After teaching for five years at a small town school in Kearney, Brianna Deines made the switch to teach at the much larger Elkhorn Public Schools. Just four months ago, Deines moved here and became both an Algebra and Geometry teacher along with working as a volleyball coach at Elkhorn Ridge Middle School.
Growing up Deines always saw herself working in the medical field since her mother worked in physical therapy. This made her look in the direction of nursing when thinking about her future.
While going to college at University of Kearney she soon realized the medical field was not something she wanted to partake in.
“I was not enjoying the classes I was taking for medical school, I found them very challenging,” Deines said. “When I realized being in the nursing program was not what I wanted to do, I focused more on wanting to be involved in education.”
Her high school math teacher always encouraged her to think about doing a career based on the mathematical side of things, when she saw how well Deines was doing in the class. After taking in what Deines math teacher said she discussed this with her parents which also impacted her decision.
“After thinking of what my high school math teacher and my parents said I decided to begin a career of teaching math,” Deines said.
Even though Deines was drawn to math because she was good at it, the real reason she decided to go into education was because of the opportunity to impact students’ lives. Working with children and developing relationships with them to make the class more engaging is just one way Deines tries to help her students succeed in a rather challenging subject.
“I like to keep the students engaged and interactive and make the math environment positive along with teaching them at the same time,” Deines said.
Although Deines enjoys helping students she also finds it difficult to juggle the needs of all students.
“Finding ways to meet the requirements of all students can be very difficult because everyone learns in different ways and I need to be able to fulfill the needs of them all,” Deines said.
Deines loves working with children and having the opportunity to build relationships with numerous students and seeing how they can evolve throughout the year, which is why she chose to go on this path.
