Joyful Classrooms: How a Classroom Educator Is Providing Learning Journeys to Empower Teachers

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Q&A with Brittany Cufaude, founder of Joyful Classrooms and author of a new book, Lessons in Joy

By Devishobha Chandramouli

The pandemic has stirred ample conversations about the looming achievement gap of learners that only seems to be widening with the passage of time. Teachers across the globe are rapidly reinventing themselves to cater to the new norms of education.

Based in Sacramento, Calif., Brittany Cufaude noticed that teachers invariably needed high-quality professional learning, coaching, and other support even before COVID-19 hit to address not only the achievement gaps of students — but the gaps facing teachers themselves. Cufaude founded Joyful Classrooms in 2016 with a mission to improve outcomes for all learners through a devotion to continuous learning and a compassionate community by empowering educators. 

Devishobha: Congratulations on your founding of Joyful Classrooms. Tell us about how it all started?

Brittany: With a background in literacy, multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), intervention, healthy team culture, leadership, and bilingual teaching, I understand the demands and wishes of school and district leadership. But I am a classroom teacher at heart, so I am able to metabolize the complexities of organizational shifts, implementations, and challenging goals into compassionate and digestible learning journeys for teachers. 

Devishobha: What is the unique selling proposition (USP) of Joyful Classrooms?

Brittany: Our current scale-up campaign. Using the capacity I built to teach remotely through online courses, Google Classrooms, and various other platforms, I’m now building collective teacher efficacy in these areas. I am turning the spotlight on the gifted teachers and expanding the Joyful Classrooms’ platform to include resources, tools, courses, and more created by other experts in our field. It is time to harness the power of distance learning and technology to provide a platform devoted to excellence and ease of use, so struggling teachers know where to go to find solutions to really challenging problems. 

Devishobha: Joyful Classrooms seems to be very relevant for the post-COVID classroom. Can you give us a few instances where it is applicable for online teaching?

Brittany: During the pandemic, many teachers learned to strip learning into its simplest and most focused forms. This is a complicated achievement we have been striving for many years as part of the professional learning community movement. This particular aspect of that movement is the work to establish a guaranteed and viable curriculum, which many say has the biggest impact on student achievement. If we can take that essential learning back into classrooms, teachers will gain focus. When we are clear and focused, all our systems work better. 

Devishobha: How is Joyful Classrooms different from other teacher training programs?

Brittany: I create learning journeys based on what folks feel they need. The Side-Hustle course is truly one of my two homages to teachers (the second being my book). Educators are unique professionals in that we take on the hardest work for very little fiscal reward. I have taken on various side-hustles over the years because I couldn’t support myself and my son on my teacher’s salary. Thus, I am providing all that learning to teachers. This includes content creation, business sense, digital marketing tips, design tutorials, and course creation. 

Devishobha: Can you take us through one typical session of Joyful Classrooms?

Brittany: I stick to high-impact teaching strategies in all learning contexts. These include 10 steps for structuring learning modules. The 10 steps include goal setting, effective learning design, explicit teaching, worked examples, collaboration, multiple exposures, questioning, feedback, metacognitive strategies, and differentiation. 

Devishobha: Tell us about your book, Lessons in Joy?

Brittany: I committed myself to writing a short book that includes everything I have learned we need to have a joyful and highly effective practice. It has three parts, which are the Joyful Classrooms’ three core values: 1) Authentic Connection; 2) Learning Obsession; and 3) Team Interdependence. It is a book that offers simple solutions to very complex issues. I say I gently support my readers in opening up their hearts, rolling up their sleeves, and partnering with a compassionate community to better serve the children whose lives depend on it.   

Devishobha: What is your vision for Joyful Classrooms?

Brittany: At the moment, I am helping expert teachers leverage their gifts into passive income and tools that will transform the lives of struggling teachers. But soon, I hope to get into education within the juvenile justice system. I would also like to serve internationally. The inequity around the globe is a hurdle I’d really love to start training to jump.

About Devishobha Chandramouli

Devishobha is the founder of Kidskintha – a global parenting and education collective, and the host of the global virtual conferences hosted on the platform, one of them hosted in collaboration with UNESCO. You can also find her voice on the Huffington Post, Mother.ly, Entrepreneur, LifeHack, TinyBuddha, Thought Catalog and many other publications.

Follow Devishobha Chandramouli on Twitter @kidskintha

About Brittany Cufaude

Founder of Joyful Classrooms, Brittany Ann Cufaude is also known as a teacher, coach, and author. Brittany created Joyful Classrooms to bring joy and equity to all children through a devotion to continuous learning and a compassionate community.

Brittany has been a teacher for over fifteen years. During this time, she’s taught adult women and their children in a women’s shelter, high-school-aged mothers who had a place to nurse and play with their babies while they attended classes on their main high school campus. She has also taught kinder friends, high schoolers, and generally children of all ages. She’s taught in English and in Spanish.

She spent the most consecutive years teaching as an intensive reading interventionist at a middle school. And, in some of her greatest acts of courage, she has spent years teaching other teachers effective teaching strategies. She can’t imagine a place she loves more than the classroom (other than anywhere with her son and dog).

According to her family and dearest friends, Brittany is built on compassion, kindness, and courage. They describe her as a lover without limit, a candle in the soul of those she loves. They say she is steadfast and reliable in showing up again and again for those she loves. They agree resilience and dedication are her superpowers. She is also known for her stubborn will to see the beauty in all people and to find hope in the world.

Brittany is the author of a new book, Lessons in Joy set to go live for purchase on May 1, 2021. Click here to receive more information.

Lessons in Joy book cover

Further Reading

  1. Kidsintha – 25 Best Illustrated Nature Books For Children
  2. Forbes – 4 Ways To Enhance The Online Learning Experience
  3. KQED – Will California Lawmakers Allow Distance Learning to Continue Next Year?

Author

  • EdCircuit Staff

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