Ms. Gillman: Interview

By Peter Parizhsky and Ninis Twumasi

Ms. Gillman is one of the most popular teachers at The Browning School but how much do you know about Ms. Gillman? In this article you can see how much you know and what new things you're going to learn. Ms. Gillman was born in New York City and moved to New Jersey at the age of 1. Ms. Gillman's full name is Joan Ava Gillman. Ms. Gillman grew up with a sibling and her favorite memory with him is playing with him in the snow and making snow tunnels. We know that some of you have siblings and you guys might fight often so when we asked Ms. Gillman for advice about it she said, “Cherish those times with your siblings. They will provide wonderful memories when you're older.” Ms Gillman later in her life furthered her education at NYU for her masters and for her undergraduate she went to Felician College/University. After college she has spent the last 41 years of her life teaching. One of the most recent places she worked at was Calhoun. Her love of teaching came about due to her high school because she had to complete a certain number of community service hours. At that time she was tutoring in math, teaching recorder, and organizing games in the lower school. In addition, she was also teaching swimming and was a substitute ballet teacher at a local dance school. Due to these teaching jobs, she discovered that she really loves teaching. 5 years ago, when she was looking for a job to work at, she decided on Browning because she liked the idea of teaching at an all boys school. She loves the energy levels of the boys and their excitement to learn. Finally, Ms. Gillman said that she doesn’t have a favorite grade to teach because she finds something that she likes in each grade she teaches. She has taught 6th grade the most. She likes middle school because she can delve into the subject matter much deeper compared to younger students. Ms. Gillman’s favorite book to teach is “Night of the Twisters.” Even though she has read it more than a dozen times, she loves seeing her students get excited by the plot of the story. We at the Monthly Panther hoped that you learned something new from this interview with Ms. Gillman.