joy for teaching and learning. And, it was 2014. I remember the year very well, and I was sitting in my classroom. It was a prep period students weren't in the room at at the time. It might have been my lunch. And I looked at the sign that I had hanging by my door, and I've had it hanging by my door for a really long time, and the sign was a Julia Child's quote that said, above all have a good time. And I looked at that sign and, I got emotional because I realized I had this sign that was right by the door really sending this message to my students, that above all, I really wanted them to have a good time learning. I wanted them to find joy in the learning process. And, what I felt in that moment was just sadness, because I realized, I wasn't finding joy in the learning process. I wasn't having a good time teaching. Somehow I had lost that joy, and I knew in that moment that something needed to change. And I wasn't really sure how it was going to happen, but I knew that either I needed to find joy again in teaching or I need to find another profession. And I actually at that time would go home and tell my husband, you know, maybe I should be a barista. I love coffee. I love those lattes with like the little, you know, beautiful designs on top. I live in the Pacific Northwest, so that's a really big thing out here in Oregon and, but I knew that that wasn't really. What I wanted to do this was a profession that I'd been in for a long time and had really enjoyed it for so many years, and so that year was a catalyst year for me. It happened that our region of culinary arts educators were going in on a grant for iPads for the classroom, and this was before one-to-one devices were a thing in my district. There were very few classes that had one-to-one devices, but, the culinary teachers in our region decided, okay, this is what we would like to bring in to our current culinary arts classes, and I was actually terrified. I was going along with it because I thought, well, you know, yeah, I guess this sounds like a good idea, but really the reality was I had no idea what learning in a culinary arts classroom would look like with iPads. It was something that I was overwhelmed by and had no idea. How I was gonna make it happen, how I was gonna make these devices really used in valuable ways in my classroom. And so sure enough, we got this grant and we brought these iPads into the classroom, and I'm the kind of person that when I'm gonna bring something new in, I'm going to, I am going to do everything I can to make it worthwhile. I didn't want these iPads to be sitting in a cart gathering dust or being something that students would use to just research recipes. I wanted them to be meaningful in learning, but I just had no idea how to go about it. And so I actually looked for professional development. Part of our funding was to get professional development on how to use these iPads, and I went to my very first EdTech conference. It was called iPad Palooza, and it was in Austin, Texas. I went, and another teacher in my district went with me and I was blown away because there were all of these innovative ideas being shared and these new apps that you could use on the iPad, these new ideas and strategies that you could bring into teaching and learning that I just didn't know existed. I had no exposure to them before and I started connecting with people there. I started realizing that teacher Twitter was a thing and people were sharing their resources on Twitter, and there were these fun little challenges and I'm like, what is this? I didn't even know that this was a place that teachers connected. And so I came back from that conference with a little spark of joy being, you know, reignited because I thought, oh, maybe there's more to this. Maybe there's some things that I didn't know existed that I could actually bring into my classroom. And that started this journey of trying new things, taking some risks that I've never tried before. It meant that I disrupted what my classroom learning environment looked like. I had to rethink workflows. I had to rethink everything really that I was doing, and, I really stepped out of my comfort zone in a big way. But at the same time, what I did was I started connecting with educators from around the world. I started lurking on Twitter. I started finding new people to connect with. I started realizing that as an educator, I didn't need to live in a silo and only connect and collaborate with other culinary teachers. I could actually connect with people, teachers, librarians, counselors, people all throughout the educational spectrum from different parts of the world, share ideas, and take some of the ideas that I was learning about and bring them into my classroom and make them my own. It wasn't going to look the same way as what someone else was doing somewhere else that was teaching another subject. But, I could still learn so much and start really transforming what that educational landscape looked like in my classroom. And it was not an instantaneous like, return to joy. Right? Like it was a process for sure, but I was really saved from leaving education in that year. I was, could have turned out very, very different, and I'm so grateful that those iPads entered my world at that time because it really allowed me to tap into new areas of education that I just didn't know was out there and tap into this connected world of education and realize that being a globally connected educator is something that is really valuable because we can't do this thing alone. We can't live in a silo as educators. And so, that's just a little glimpse into my story and why joy is so important to me, because really as an educator, It was an awful feeling to feel like I was just going through the motions and not really finding joy in teaching because I know that if I wasn't able to connect to joy as a teacher, that students felt that, and how can we expect or want our kids to be joyful learners if we can't tap into that joy ourselves. And so it's been a process. It's, there's no easy answers, but it's become a topic that's really near and dear to my heart because of my own journey. And, I know Lis, that we have talked about this topic so much and one of the reasons why we wanted to start this podcast is because our stories so resonate with each other. I would love for you to share a little bit with our listeners about your story and what joy means to.

Elisabeth Bostwick 9:51

Well, thank you Tisha, and I absolutely loved hearing your story. I know we've hit on different pockets of it before, so just to hear it in full like that is just so meaningful to me. So thank you for sharing that with me and our listeners. So I really appreciate that. I am Lis Bostwick, I've been an elementary educator. I taught both grades two and four over the course of 16 years. And then I also worked as a technology integration specialist, and I do some of my own work as an innovative teaching and learning consultant. And of course I am a Canva learning Consultant just like you, Tisha, which is how, I mean, we've been connected for some time, but this is really where we've spent so much more time collaborating and getting to know one another. So, Interestingly, I never imagined myself going into education, tisha. I perceived school as a place to listen, complete assignments and take assessments. Now, I was an avid athlete and dancer, and of course, loved my sports and friends, but learning didn't always feel relevant. Additionally, I struggled with math and to make sense of it. Due to that, I became a bit protective of myself not wanting to share out in front of my peers. Now, with that said, I was very fortunate to have many teachers who took a hands-on approach or just, you know, understood the importance of fostering relationships. One that comes to mind actually is Mrs. Eggers, and she was my second grade teacher. I knew that I loved learning through exploration, but experienced that more outside of school than within classrooms. Now, let's fast forward to my college years, and I was studying psychology. I began making connections on how the brain learns. I'm a huge geek when it comes to neuroscience and optimal learning. I began relating the fact that some of my most favorite teachers were those who understood the importance of relationships, hands-on experiences and incorporating wonder and awe or even play into the classroom. I had this epiphany that perhaps teaching was exactly where I was meant to be. Now, like many new teachers, I was eager to get started. But I quickly learned though that I had to work within parameters. I'll never forget coming home within those first couple of weeks with these large math and reading program guides that I had to use to structure my lessons. But honestly, it just felt all wrong. And I struggled to identify how I could teach the way I envisioned within a structure that expected me to use these guides that included more than one could ever fit realistically into a lesson, and that wasn't personalized for my learners. Now, during these first three years, I had wonderful colleagues, but at that time we all taught pretty traditionally. I fell into this place where I taught based on the majority of my own schooling experiences, and I struggled to identify how I could teach the way I envisioned while studying both psychology and education. I'm pretty sure too, that as a team we were assigning more homework than what was necessary. Honestly, I think we were just all under the impression that this was to help our students or prepare them for the next grade level despite what families communicated with us. I think a lot of educators get caught in this frame of thinking. Now we had our first son, Julian. He was born during my second year of teaching, and then in my fourth year, our son Nolan was born. With a three-year-old and newborn at home. My husband and I made a decision that I would take just some time off for a childcare leave. And this childcare leave ended up lasting three years. It was a really beautiful time that I'll never regret taking off and, and honestly I'm just fortunate to have had that opportunity. But like you, I wasn't sure if I was going to return. At the time, I had purchased this beautiful new Nikon camera and I thought, Hey, I live in upstate New York, I could absolutely get into photography. I'm taking pictures of my own children and families. We have beautiful scenery, we're in wine country where we have lots of waterfalls and all of that. But it was during this time that I was actually brought back to how magical learning can be. I was immersed in caring for our children, which meant I was also invested in helping them explore, discover, and really experience the world. In addition to caring for our children, I took a deeper dive into the psychology of learning, understanding just how our brains make sense of the world, and I fell back in love with education through the eyes of my own kiddos. I also began to connect why an abundance of homework isn't conducive to learning. Kids need time outside of school for extracurricular activities. They need time to decompress or be with family. There's a lot of research on this topic, and of course that's a whole other conversation for another time. Anyhow, when I returned to the classroom after that leave, I had greater confidence and a better understanding of how I would facilitate my own classroom. I worked with amazing teams of educators and we collaboratively created improved experiences for learners and their families too. Now, it wasn't too long after this that I also attended my first conference, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was the Model Schools conference through ICLE at the time. I had the opportunity to learn from Jimmy Casas, Eric Sheninger, and Sherry St. Clair. And I remember at the time Eric was known for tapping into social media to connect with educators and share about the amazing work at his school. He also introduced me to the concept of makerspace through his librarian, Laura Fleming, who was doing amazing work at that time in New Jersey, and she actually published a book on Maker education. Throughout this experience, I myself became a connected educator and I learned that I could even apply for opportunities for iPads in my classroom and I was granted five. Now some might think, what are you going to do with five iPads? Well, you better believe it. We were creative in how we leverage them. At that time, we were doing truly amazing work that I was just completely re-energized about Our district brought in PBL works, formerly known as the Buck Institute, and I worked with a team to secure a $45,000 grant for Maker Spaces that would be created in three of our schools. This was truly an exciting time as I had the opportunity to work alongside other passionate educators to connect the dots on how we incorporate our curriculum and use programs in creative ways where we could also leverage project-based learning, makerspace and of course incorporate greater student voice and choice. See, through these experiences, I learned that education can be joyful. And I'll tell you, Tisha, it was like the perfect storm of feeling like I was creating the joy that I had imagined back as a young 20 year old and what I wanted to make happen in education. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. Did we still have like mandated blocks of times? Yes. We still had to do like 90 minutes ELA, and 60 minutes of math. However, what we learned is that there are creative ways we can work within those constraints and I think that's what it's all about. Education, the bottom line is it's never going to be easy. However, it's whatever we want to make of it, and we can find joy and sometimes it might mean that we have to be creative.

Tisha Richmond 17:16

I love hearing your story, Lis, and so much what you said resonated as pieces that I hadn't heard you share before really resonated even, just talking about your school experience, because I had a really difficult school experience too, growing up in the public school system and really struggling to feel like I was smart and really struggling with various subject areas, especially math. That was always a really hard subject area for me. And, I think it's just interesting as we go through life how all of these different things that we experience, you know, just kind of shape our stories and who we are.

Elisabeth Bostwick 17:59

Exactly. I love that, Tisha. In fact, recently I was listening to the Joy Lab podcast hosted by Dr. Henry Emms and Dr. Aimee Prasek and in their podcast, which is focusing on the science of joy, they discussed the fact that it's possible to feel joy even amidst dealing with any problem, and that ultimately joy is not just an emotion, and it's not the opposite of depression. It's actually different from happiness and runs deeper than any feeling. And they explain that it's also a state of being and that joy can be accessed anytime and anywhere. And so if a teacher were to come to you and say, Tisha, amidst your crazy days when they're really busy and you have a lot of things going on. When you might feel at the peak of overwhelm, what are some strategies you turn to to just recenter yourself and reclaim joy?

Tisha Richmond 18:59

Oh my goodness, I love this so much, and we are gonna have to have a whole episode on just what you shared. I think that that is so, so powerful. You know, I think there are a lot of different things that I turn to when I just need to recenter. I think for one, I really notice that if I'm not consistent with some type of an exercise routine, that stress manifests in crazy ways like I'll break out like in hives or I just feel anxious inside. And so trying to make sure that that consistent exercise routine is part of my life and it is easier said than done. I'm telling you, like right now with traveling so much, it's been really hard to stay consistent and I feel it, like I just feel that like tightness and anxiety and so really finding ways to make sure that that is being brought into my life. I think sometimes I just want a day alone, like if I can have a Saturday, even, it doesn't have to be an entire day if I can just take some time and go to my neighboring town and just spend a couple hours at my favorite coffee shop and just window shopping or just sitting in the park by myself. Like sometimes that is just what I need to decompress and just have some time with my own thoughts and my own ideas. That is really helpful too. And sometimes calling up a friend that I haven't talked to in a while and asking if they want to go to coffee and just being able to have that dialogue. Sometimes it's going to dinner with my husband. That is our connection point, is eating. So when we want to come together and connect, it's usually around food. And so we will just go eat and we can share, and I'm able to share the things that are happening in my day and he's able to share. And, just releasing that and getting to chat is also helpful. And so, I think that sometimes the strategies we choose are going to change based on what we know just intuitively, what maybe that strategy is that we need to pull in that moment. Sometimes it's solitude, sometimes it's a friend, sometimes it's exercise. But I think it's really important to kind of have those banks of strategies that we use to help us recenter. What about you, Lis? What are some things that you do?

Elisabeth Bostwick 21:29

Well, first off, I do quite a few of the things that you had mentioned, and I think you hit the nail on the head that it really depends on our own emotional wellbeing, where we're at, and what's going on, because there are some times I do some of the things that you shared and then, there are other times that there is something different that I need. For example, sometimes one thing that will help me recenter and some people might not think that this is bringing you joy, but something for me is just feeling like I've got time where I've organized all of my to-dos, where I feel like I have everything in order, so at least I know what to tackle. There's something that brings a calming sense over me when I'm like, okay, I have a plan of attack, so to speak, so that I know how to move forward. Sometimes just getting that checklist and everything down, even if I don't begin addressing anything yet, is enough for me to feel a little bit more centered.

Tisha Richmond 22:25

Yes.

Elisabeth Bostwick 22:26

And so, yeah, and so sometimes it's simply writing down and prioritizing my to-do, but then next I either turn to exercise or going outside. And going outside might be in the backyard on a dark cold night in New York with my dogs and just letting them play, but also just taking in the nature and then other times it might be me going on a walk with my husband or a walk with the dogs. But there's something to me about being in nature too, that really does bring me joy. So I just think it's all about finding what your own need is in that time. And for me it's also just reminding myself of what I'm grateful for, just taking notice of things around me. That can also bring me back to that feeling of joy and appreciation for just life in general.

Tisha Richmond 23:13

So true. I so resonate with that. Just making lists and being able to kind of write down what needs to be done. I've gone through a million different ways of organizing my to-do lists and my my agenda plan or day plan or whatever you might wanna call it. And I've found that when I get into a routine with that and carve out time, like in the morning to look at my list from yesterday, rewrite my list for today, and I have some type of a process for that, I just feel my s my anxiety releasing and being able to cross those things off. I've moved to just a, I've done digital, I've done you know, actual pen and paper. And I find that just crossing it off with a pen is brings me joy you know, to say I've got that accomplished. It's, it's just great. And then I love what you say about really I don't know. I call them those magical moments, just like really just really taking in. Whatever experience that you're in, whatever moment experience you are in, just really taking ,that in and finding the magic in those moments and really appreciating and finding gratitude in those moments, and sometimes in the hustle and bustle and the hurry, we're just trying to cross off the things off the list. And sometimes we don't just take time to appreciate or savor those moments that we are in. And, I was just actually talking to a lady today and she was talking about just that her daughter's two years old and she was saying how it's so hard sometimes with working and being a mom of a young kid because you're just trying to do it all. And she says, sometimes when that when my kid wants to take a picture, I'm on the way out the door late to work. She just has to stop and say, yes, we're going to take that picture because those moments are so important.

Elisabeth Bostwick 25:09

Yeah, and I think that goes back to being present, right? Like being present and embracing those moments. And, and sometimes that can feel hard, as much as it's also very rewarding when we have a lot of things going on. So I think it's important for us to every day be thinking about, Just being mindful of what are those things that bring us joy in the end and spacing things out so that it meets our needs and it looks different for everybody. And, I think that's why I'm just so excited about this podcast and being able to feature a variety of voices and just really hearing from all different individuals in the field of education on how do they bring joy to themselves, to their students, to their staff, and anybody else. They may be connected with.

Tisha Richmond 25:52

I couldn't agree with you more, Lis, this is going to be an amazing adventure. I cannot wait.

Elisabeth Bostwick 25:58

Thank you for listening to the Spark Joy in edu podcast. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.

Tisha Richmond 26:04

Check the show notes to connect with Lis and Tisha using their social handles and visiting their individual websites. We would love for you to share out your reflections using hashtag #SparkJoyEDU and be sure to click subscribe.