JULY 25, 2024

This article was published in the summer Blue Doors magazine, prior to the passing of Linda Field P'14 P'16. We honor Ms. Field's remarkable, 42-year-long career and service to Nightingale.

To know Nightingale is to know Linda Field. For over four decades (42 years, to be exact) Ms. Field has been an integral member of the professional community, holding numerous roles within the Schoolhouse, garnering the utmost respect and admiration of students and adults alike. It is then with deep gratitude that Nightingale celebrated her outstanding tenure—the longest in Nightingale history—and well-earned retirement at the end of this school year.

Surprisingly, Ms. Field did not initially have her sights set on education as a career path. “Growing up as a teenager in the 1970s there was a sense that women should be pursuing non-traditional career paths, and so the idea of teaching or nursing—typically thought of as fields for women—were not in my mind. I thought maybe I’d go to law school,” Ms. Field recalled. And yet how did she spend every suburban New Jersey summer in high school and college? Teaching swimming lessons at her local pool and babysitting—surrounded by children.

During her undergraduate studies at Princeton University she majored in religion, primarily interested in history and theory, all the while still toying with taking the LSAT. Upon graduation, she moved to Philadelphia and took a job as an administrative assistant at Wharton while her husband at the time finished his MBA there. Working in academia felt like the right fit and, when she asked herself what she wanted to do with her life, law school became a distant memory. She enrolled in an educational psychology course at University of Pennsylvania, which would ultimately change the course of her life.

The young couple relocated to New York City next, and Ms. Field enrolled in Teachers College at Columbia in the curriculum and teaching graduate program—a masters tailored for those who had not taught before. Upon graduation, Ms. Field was certified to teach in grades K–VI and thus her job search began. Of course, this was the early 1980s, which meant typing out job inquiry letters on a typewriter and cold mailing them to independent schools throughout the city.

As luck would have it, she landed an interview at Nightingale. “I don’t actually know what happened, but the fifth grade homeroom and history teacher must have given her notice quite late, because by the time they were interviewing me, the school was in final exams. I remember touring the building and all of these children were scribbling away,” she said. Unable to give a sample lesson because of the timing, she recalled meeting Kitty Gordan, chair of the history department, June Smith, the coordinator for Classes V and VI, and Joan McMenamin, head of school, all in one day. Based on the strength of her interviews and her recommendations from student teaching, Ms. Field landed the job—a surprise to no one who has worked with her throughout the years.

Mrs. Gordan recalled, “When Ms. Field began teaching at Nightingale in 1982, neither Mrs. McMenamin, Mrs. Smith, nor I knew that she would become an important member of the school community for the next 42 years. An energetic young woman with excellent credentials whose affection for the Middle School age student was palpable, she hoped to teach fourth, fifth, or sixth grade. We were looking for a fifth-grade teacher to teach alongside the legendary Margaret Thaine, and we thought that she would be perfect for the job. We were right! They were a superb team guiding the girls’ transition into the middle school world.”

Indeed they were. With no experience in independent schools or all-girls education, Ms. Field began her career at Nightingale and Ms. Thaine immediately took her under her wing. “She was by far the best mentor I could have ever had. She taught me how to be a complete teacher—and not just in the classroom—but as a shepherd of your little flock of students,” Ms. Field remembered.

Ms. Field herself would extend this same kindness to all who had the good fortune to work with her over the years, as noted by Jena Epstein, Class V dean and history faculty member.

“Her incredible kindness and her heart of gold are inspiring. This year I needed help in the morning with homeroom check-in for Class V. Ms. Field volunteered to help me check in the students every single morning. When she told me that she volunteered to do this I was extremely touched. Despite her very busy schedule, Ms. Field was willing to help out a colleague, especially at 7:45 a.m. That is what Paul [Burke] means when he says a member of the community goes ‘above and beyond.’ I will miss her intellectual curiosity, her [young adult] book recommendations, her championing every single student in the Schoolhouse, her smiles and laughter, and seeing one of my mentors and role models every day who is now a close friend,” Ms. Epstein said. Through the years, Ms. Field taught history at every level from Class V to Class XII (with the exception of Class X). This entailed a wide variety of topics in Middle School, including but not limited to geography, ancient civilizations, American history and government, and medieval world history. Eager to broaden her experience, she also taught women’s history, world religions, and African American history electives in the Upper School but realized that, while she was more than capable to teach in that division, Middle School was really her first love.

Her impact as a history teacher is impossible to measure, her influence affecting generations of Nightingale students. One of those students, Associate Head of Lower School Claire Anderson ’95, credits Ms. Field for her lifelong love of learning and commitment to being a better educator every single day.

“Ms. Field taught me American history in seventh grade and I have a distinct memory of her teaching me how a bill becomes a law. And who could forget the much loved class trip to Philadelphia that she was responsible for organizing? Being a student in her class was the first time that I remember being truly taken with a subject—so much so that I went on to study American history in college. I can confidently say that a large part of that decision was due to her teaching and my interest that was piqued in seventh grade,” Ms. Anderson recollected.

She continued, “It’s not lost on me how incredibly lucky I have been to call Ms. Field a colleague for so many years. I am deeply grateful to have been able to learn from her in so many ways—especially how to be a better educator and community member— because of the values and standards that she models so beautifully each and every day. She is selfless, thoughtful, brave, and humble. A true and inspirational educator.”

In addition to her time in the history classroom, Ms. Field also taught Class V math and Class III math, the latter of which she particularly enjoyed because of the enthusiasm of the children and the fact that many classes in the Lower School are planned together as a teaching team. This was a common theme for Ms. Field when she thought about what she was going to miss most upon retirement.

“There are a lot of things I’ve loved about being at Nightingale, but more than anything, I think the collaborative nature of the work here has been the thing that gives me the most joy. I almost always taught a class that someone else was teaching, so I was almost always planning with someone else. The years that I taught with Jane Guggenheimer and Jena Epstein were the greatest joys to meet with them regularly to plan lessons and activities for a bunch of sixth graders.”

Not surprisingly, she has also fulfilled multiple roles within the advising program, and was the assistant head of Middle School and the assistant head of Upper School.

It was as the assistant head of Middle School that she began to take on scheduling tasks. Her talent in this arena soon became obvious and she took on more and more scheduling requests, ultimately crafting the Middle and Upper School schedules and then finally all Classes K–XII.

When she first began as the director of scheduling in 1993, she was still teaching 50 percent of the time, and there were years when her children were young that she only worked as the scheduler in the Schoolhouse part-time—a flexibility she was grateful to have. Her children, who she welcomed with her current husband, Curtis, not only joined her at Nightingale as students eventually, but also as colleagues in recent years. Mickey Field ’14 and Susannah Field ’16 both currently work as associate teachers in the Lower School, which has been incredibly moving for Ms. Field to witness. “I have loved having my children here as adults. I think it’s so rare for a parent to be able to see their adult children in a working environment and to see them being appreciated and in their element. That’s been a special joy,” Ms. Field said.

She would fulfill both roles—teaching and scheduling—eventually stepping out of the classroom full-time in 2019. Her extraordinary and masterful command of the entire Schoolhouse and all of the individuals inside of it will be impossible to ever fully replace.

Mrs. Gordan has high praise for Ms. Field’s organizational prowess, having witnessed it from the start. “For many years, she dedicated her summers to crafting the academic schedule for the forthcoming school year. It is an arduous and unsung task with a profound impact on the daily life of the school, and I witnessed her remarkable problem-solving skills in action. She explained that she enjoyed working on the schedule because it felt like solving puzzles which she liked doing. However, as the years passed and Nightingale added more to the program, the puzzle bordered on the insolvable. Her determination to succeed did not waiver! As time went by, computer programs started to assist her. However, they couldn’t fully grasp the complexities of the school like Ms. Field did, and she stayed true to her creating the schedule with pencil and paper,” Ms. Gordan said.

It is important to note that within this role, she was also known as the unofficial “Queen of Coverage”—ensuring that every activity outside of the classroom had the appropriate amount of adult presence to run efficiently and without incident. Lunch periods, study halls, recess on the roof, the list goes on...Ms. Field oversaw it all, many times stepping in herself, and always with a smile on her face.

In addition to her myriad of roles, she has also been deeply committed to realizing Nightingale’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion both in the classroom and among the professional community. Her work in this area began in 1990 when she attended the NAIS Diversity Conference at the urging of Joan McMenamin and she never looked back. “It’s been hugely rewarding, sometimes upsetting, sometimes frustrating, but the school has really changed a lot in ways that I applaud in terms of our diversity,” she noted. As a member of the history department, she’s played a crucial role in evolving the curriculum to be more inclusive, less Eurocentric, and conscious of including social justice. She also served as a member of the accountability team and coordinator of the White Anti-Racist Learning Spaces that emerged from Nightingale’s renewed focus on racial justice in 2020.

So what does retirement hold in store for Ms. Field? Right now, the future is wide open. She received valuable advice from a colleague who shared that, when her own mother retired, she told herself that she was not going to commit to anything new for an entire year. This approach feels right for Ms. Field. With this in mind, she’s looking forward to seeing where the wind takes her, discovering new hobbies, reading for hours, and relishing not having to get up quite as early as she’s had to for so many years.

“I’m practicing saying, ‘I’m just going to take some time for myself.’”

And after 42 years of giving so much of herself to so many students, colleagues, parents, alumnae, and friends, that’s exactly how it should be.