Today we’d like to introduce you to Josie Field.
Josie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Teaching is what I love to do and, for me, I thought about teaching from the time I was a little girl growing up in Detroit. My teaching career began in St. Louis when I was 21. After I graduated from college there, I decided to stay there and start teaching in a junior high. The next year, I decided to move to Florida to be near my fiance and taught special ed in a tiny rural town called Mims. My next move was to Santa Maria as a newlywed and I taught fourth grade to migrant farm workers’ children. Each of these very different situations challenged me as a young teacher to learn the community, culture, and needs of those children. It also helped me be prepared later to become a mentor for teachers who might need someone to guide them through rough waters.
My husband and I next moved to Seattle and we started our family. We had three sons and I worked as a full-time mom. After four years there, we moved back to California with three young boys and I did volunteer work at a local preschool before we moved to the Panama Canal Zone, which is where my husband had grown up. I ended up teaching first grade to a very international community in the next couple of years and fell in love with the early grades. We returned to the states, lived for a few months in Jacksonville, Fla before relocating to Houston.
Happily, we welcomed a daughter to the male-dominated family. I wanted to spend time with her and also do a little volunteer work in my sons’ school, so I found a Mother’s Day Out for our little daughter. Before long, I was teaching pre k children there and quickly assumed the job as Director of the program. I really fell in love with early childhood and found delight in the sense of wonder and playfulness of this age group. We had long waiting lists and my Pastor, Father Bill Robertson at St. Jerome Church, and I discussed the possibility of building a full time, year round, early childhood center. This was something very new for a Catholic Church and had not been done locally. Fortunately, he helped the parish see the value in a wonderful addition to the parish and we built the first of three buildings to house the program to serve ages birth through pre kinders. I helped the program begin, grew it to a very flourishing and Nationally Accredited Center and stayed for about 11 years in the capacity of Center Director. During that time I loved seeing staff develop and learned that providing professional development and mentoring other teachers was something I really loved doing. I helped my staff receive CDA credentials and attend other training sessions and saw how much of a positive difference training could make for teachers. This leads me to the next phase of my educational career. After leaving I was asked to do some contract work for UT/Houston at The Children’s Learning Institute. I worked with them on an early childhood grant which required visiting classrooms and doing short assessments with four years olds. It was fun to visit different programs inside and outside of Houston and it resulted in being offered a job as a Mentor with a local non-profit, Neighborhood Centers.
For the next two years, I worked with their Head Start Program as a classroom mentor then assisted in writing and implementing a grant for the Barbara Bush Foundation. The classrooms where I mentored teachers was part of a grant that was under the direction of Dr. Susan Landry at the University of Texas/Houston in Houston in the Texas Medical Center. After two years working for Neighborhood Centers, Dr. Landry and her team asked me to join a team of trainers to help provide national training during the summer for many Head Start grantees throughout the US. That was a terrific experience and we provided training to hundreds of staff. After the summer, Dr. Landry asked me to come to work with them as a Grant Manager and Mentor for teachers and Early Childhood leaders throughout Texas. For the next eight years, I had the privilege of working with this terrific team at UT/H with CIRCLE (Center for Improving the Readiness for Learning and Education) as we managed many grants for early childhood and preschool classrooms with a focus on high level of professional training, classroom coaching, providing appropriate and engaging educational materials, During this time, I supported programs across Texas and made frequent visits to their classrooms to support implementation of the grant, provide classroom teaching lessons, help with classroom arrangement, and assure fidelity to the grant. I was able to visit hundreds of classrooms, support those classroom teaching staff, work with Directors and Principals, set and achieve wonderful program goals, and meet outstanding teachers and leaders.
After retiring from UT, I was asked to mentor a small early childhood program that had three classrooms and was part of Neighborhood Centers. I worked with a terrific leader, Pam Sailors, and super staff at The Frage Center for three years supporting the teaching staff with mentoring, lesson planning support, classroom arrangement, training, organizing school, and family events, selecting and purchasing appropriate curriculum and materials, and writing a yearly teaching plan with assessment tools for the program. Soon after that, I was asked to come back with another grant group at UT, working with The Texas Literacy Initiative Grant, to serve as a contract team member supporting all things early childhood. During the next four years, my tasks were to write comprehensively online lessons that the grantees used to help assess and improve their programs, to provide literacy and math training for hundreds of staff who were one ! the 31 grantees, to visit classrooms and model lessons, to support the coaches and leaders in these programs . This was a grant that included support for programs serving age birth through high school and encouraged communication across all those levels and age groups so that programs had plans and goals for their schools from birth through high school graduation.
During my journey across the country and in and out of so many programs, I have learned that many teachers work really hard, spend lots of their own money, are devoted to helping children learn and bloom, want to work collaboratively with families. I have seen the struggles they face every day and sometimes feel sad that they do no get the respect or support that they need and should have. It was obvious to me, that providing really high-level training and following that up with in-classroom mentoring, in a very positive and professional way, can make a great difference in the attitudes and outcomes of our teaching teams and their school.
I had loved being a teacher from that first day when I was a nervous and excited 21-year-old!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have seen really great educators who give 100 percent every day and this has always made me happy and thankful for their students. Sadly, I have also seen unmotivated and underprepared teaching staff who do not seem to really have the best interests of their children at heart. I wish all leaders would spend more time in the classrooms, seriously look at what the teachers are doing every day, provide more mentoring, and set then evaluate ongoing goals.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Timely Training – what should we know?
For years, my passion has been creating and delivering the best possible training/professional development for early childhood staff and providing real and practical support in the classroom. I believe that I am respected for being a knowledgeable and well-prepared trainer who can relate to teaching staff in an approachable and friendly manner. I am proud and humbled to have provided over 2500 hours of professional development to a wide array of programs including public schools, private schools, non-profit organizations, Head Start and Early Head Start programs. I have been able to do this for many organizations including Houston Area Association of Early Childhood Association, Texas AAEYC, National AEYC, an International Organization that provided training in Bogata, Columbia, Texas and National Head Start Conferences, and much local Church and Early Childhood Groups.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Preparedness, knowledge, interest in learning, collaboration, energy, enthusiasm, organization.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2411 Lexford Lane
Houston, TX 77080 - Website: 1944
- Phone: 2817994029
- Email: josiefield@sbcglobal.net
- Facebook: Lilly Goes to Head Start
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