The Joy of Teaching

The ‘aha!’ moments. The exhilaration of a class period that ends with a student saying, “That was so much fun!” The camaraderie of union members. Almost 95 percent of teachers around the world say they “often” feel happy at work, according to a 2025 report. Indeed, despite the many concerns confronting educators today—which are scary, heartbreaking, and too numerous to name—many NEA members love their work. 

Meet some of those educators in the following stories. 

Carissa Kano

Middle school reading teacher, Honolulu, Hawaii

Yes, Hawaii is paradise—for tourists. For its children, it’s often not. Middle school teacher Carissa Kano has a student who was abandoned in a Honolulu park as a baby; another was shot in his public housing complex. Some sleep on couches, others in cars. “I have families, with eight or nine people, living on about $26,000 a year,” she says. 

As eighth graders, they read like kindergartners and first graders. Kano, who is a National Board-certified elementary reading teacher, needs to catch them up—and fast. “I know what their life could look like … either way,” she says. 

Kano does it with love and laughs—and a lot of snacks. She has good friends who barter sunset yoga classes for boxes of oat bars to stock her classroom pantry. 

This is Kano’s calling. At 5 years old, when the other girls opted to be princesses for Halloween, she dressed as a teacher in a denim skirt. Her mother taught kindergarten for 25 years; her father, Cary Kano, is a legend at Honolulu’s Roosevelt High School, in his 42nd year of teaching. It’s no surprise to them that their big-hearted daughter is drawn to the neediest students at one of the island’s poorest schools, Princess Ruth Ke‘elikōlani Middle School.

When it comes to transforming lives developed in poverty, “education is the most powerful tool,” Kano says. “We can give people the skills to read, to write, to persevere, to have grit.” Too often, in this country, “the poorest students get the poorest education,” she notes. But not in her classroom. 

On a recent morning, Kano rewards a student’s effort with his favorite snack, a strawberry Gusher. (She knows, every kid’s favorite snack.) She greets one with a personal handshake and teases another about his new girlfriend, “When are you going to introduce me? I promise not to say anything embarrassing!” She stays late to coach a girls’ volleyball team that she started. She muses about making and selling leis to take players out for a weekend day. 

Kano understands why other teachers burn out. This work can be torturous—and of course it’s underpaid. A starter home on Oahu costs $1.1 million, and she’ll never, ever be able to afford one. She has more worries than money. Her husband, Logan Salcedo, says, “Sometimes I know she’s lying there awake, and I say, ‘Which kid are you thinking about?’” 

The rewards come when a student reads a tough sentence and a smile breaks across their face, or when they share their feelings and funnies.

Her advice to other educators?

“When you focus on relationships, this is the greatest, most exhilarating, and exciting job you can do. I might make $53,000 a year, but I’m the happiest person you’ll ever meet—and that’s priceless.”  — Carissa Kano

Emily McCaffree

Special ed paraeducator, Columbia Falls, Mont.

" I really love what I do, all the time, every day,” Emily McCaffree says. “Yes, there are a lot of struggles, especially in special ed. But when it all of a sudden clicks and you see it on their face? That’s the reason I do what I do and love what I do.”

Over her 13 years in rural, special ed classrooms, McCaffree has done everything from teaching students to make lunch to tutoring them in highlevel math. Today, she works in a high school learning lab, providing one-on-one support to ensure students can stay on track to graduate.

“I had one kiddo who came up to me at graduation and said, ‘I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t pushed me. And the only reason I didn’t quit is because you didn’t quit on me,’” McCaffree recalls. “He literally said, ‘I felt like every other teacher gave up on me and you were like, you’re going to walk that stage.’”

Of course, not every student is going to say thanks. And not every student will persist. But McCaffree says she is never going to be the reason they walk away. “I always tell them, I believe you can do it."

Her advice to other educators?

"Start fresh every day. You might have had a terrible Monday with a challenging student. Don’t start Tuesday still mad at them. Whatever happened the day before, let it roll.” — Emily McCaffree

Megan Philbrook

Social studies teacher, Andover, N.H.

"Low-key, I am so excited to put on the pantaloons,” says Charley, as the eighth grader unhooks a pair of breeches from a clothing rack in her classroom and slides them over her leggings.

When she pairs the short pants with a white linen blouse and cherry wool overcoat, her teacher, Megan Philbrook, claps and exclaims, “Charley, 
turn around!”

“Ohhhh,” she sighs. “You! You are an American privateer!”

Philbrook is the only social studies teacher at Andover Elementary/Middle School in central, rural New Hampshire—a job she truly loves. Today, her students are dressing from a trunk of replica garments that Philbrook borrowed from the American Revolution Institute. Winning a stint with the traveling trunk isn’t easy, but Philbrook has done it twice in two years.

“That scarf is to wipe off the sea mist in your face,” says Philbrook to a wouldbe able seaman. “Can you taste it?!”

Philbrook’s teaching style is drenched in interactive, hands-on experiences that engage students and educators alike.

“I am not a lecture-based educator, at all,” Philbrook says. “We do a lot of historical reenactments, simulations, projects, inquiry-based learning.”

Did one of Philbrook’s colleagues find bear scat in the parking lot? Let’s go see! Even this can be a history lesson: “Early town records show that colonists were paid to hunt bears because they were such a nuisance to the sheep!” she says.

Philbrook’s mantra: Make learning magical. Make it fun. And, most of all, make it memorable. It has been—and still is—those things for her, too.

Her advice to other educators?

“My best advice? When you’re a teacher, you should never stop learning.” —  Megan Philbrook

Jessie McKinley

Computer science, robotics, and engineering teacher, Phoenix, Arizona

On a recent morning, Jessie McKinley asks his third graders to use Scratch programming tools to record and replay a few words of speech. “It could be your name,” he suggests. “Or maybe a few numbers.” 

Within minutes, a cacophony of six seven, SIX SEVEN, siiiiiix seeeeeven fills the room, as his Madison Camelview Elementary School students distort and stretch their recorded voices. 

Later, the last girl out the door exclaims, “That was so much fun, Mr. McKinley!” 

This is McKinley’s 25th year. For the first 17, he taught music. In 2015, he went back to school for a second master’s degree—this one in curriculum and instruction, with a surprising focus on technology. 

“I didn’t have that background, unless you count playing Legos with my brother!” he laughs. Although it was challenging, he told himself: “If I ask the right questions and keep on asking questions, I can do this.”

The Joy in Teaching 

By Pete Stone, member of The SCEA

Pete Stone, an English and journalism teacher at Chester High School, in S.C., left a career in medicine because he’d rather help people know what they’re living for. In this essay, he reflects on where and how he still finds joy in the classroom

As a teacher, when you are aware that the students in front of you are someone’s greatest treasure, each full of infinite value, each a representation of the miracle of life, then it is an honor to spend time with them daily in the great unfolding adventure of their life stories. 

At the basic level, there is joy in the classroom simply because every human being’s native state is one of joy, expressed through wonder and curiosity. Teaching is therefore a daily opportunity to participate in the innate practice of sharing and learning more about the wonder of this life.

It is, of course, unfortunate that overcrowded classrooms, crammed curriculums, rigid pacing guides, and an addiction to testing complicate the natural flow of joy. However, joy—like any force of nature—cannot be contained, only rerouted or delayed. 

It continually overcomes all barriers, shining through again and again, as the human spirit cannot be denied any more than water can be perpetually held back. 

Joy is not a what, but a how.

Encouragingly, then, joy in school is not something that must be created, but something that must merely be realized and allowed. Because despite the system, students and teachers still find a way to bring humanity into the classroom.

This is because joy is not rendered through what students do, but through how they do it—when each one is uniquely given the time and space to be who they truly are. The ancient philosopher Laozi reminds us that “you can shape clay into a bowl, but it is the spaciousness inside that makes it useful.”

I frequently take my high school English students out into nature to read, to write, to play sports, or just sit under trees and stare. A writing assignment, for example, will generally consist of students first walking and talking their way around the building. Next, I ask them to spread chairs out among the trees—where they will not feel the burden of needing to entertain anyone else and can calmly relax in stillness.

Finally, I encourage them to simply write words as they emerge with as little thought as possible. I find that providing this open approach to learning helps create a space where students’ most natural voices are free to let joy flow 
outward into the world, rather than being limited by critical comparison, fear of failure, or pressure to work “bell to bell.”

I do not want my students to be standardized, but to maintain their diverse, joyful expression of the human spirit. I do not measure my success by evaluations, by compliance with a broken system, or by how much information can be packed into young minds for a test.

Rather, I remember the words of my teaching mentor, the acclaimed poet Vivian Ayers, who taught me that “omniscience is not the proper burden of mankind; magnificence is.”

The good news is that when teachers are supported, then they can provide a balanced environment of structure and spaciousness where students naturally fill the classroom with joyful magnificence, simply by being the wonder they already are.