Mrs. Dunn, a 35-year-old history teacher at Pasco High School, isn’t what most people would expect when they think of a teacher, and she’ll be the first to tell you that.
Unlike many teachers who spend years in college to become teachers, Mrs. Dunn’s path in teaching was more accidental than a dream. “I just needed money, and teaching was the only thing my degrees worked with,” she admitted, straight to the point. It’s pretty uncommon among teachers to be this honest about it, but that’s exactly who she is: real, down to earth, and surprisingly open about what she thinks and wants.
But even with that strange way of entering teaching, she likes it. She said yes when asked if she’d choose the same career again. Something about the job stuck with her, whether it’s her students or maybe she enjoys the simple life of a teacher.
“If I had one wish,” she said, “I’d choose to be a ‘Billionaire heir with a private island.’”
Something that came up quite often was the idea of a private island, more than once in her interview, three times in fact. She doesn’t just want an island because she wants the power of kicking anyone off the island and doing whatever she wants without supervision or rules. She said she wanted “full control over it, and I wanna be able to invite and kick anyone off.” There’s something about that total peace and freedom that she’s obsessed with.
When she’s not dreaming of private island life, she’s at home being the “crazy cat lady of her neighborhood.” At the moment, she lives with nine cats. She’s not very bothered by not having a significant other and says she does just fine with her animals, like the cats or chickens she has.
Mrs. Dunn said she wants to return to Tennessee, where most of her family still lives. She’s mostly alone up here in Washington compared to if she were living closer to Tennessee, but her mom, who lives in Korea, does come and visit her every now and then and brings Korean foods and snacks with her when she does.
She’s been teaching at Pasco High for four years now. She says the school hasn’t changed much during that time, but the students definitely have. She’s seen trends come and go and watched how students talk, dress, and act change year by year. “I started teaching during Covid, so a lot has changed since then,” she explained. “The biggest change I have seen in students and teachers is improved communication and socialization since Covid. It has taken years to return to a more ‘normal’ state of communication and interaction, but I see it happening!”
That post-COVID transition hasn’t always been easy for students or teachers. But Mrs. Dunn seems patient and hopeful. One of the most complex parts of her job is seeing students who don’t believe in themselves. “Stressing out about student grades more than students stress out about their grades,” and she tries helping them, but sometimes the students don’t want the help. You can tell it gets to her. “When I know they can pass,” she added, “it’s hard to watch them fail”. She does what she can to help pull students up, even when they’ve given up on themselves.
When asked if she’d ever want to switch places with another teacher, she said, “Not really.” History is her thing; she enjoys teaching it. But she did say she’d love to trade classrooms with Mr. Davenport, the woodworking teacher, “so I can work on woodworking projects” and get some personal projects done.
At the end of the day, Mrs. Dunn is a kind teacher often appreciated by her students for her effort to help them. She didn’t start teaching because it was her dream like some, but she decided to stay because she enjoyed it. Maybe it’s part of helping students out, or perhaps she enjoys having control in her classroom.
Whether liked or hated by students, she treats everyone the same, which is what makes her unique. She doesn’t make exceptions and will help you when you need it, even if you don’t want it.
