DAFVM Spotlight Employee: Jessica Fielder
Jessica Fielder
Improving the quality of care and education of young children every day is Jessica Fielder’s number-one priority.
Fielder is a field technical assistant and trainer for the Early Years Network in the Mississippi State University School of Human Sciences. She is responsible for teaching early-childhood education staff from child care centers how to use developmentally appropriate curricula and best teaching practices for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Fielder said she is passionate about quality education for young children, and her job allows her to network with individuals who share that same passion.
“The part of my job that I enjoy the most is participating in activities with other child care professionals when I host training workshops. Providing activities they can do in their own classrooms is very rewarding,” she said. “I enjoy knowing that I make the training workshops a valuable experience for them. I love waking up each day knowing that I get to go to work and have fun.”
One memory in particular stands out to Fielder when she thinks about these types of activities.
“I was teaching a workshop on music for infants and toddlers, and one of the training activities was to divide the child care professionals into groups and provide them with a children’s song,” she said. “They had to then take the children’s song and make it fit a certain musical genre. My favorite was when one group sang Humpty Dumpty as a blues song. I laughed for a long time about that one and had a great time.”
Fielder said working in early-childhood education comes naturally to her.
“I have always enjoyed working with young children through programs such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters through various community service projects while I was attending school at the University of Southern Mississippi,” she said. “Choosing my profession was less about how much money I would make in the long run and more about waking up every day knowing that I will enjoy going into work, which was the most important thing to me.”
Fielder enjoys photography, DIY home interior projects and making crafts in her spare time. She also enjoys spending time with her 6-month-old son, Jayce Christopher.
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