Talk about divine timing. Last September, Yogi Joseph was in the last ten minutes of teaching his social studies class at Johnston-Hopkins Elementary School when he paused to correct a student on his behavior telling him he didn’t have to do things to fit in. The boy responded by saying that he wanted to be like him when he grew up – to which Joseph answered, “You’ll be better than me.” Five minutes later, the fifth-grade instructor got word that he was named the school’s teacher of the year. “I ran to that student and embraced him and told him that this would be him one day,” recalls Joseph, the teaching force who inspires his children to believe they can do anything.

Joseph sees his responsibility as a teacher as a higher art than following a syllabus. He has spent his 23-year-long teaching career creating a nurturing environment in his classrooms. Although he’s taught at Johnston-Hopkins for only two years, his students will attest that a year with “Mr. Yogi” is an experience in learning more than just social studies. “Nurturing and challenging” sum up Joseph’s approach as a successful teacher.

“You have to put a child in a situation where they learn something new every day and they feed off of that,” he explains. “You look in their eyes for the light to come on when they understand something new. As soon as you see that look, you can build from there. I often tell them I love them, and it gives me life to see how excited they get when I show them that I care about them.”

It was a look in their eyes one day that validated his career decision. “Once while explaining to the class the impact of words and how what we say can come off differently than what we mean, I got a tear in my eyes,” he recalls with a softened voice “and many of the students nearly broke down and cried. I knew that they cared about me, but I realized then that I was where God wanted me to be.”

Becoming a teacher – must less a noted one – is not something Joseph could have imagined while growing up. Overweight and dealing with Tourette Syndrome, it pained him to speak in front of others. But they are the very challenges that he says taught him to realize that you never know what a person is battling inside and gave him the desire to motivate others. “I realized that most people laugh at you because they don’t know you,” he points out.

In college, where Joseph earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology (and later a master’s in early education,) he found his identity and became more comfortable in his skin. “I met my friend Cleon “Snoop” Wilson who would not allow me to be a pushover,” reveals Joseph. “I joined the fraternity Phi Beta Sigma and began dancing and performing.” While in college he also became friends with Bryson Bernard (now the singer Cupid) and after graduation began dancing with the band, traveling across the country for 24 years. “When I’m dancing it relaxes me,” shares Joseph, who hides his Tourette’s by staying very active.

When he began teaching the early grades, he incorporated dancing and singing into the classroom, turning rudimentary lessons like the planets of the solar system into a fun rhythmic routine that students remembered. Still effective today, he recently employed the method to help his fifth graders learn the ancient kingdoms of Africa.

In 2022 Joseph put professional dancing aside to fulfill a dream of going into business with his son, Johnathan, and opened The Bod Shop – a place where exercise is incorporated with music. After a day of teaching, he looks forward to retreating to the New Iberia location, inside Dynamic Health Club. It’s his favorite place to unwind, a place where he dances, laughs and motivates others, and where the sign outside the front door reads No Judgement Zone. “Many adults don’t get the hour of exercise a day that is recommended, and I wanted to create a place to relax and ‘have recess’,” says Joseph. “There’s line dancing, aerobics, zydeco, two-step, salsa – and laughing from 6:30-7:30 p.m., five days a week. We add our magic to it to show those who think that they can’t dance that they can, and after an hour they don’t realize how hard they’ve worked.”

On weekends Joseph manages the careers of two of his other children, Jrok and Beezy, who make up the singing/dance duo of Young Hub City. For the past eight years, he’s been traveling with them on weekends throughout New Iberia and Lafayette, balancing being a manager and father. “It’s all clean, happy music. They’ve had a lot of hits, including the song Mr. Weatherall which has gotten 600,000 streams, and I see them changing lives,” he says proudly (switching to father role.)

Seeming to thrive around children and young adults, Joseph admits, “They make me feel that I have a purpose; it’s my fountain of youth. The father of six (including a three-month old) adds, “I love my family, and my students are an extension of that family.” The feeling has been mutual, as former students have invited their beloved teacher to their high school and college graduations and even their weddings.