get to know: Chef Dyanna Bruno

By Chiara Petrone

As students, we all know our teachers, but we don’t know what influenced them to become a teacher. I took the time to interview one of my teachers, Chef Dyanna Bruno. I decided to ask her questions all about her decisions to become a teacher and the grades she teaches. I started off with Chef Bruno by asking, “What encouraged you to become a teacher?” 

She responded: “I’ve always felt that I was very good at helping people, and working in the restaurant as a bartender and as a manager you're always working with customers, always working with people and you gain a relationship with your customers and they automatically come to you as their “unofficial” therapist. So I wanted to really utilize that aspect of being with people and putting it to good use. So when the opportunity came about to become a teacher, I didn’t even hesitate, I knew that I could use and help students.” 

With that answer, I decided to continue my interview with the following question, “How long have you been teaching at High Tech High School” Although Chef Dyanna Bruno looks young, she has actually been teaching at High Tech High School for 11 years, she states that, “It was the best decision I’ve ever made, I really enjoy my job. I like the kids and the staff is great.” 

As we can see, “Chef” is in front of her name, but I still decided to ask, “What subject do you teach and do you like it?” To be able to go more in depth about the subject. She replied, “I do Culinary Arts and Restaurant Beverage Services, I do love it. Like I've said, I've worked in the industry a long time. Never thought in a million years, when I applied for this job that I would be applying for a teacher job but like I said I never looked back. I thought it was the best decision I’ve ever made and I’m happy just to come into work everyday because I like you guys.” 

After Chef Dyanna Bruno's heartfelt response, I proceeded to throw in a small controversial question. “What is your favorite grade to teach and why?” In her answer, she proceeded to say, “I don’t know… that's a tough one. I always taught all 4 grades but now I only teach freshmen and seniors so it is a 50/50 split between the seniors and freshman. I like teaching you guys [seniors] because you’re already seasoned, you already know everything we taught you over the years. You're an easier group, you’re independent, you're able to execute things on your own. But the freshman, too. I like the moments where they have the “aha” moments where they figured something out since they don't know as much as you guys. I also get to teach them knife skills.” 

As a follow up question to my previous one, I chose to ask her “Do you find it easy or hard to teach high school students?” Her response was not the response I expected since high school kids are kind of hard to deal with. She responded, “See I don’t know, because I have only taught high school students. For me, from what I know and only teaching high school, I think it's super easy. I think it is easy to talk to you guys and it's easier to have more of a relationship with you and get to know you as a person and to teach you the skill you need to know to get by. I don't think I’d be able to teach what I teach to younger grades.”

Overall, you need to have patience with teenagers in order to find it easy to teach them. The last question I decided to ask Chef Bruno was “A lot of people don't think it is hard to be a teacher,  do you agree or disagree and why?” Her response was “I think it's super hard to be in education in general. Teachers are very known for being overworked and underpaid, it's not like it's a secret. We have a lot to do with students everyday basis who come from different backgrounds, different parts of life and you have to ensure that you are pleasing everybody and at the same time as well as you have parents, administration and it's absolutely it's a hard job” 

With that being said, I think Chef Dyanna Bruno enjoys working at High Tech High School and is very happy to be an educator in a high school. Not only with the staff but with the students. She enjoys teaching her students as much as we love being her students and we thank her for all her hard work that she does for High Tech.