Mom, child share dream: Pair start their teaching careers on same day

Two teachers who spent years in college preparing and practicing how to run their own classroom still had their concerns on their first day of school, but they had someone close to share them with.

Dawn and Justin Brownfield had been preparing and looking forward to Wednesday for years. This was the day the mother and son, who had gone through college and earned their education degrees at the same time, would begin their teaching careers.

But the day began filled with what-ifs. What if the sophomores and juniors Justin Brownfield would teach at Whiteland Community High School didn’t respect him because he’s just 22 years old? What if a first-grader in Dawn Brownfield’s class at Sawmill Woods Elementary School thought the school day should end about noon, as it did in kindergarten, and wandered off?

Dawn Brownfield completed her degree and graduated from IUPUI in 2011, while Justin graduated in April from the University of Southern Indiana. The mother and son, who regularly leaned on and supported each other in college, now begin their teaching careers together at Clark-Pleasant schools.

Both had joked about the possibility of going to work for the same school district while they were in college, but they never expected it would happen.

“It was OK with me, but I’m the mom,” Dawn Brownfield said.

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