Ode to Joy
By Greg Bamford
Raising children is joyful; it isn’t always fun. Eating Halloween candy is fun; I wouldn’t call it joyful.
Both are types of pleasure – but they aren’t the same.
Don't get me wrong. Fun is great; kids and educators alike deserve some. School, and life, can be hard.
But joy is a superpower that we can use to make a difference in the world
and
take better care of themselves. Why do people work in schools? It’s not really for the summers. It’s to do work that matters with people they care about.When we celebrate joy, we find pleasure in challenge, relationships, and purpose. Think about it: I’m sure a few of you were quick to disagree when I said that Halloween wasn’t joyful.
But what makes Halloween such a powerful moment for children who celebrate it? My memories are about the challenge of seeing how much candy I could collect, about the friends I made memories with and the neighbors I met along the way, about the moment of coming home and organizing my haul into a bar chart of Snickers, Sugar Babies, and Clark bars. My most powerful memory of Halloween was when I dressed as a Seattle Mariner and trick-or-treated the house of their legendary radio announcer. In other words, my memories are about challenge, relationships, and purpose.
Those are three forces that drive powerful learning, so it’s not surprising to say that great schools are joyful – for students
and
for adults.
That’s why joy is a central value for Leadership+Design. Our recipe for joy means more than movement, fresh air, snacks, and games in our programs. We challenge each other to have real conversations, bring our humanity to the table, and do work that matters for our students and our schools.
So how can you bring more joy to your team?
- Be a human being. As a leader, this means being vulnerable about where you are and what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean oversharing: it means bringing your full experience to the table.
- Play. Play is how human beings practice doing things under new conditions. It’s a powerful way to explore what’s possible for you and your team.
- Pursue constructive adversity. It isn’t joyful if it’s become too easy; that’s an opportunity for us to get good at something else. Everyone becomes more engaged as a result.
- Connect your work to your purpose. The start of every meeting is an opportunity to remind people how your tasks enable you to more fully live your unique reason for existing.
- Understand why your colleagues do this work. Was it an experience as a student, a teacher, or a parent? Was it to advance a cause or a value? Was it to find joy in a particular set of tasks or puzzles?
- Ask, “so what?” Do we care about the problem we’re trying to solve? If not, how can we minimize this part of our work together? What could we focus on instead?
- Communicate your “thank yous” in words and deeds. Working in schools is hard work. Genuine appreciation builds trust.
