Teaching Job Soured So She Made It Disappear

For most of her life, Joycee Beck couldn’t imagine a career outside teaching.

But a painful final year of a 10-year teaching career in elementary schools forced Beck to find another way to earn a living.

“There was no respect toward the end,” said Beck, 35, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and whose mother and father were teachers.

“Parents were not supportive to us and the kids were telling me that if I touched them they were going to sue me. I couldn’t take it.”

So poof! Just like that she ended her teaching career and began a new life in magic.

“I sold my old car and bought a new one and got into debt which forced me to go out and find work to pay for it,” she said.

Beck said magic had interested her for years after a chance visit to the Magic Castle in Hollywood when she was 21 years old.

“I remember watching someone perform a trick and I said to myself, ‘Oh, I can do that.’ It seemed so simple to me,” said Beck, who later became a member of the club after mastering some magic tricks.

“I figured I could make a living from magic,” she said. “I told myself do what you love and the money will follow.”

While she often donates her time for charity, her fee starts at $250 for half an hour, which she said has made her financially better off than her salary as a teacher.

For the past three years she has been tantalizing audiences at the Anaheim Convention Center, Balboa Bay Club, Disneyland and Orange County trade shows, banquets and benefits.

Most recently, the Duchess of Deception, as she calls herself, performed at the annual Brea Sunrise Rotary Club fund-raiser dinner dance.

She also said she is having more fun than when she was a teacher making lesson plans and grading papers.

“I loved the learning process and I do miss it occasionally, but then I think back to the bad parts and I clear my mind,” she reflected.

Half of her magic is performed on stage and the other half is mingling with the crowd, which she prefers despite some inconveniences.

“When I do a stage show it’s a quick, in-and-out performance,” she said, “but when you walk around for a couple of hours in high heels your feet hurt, you know what I’m saying?” she asked, a phrase she often uses.

At times she also has to deal with guests who might have imbibed too much or are too forward.

“Occasionally a guy has busy hands, so I just tell him no, no, no and I walk away,” said Beck, who is married to Juan Carlos del Valle, a supermarket worker in Riverside, where they live.

Despite those infrequent hassles, “I have to get people involved for me to enjoy myself,” she said, one of the reasons she specializes in close-up sleight of hand with cards and coins.

“I had a lot of skill with my hands, but I knew I would have to get better to be successful,” she said. “I know looks help but most of all, I have to be good at what I do.”

Beck added: “I know I’m good.”