Jan Dorl calls herself an “accidental teacher.”
Fresh out of the University of South Florida with a degree in advertising and marketing, she was eyeing a business career. When her husband, Jim, took a job with a Marathon law firm, the pair expected the move would last a year or two.
“I landed at the old airport and thought, ‘Where in the hell am I?'” Dorl said. “I even said, ‘Why couldn’t you at least move somewhere fun like Key West?’ I wouldn’t want to live there now.”
That was in 1986. And 40 years later, she’s putting a bow on a career at Stanley Switlik Elementary and Marathon Middle and High School, during which she taught just about everyone and everything.
She worked first at Hawks Cay Resort before traveling from Miami to Key West as a marketing rep for Coppertone. But career opportunities in advertising were scarce in the Keys, and while some suggested a real estate career, family friend Barb Wright, who worked for the Monroe County School District, kept nudging her toward education.
“I’m so glad I listened,” Dorl said. “I may have made more money in real estate, but I absolutely believe this was the job I was meant to have.”
Her first foray into educational training was a swing and a miss, earning her high school social studies certification from FIU when there were no jobs open in the subject at the high school.
Returning for her elementary education certification, she began what turned into 15-1/2 years at Switlik.
Her first classroom in 1992 wasn’t a gentle introduction.
“Back when I started, there were no class caps. I had 30 kindergartners with no paraprofessional,” she said. “I literally had no clue what I was doing, but I muddled my way through it.”
She recalled bursting into tears in front of newly-elected school board member Luis Gonzalez, then a paraprofessional at Switlik, after telling her kindergartners to “shut up” in a moment of frustration.
“I think in my entire teaching career I’ve said that maybe five times, so I was thinking how terrible a teacher I was,” she said. “That same year I got head lice six times. Jim asked, ‘Are you sure this is the profession you want? Maybe real estate wouldn’t be so bad.’”
Even still, stepping into the school was the first time she felt she fit into the Keys community.
“Before that, I kind of felt like I was just Jim’s girlfriend, fiancée, wife,” she said. “I found my own little identity, and I just loved teaching.”
Both Jim and Jan fit into Marathon in so many other ways, from Jim’s work with the early beginnings of Forgotten Felines to the couple volunteering with the 7 Mile Bridge Run.
But over the next three decades, Dorl became something of an educational Swiss Army knife – even teaching the children of her first students.
She taught kindergarten, second and third grade before earning an art certification and spending more than a decade teaching the subject at Switlik. When Marathon High School opened its new television production studio, she was recruited in 2008 to teach TV production, web design and middle school art. Later, she added a math certification so she could teach sixth-grade math before eventually settling into U.S. history.
“I think the way I stayed fresh was I changed what I did – a LOT,” she said. “I know some people who taught first grade their whole career, and they were content with that. But this was the way I was able to stay still loving it. People would ask me if I was counting down the days (to retirement), and I really wasn’t. I know I’m going to miss it when August comes.”
History had always been her favorite class, and she worked hard to make what might otherwise be a dull subject come alive for her own students. And even at the high school, the “frustrated art teacher” – a name bestowed on her by a Switlik colleague before she spent a decade teaching the class – incorporated an artistic angle into every lesson.
“This past year, every chapter we studied, we did an art project, which turned out phenomenal,” she said. “Some kids can’t do great on a test, but they can show knowledge in lots of different ways.”
That drive to draw knowledge and abilities out, she said, helped her connect with students who might have put up walls with others.
“I found those students endearing who might drive other teachers crazy,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong: On many days, they drove me crazy, but I found a connection with them.”
She even coined a term of endearment for those students: her “Dodo heads.”
When the Class of 2026 graduated this spring, Dorl joked that she was graduating alongside them. She attended senior events, helped build their homecoming float and even surprised some of those former “Dodo heads” with custom paper crowns celebrating the nickname they’d proudly carried since sixth grade.
“They all wanted to claim they were my favorite Dodo head,” she laughed.
For someone who stumbled into the profession, she certainly made the most of it, and will now head into a well-earned retirement.
For Jim and Jan, it will begin at a lake home in central Minnesota where Jan’s father grew up. She said she already has an art shed on the way to set up behind her garage, facing the wildlife in the woods.
“I want to start doing stuff for myself, because I spent so much time cleaning up after other kids,” she said.
Any piece of advice that stuck with you throughout your teaching career? Don’t be afraid to say you’re wrong or you made a mistake, especially in front of students. They’ll respect you more if you do.
Who or what will you miss the most? My co-teacher next door, Mary Coleman. We’ve been together the last 10 years, and she helps keep me sane. I think it’s reciprocal.
Any words of wisdom for newer teachers? Surround yourself with positive people, because there’s always going to be some new directive that will seem overwhelming. It’s an ebb and flow in education, but if you have (those people) you can weather the storm. Stay involved in the school, but stay involved in your own life too.
Anyone else you want to thank? Arlene Keeney – she’s a retired Switlik teacher who was a mentor when I first began. And the entire first floor at Marathon Middle School – my team, with Mary, Sarah Brady and Mallory Thompson, and Mac Childress, Sara Snow and Laurie Hayes.
