Schools
LJCD Welcomes New Teacher Joelle Biedenbach to the Math Department
After working years ago as an intern at LJCD, Joelle Biedenbach is back to take on the high school as a math teacher and as head swim coach.
Joelle Biedenbach is newest math teacher and head swim coach, but for Biedenbach, joining the LJCD faculty is just like coming home.
Biedenbach interned at LJCD's middle school years ago and said, “It’s exciting to be back at LJCD. There’s a comfortability factor here, but completely different at the same time being at the high school."
The teachers at LJCD played a great part in mentoring her as a young teacher, according to Biedenbach, and this year she is ready to make her contribution to the math department, teaching freshmen, sophomores, and juniors in honors geometry and algebra 2.
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Along with mathematics, one of Biedenbach’s passions since she was young has been swimming. She competed on the swim team at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania where she went to undergrad and has continued to coach swimming at every school where she has taught, including the past seven years at Mater Dei Catholic High School in Chula Vista and now as head swim coach for LJCD.
“I’m excited for swimming to start,” Biedenbach says. “It’s outside of the classroom where you can really establish lasting relationships with the students.”
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Some teachers always knew they wanted to teach, but that wasn’t the case for Biedenbach. At Lafayette she started as an engineering major, then switched to math, and then to math and economics, but she didn’t see herself as a teacher until one class.
It was during a labor of economics class watching her professor speak that Biedenbach realized, “I want to talk about what I’m passionate about everyday,” she said.
When it comes to teaching, Biedenbach admits she’s a rule follower, regimented, and black and white in her organization. “When the bell rings we start class, and when the bell rings we end,” she tells her students.
She may love having a routine for class, but after school, Biedenbach likes to de-stress by shopping at Westfield UTC mall since it’s right near campus, but her favorite store will remain a secret to her students … for now.
