English teacher Dorothy Swafford returns to school with a renewed passion for English

Mill Valley News: What was your previous job?

Dorothy Swafford: Well, I taught at Ottawa High School last year and then I’ve been here. I just came back because I was here for 14 years and left last year, and then came back again. so I’m not really new new.

MVN: Tell me about your background, where you grew up, where you went to college.

DS: So I moved around a lot when I was younger because my dad was in the military. I graduated from North Kansas City High School, graduated from Ottawa University for my bachelor’s and my master’s. When we go home, it’s to Hamilton, Missouri. I lived there for a few years but my senior year, I had to move down to North Kansas City, because my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

MVN: Growing up, did you always want to be a teacher?

DS: No. I didn’t know I wanted to be a teacher until I was a sophomore in college. I like to read, and I like to write, and I wanted to be a lawyer first and then I wanted to go into journalism. But Ottawa did not have a journalism program, so I did the next best thing which was English.

MVN: So why didn’t you become a lawyer?

DS: The law is very gray and I’m a very black and white person. You have to see all shades of gray when you’re dealing with a law that was very hard for someone very black and white. It’s not like me, and that’s what the law is like. I got out of that pretty quickly. My passion was like, I love journalism. I love to read, write and I love media and stuff like that, but I didn’t have that so I thought, okay, if I like to read and write, English sounds fun. That began my journey.

MVN: How’d you know you wanted to teach specifically?

DS: My freshman and sophomore year, I took very specific English classes. The first semester of sophomore year of college, I took a couple elective English classes like British lit and minority lit. I was very interested in that and I started liking it. So I talked to my advisor in the second semester of my sophomore year and declared education because they’re like, if you like it, you can teach it a I was like, “ah, well teaching sounds fun.” So I’m not one of those people who have known since they were a little kid that they always wanted to be a teacher. It’s something that my advisor helped me discover.  I’m glad she did because it’s been great for 23 years.

MVN: What are your hobbies and what do you do in your free time?

DS: I love to read. I love to listen to music, and I love, love hanging out with my family.

MVN: What’s your favorite book?

DS: I don’t really have my favorite book because I like reading, but anything that is happy makes me happy. If I want to be depressed, I’ll watch the news. I like happy endings,  it’s a rom-com or drama, I select happy endings.

MVN: What type of music do you listen to? 

DS: I’m very eclectic. I like pretty much everything except for some of the rap music that has a lot of language and stuff in it. I’m not big on that. I don’t like death metal at all, but everything else from country to today’s hits to reggae to jazz to Christian. I love it. I love it all.

MVN: What made you come to Mill Valley?

DS: 16 years ago, I had a friend who worked here and she said it was great. At that time I was in Gardner and I was doing English, yearbook and newspaper. I really wanted to just go straight back to English. She was like, “there’s a position here. It’s a great school, blah, blah, blah.” I said okay, and then I came here and I loved it. I left a year ago because I just didn’t want to do broadcast anymore. I did broadcasts for a big crowd for seven years. I was just kind of tired and I wanted to go back to English and at that time, they didn’t have an English position here. So I left and I went to Ottawa High School and taught English and that’s where I started 23 years ago, was at Ottawa. So it was kind of neat to go back. When I found out that there was a position here, finally an English position, a friend of mine here called me and was like, “oh my gosh, you’ve got to apply” and I did and here I am. So I didn’t want to leave but I just didn’t want to teach broadcast anymore. I didn’t want to stay and become a grouchy, terrible teacher. So I did what was best and I left.

MVN: Do you ever want to maybe go back to newspaper or yearbook?

DS: As of right now, probably not, but I’ve had a cycle. It has been seven years of yearbook/newspaper/English, seven years English, seven years broadcast AV production. So maybe this will be seven years of English, and then who knows? I don’t know. But as of right now, I’m enjoying English. I really do enjoy it. It’s fun.

MVN: How long have you been teaching?

DS: This is my 23rd year. 

MVN: What are you most excited about at Mill Valley?

DS: I was so excited to come back and work with the teachers. I love the teachers here. They are some of my greatest friends. I love admin. I love the kids. The kids are pretty good. They’re pretty chill, just good kids. But really it’s the people I work with, that make all the difference in the world about your job and being happy at your job. So it was easy, like sure I’ll come back.

MVN: Have you always loved English?

DS: Yes. When I took the seven year hiatus from it, it was probably because I had gotten to that point. It would be seven years at that time that I had done English and journalism. I wanted a break so went into like seven years of straight English and then it comes to a point where as an English teacher you have so many papers, and so many things to grade. It almost becomes a little daunting. I think when that happened, the idea of switching to broadcast sounded good because journalism, you know, I have a degree in that too. It sounded great because I’m like, “wow, I don’t have to grade essays anymore, lLike I just have to watch videos and stuff.” It seemed a little bit easier and a nice break. I think the seven year break really made me appreciate and want to come back to English. I had a new profound love for it and I was ready.

MVN: Was it a lot easier than teaching English/Broadcast Journalism?

DS: Yes and no. Not so much grading and stuff like that, but the prep was still the same. It takes me two to three hours a weekend to prep for what I’m doing for the next week in class for English. Took me the same amount of time for journalism because you have to make videos of how to make a video and you have to do all the prep work. But the harder side of broadcast is when it would air. You always had to worry like, “is it going to air? Are the kids going to be good? Or we’re going to have problems?” It’s kind of like being a coach. You know, if you have a really good game, everybody loves you. If your team loses then they’re pretty critical. With the daily announcements and MVTV, there were always some problems and they didn’t work and people were like, “well, we saw this we saw that.” It almost became sometimes daunting in that aspect of where people would give their opinions and it’s like, “thank you.” So that was hard because I felt like a lot of times I was on display with my kids and it seemed like it made it easier for people to be critics. I get it everybody has an opinion, but sometimes it’s hard when you hear like, like, “why did you run that story? Or why do you do that? Or blah blah, blah.” And I’m like, “it’s the kids’ choices as a student production,” and that got a little old and just the technology never working got really old. So it sounds stressful. It was on the show days, like last year or not last year, but the year before when I was here, we always had MVTV on Thursday. So Thursday’s were always like that, but other than that, it was pretty fine. Thursdays were just a hot, hot mess at times because we were all amped up for the show. You were just praying that technology worked and when it didn’t you become frustrated and you’re always in a time crunch. It’s just there are a lot of different aspects that it’s nice to be in here where I don’t have the element of time, like breathing down my neck. Somebody’s always gonna be watching me.

MVN: Tell me about an item in your office or at your desk that is important to you. 

DS: I always have like this: ask, seek and knock. It’s been with me for probably since I was in Ottawa probably like 17 years ago. My faith is a big thing. So it always travels with me so people know that my faith is part of me. I always have always had flowers on my desk. Flowers are happy and make me happy. I feel like they make the room happy. Those are two things that have been on my desk that I can always remember.

MVN: So does it represent your faith?

DS: Yes, my faith in God is one of my greatest aspects and the idea to always try to be happy. I like the flowers and stuff because, I mean, I have flowers, they’re plants that give life vitality. I just think it’s important to always be a little happy and to always know where your faith lies.

MVN: Why do you keep it on your desk?

DS: To remind me every day that I’m not alone, and to be happy.

MVN: What else should students know about you?

DS: I’m pretty much a “what you see is what you get” kind of person. I love my students, and they know that they’re great. But I will always tell them as it is. You don’t sugarcoat very often. I work with them, but my goal is to make them become better versions of themselves. So I will push when I need to push, cheer them on when I need to cheer them on, come down on them when I need to come down on them. Ultimately, I want them to know that I’m here for them. I think they know that but I think sometimes people are like, “oh, wow, okay, like Swaff just really does talk to you like it’s real,”lLike, “what are you doing? Why are you doing that?” I just try to keep it real because I can’t do pretenses because first of all, I can’t remember what pretense I put on. That’s a lot of thinking. I just want them to know that I’m real. I’m just like everybody else. I’m not elevated just because I’m a teacher. I’m just like them. Well, a little bit more of a jerk.