Browning, Melissa
Melissa Browning
3rd grade
Rm. 305
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Where she lives: Fort Greene
Teaching since: 2005
At P.S. 8 since: 2005
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Melissa Browning attended P.S. 8 from Kindergarten through 7th grade and arrived here again in 2005 to teach third grade. "I'm thrilled to be back and to see the school thriving," she says. "You just have a feeling that good things are happening. It's a strong community with lots of exciting curricular opportunities too."
Melissa feels fortunate to work at a school where she can bring her own strengths and interests to the curriculum. For example, throughout the school year, 3rd grade students have focused their social studies lessons on answering the following essential question: How do people use the environment to meet their needs? Students looked how Native American in New York used the environment in the past and how people today use the environment. Environmental sustainability is one of Melissa's interests and she is excited to bring this passion to the classroom. Her students have been discussing the importance of "Being Green" all year long and are now completing a class environmentalist handbook, which covers issues such as global warming, energy efficiency and recycling. Students conduct research, write articles, poems, and letters, and create their own works of art to document their new-found knowledge and understanding. To bring the curriculum to life, Melissa always aims to connect reading, writing, social studies, science and the arts.
"Cross-curricular activities are great because you draw on so many of the students' strengths by fusing social studies with writing, research, and art," she says. "By dealing with real issues you are giving students responsibility. You're upping the expectations and they respond to it because it's real and they love to be the bearers of information. When you let them, they really find their niche. Some gravitate to social studies, some to geography, others to art."
Ms. Browning grew up in Brooklyn Heights, immersed in the art world--her parents run the World Music Institute--and she now lives in Fort Greene. She earned her master's degree in Childhood Education from Hunter College and her undergraduate degree in Sociology from Bard College where she also studied printmaking and Italian, and was a competitive figure skater. (She still teaches skating after school.) In her spare time, Melissa loves to cook and travel. "It took me three years to refine my recipe for pizza dough," she says with a laugh. "I even grilled pizza once." In recent years Melissa has made trips to Italy, England, Scotland, Ireland, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Northwest. This summer, she will be spending a month in Alaska hoping to fill her days with hiking, kayaking, visits to nearby glaciers, and wildlife viewing.
Posted on: November 22, 2006
