Teaching and leading with joy: A narrative inquiry

Abstract

Student engagement has always been at the forefront of my thoughts as an educator. Schooling experiences must be dynamic, interactive, personalized, and relevant to children while providing choice and honoring multiple ways of thinking. The intent of my study is to explore the essence of joy in teaching and leading. Specifically, I am curious about the ways in which joy is related to Dunleavy and Milton’s (2010) conceptions of engagement, which includes social engagement, academic engagement and intellectual engagement. I used narrative inquiry to explore principals’ and teachers’ perspectives on joy in education. I recruited two principals and two teachers from a rural school division to elicit their insights and experiences of joy in teaching and leading. The findings illustrate the ways in which teaching and leading can create a joyful school culture and that these joyful conditions are most likely to be realized when social engagement is prioritized.