Feature Story: Little Miss Brown

Little Miss Brown

Jackie Edmonds stopped short when she saw something strange on her son’s screen as he was learning remotely from home in the fall of this school year. Mrs. Christina Brown, a first grade teacher from Mountain View, was waving up and down dressed in a cardboard french fry costume singing Happy Fryay (sic) online to her group of students. Mrs. Brown donned the fun costume to get her first grade students excited for the weekend and the return to in person classes on Monday, September 14. She also wanted to make sure all her students got to say goodbye to one another since some students would remain online when in person classes resumed that next week. “They all really got to know each other even in this virtual world,” said Edmonds. “She is truly a wonderful caring teacher and keeps the kids engaged and smiling all day.” Mrs. Brown makes it a point to build strong relationships and connections with her students each and every day no matter the mode of learning. “In order to give the best experience to my students, I needed to first and foremost get to know who they were. This has been the driving force in my career. Before any child will work to their full potential, they need to know that their teacher truly cares about them,” Brown said. During the first couple of weeks of school, Mrs. Brown demonstrates a special hand signal that students can do while she is talking to let her know they have something to share. When the lesson is through, Mrs. Brown allows that student to talk about the connection they have with the specific thing they are learning about. Mrs. Brown gets to know so much about her students this way while cutting down on distractions during class time.

“Six and seven year olds have a lot to say, and I want to hear about their lives and allow them to open up to me,” said Brown. She also empowers her students and helps build confidence in their learning. “If a student writes a story based on something we are learning, I tell them, ‘you are an author!’ When they draw a picture for me, I let them know that they are now an illustrator. The students do hard work in my class and I want them to know they should be proud of themselves when they learn and try something new,” said Brown. The positive affirmations make a huge impact on the students and many of her first graders repeat those same words as they share their day with their parents when they get home. Christina received a special gift from a parent, Samantha Hanson, this year filled with her “Brownisms” and encouraging words. “I felt so blessed to receive this creative gift from the parent and I am happy to display it in my classroom as it reiterates what I tell the students,” said Brown. The homemade sign had a very special addition-a bitmoji in Mrs. Brown’s likeness. A bitmoji refers to a personalized cartoon avatar of yourself. The paper bitmoji was part of a letter Mrs. Brown mailed to each of her students during remote learning. The letter invited her students to take their Little Miss Brown bitmoji on an adventure. “I wanted to give my students a little piece of me and encourage my first graders to take pictures with me, read a story to me, tell me all the wonderful things they were doing,” said Brown. She wanted to make sure her students felt connected with her even though they were not together as a class and make sure they knew she was thinking of them, and she missed them. These small gestures are one of the many ways she connects with her students and has made it a focus to make sure each of her students feel special, similar to how she felt as a child growing up in Ohio. Mrs. Brown knew she wanted to be a teacher when she was just five years of age. She had an amazing education in school and wanted to emulate the wonderful things she experienced as a young child. Her mother worked as a secretary in a school front office and would bring home extra supplies for a young Christina to play with. “I played school in the bedroom with my dolls, with all of the materials my mom would bring home from school,” shared Brown. “My parents supported and encouraged my love for teaching early on.” Christina studied education in college and began to travel with her military husband overseas. “Teaching for me was the profession that I naturally gravitated towards. I knew going into college that I wanted to be a teacher and that is exactly what I did,” said Brown. She had the opportunity to teach in Germany, Korea, Japan, and Italy and learned different strategies from all over the world to bring back to her classroom at Mountain View. “The one common thread I learned throughout was that no matter where you are, your students should feel like they are at home at school and connected with their classmates and teachers,” shared Brown. Once her and her family moved stateside, she worked in various supportive roles as she was finishing her teaching certificate required to teach in Arizona. She worked as a paraprofessional, in the afterschool Den Club program, and as a substitute teacher. Being in the various roles within the district helped her evolve as a teacher and put everything in her toolbox when she took on her own classroom. One of the most important things she learned was to instill students with autonomy. “My classroom runs itself, literally seven year-olds run the whole classroom,” shared Brown.

The first grade students in Mrs. Brown’s class help one another in a variety of ways through classroom duties and leadership jobs. The children wipe down chromebooks, pass out supplies and have a leader at each table just in case a student needs a reminder or two when they are working through independent classwork. “My students take on roles that support each other’s learning,” said Brown. “I find that my students are more engaged in learning when they are given responsibilities as part of the classroom community.” “She does an extraordinary job building relationships with her students and promoting their excitement for learning and the love of school,” said Gail Miller, principal at Mountain View School. “She is strategic in ensuring all students have a sense of belonging.” Mrs. Brown was recognized for her efforts in 2019 and was selected as a recipient of the Spirit of Education Award by the National Safe Schools Convening for her positive interactions with students and her efforts to create the next generation of leaders, friends, and problem-solvers. Christina was nominated by her colleagues for creating supportive learning environments and communities, and promoting diversity and inclusion through best practices. Parents at Mountain View School often request Mrs. Brown for their younger children and her fellow teachers take notice of the dedication she has for her students and the school. “She has built such deep, trusting and caring relationships with the families and students in her classroom,” said fellow Mountain View teacher Michelle Ives. “Parents and students from several years past still check in and update Mrs. Brown on their achievements.” “At the end of the day while I am dismissing my current students, I hear my name being called. It is the best sound you could ever hear. It may be a student just happy to see me, trying to say goodbye to me for the day, or a parent driving by in a car waving,” shared Brown. “These are the moments in teaching that I will never forget!”