Throwback Thursday - June 1985

I am joining the other summer bloggers for Throwback Thursday with The Teaching Tribune. 

Today's topic is all about looking back through a picture that is from around the time you were the age of the students in the grade you teach. 
I had to hunt for pictures. Most of my childhood pictures are still at my mom's house. Slowly I am sorting through the unorganized photo stacks and scanning them. 
This morning, I dug through some old memorabilia boxes in search of me in the 5th grade. I found one that is from around that time period, but it is not of me in a school picture.

My mom's friend's twin boys, my brother, and me.

This picture was taken in June, 1985 during a summer vacation. My mom raised us on a single income and did her best to make sure we had fun experiences as a family. This often meant scraping together funds to take us on vacation.

She was very creative in finding ways to take us places without spending a ton of money, without us knowing she was going the cheaper route (ever sleep at a KOA?, I have been snuck up the back stairs or been told to lay down in the car while she went in to check in at a place - later I learned that was because they would have charged her more money).
Mom taught me that you do not have to have a lot of money to have a wonderful time, quality time together is what matters most.  
On this trip, we camped in the Hamptons in New York. It is a beautiful area and there are tons of expensive places to stay, especially if you want to hob-knob with celebrities. Not us, we camped, canoed, hung out at the beach close to the campsite, and took a trip to the emergency room to get one of the twin boys stitches after incident on the camp playground with the see-saw. 
This was one of my most memorable summer experiences with my mom, toughing it out on a camprground making memories! 
In this picture I probably had just finished 5th grade. My elementary school continued through 6th grade, so I was not preparing for middle school just yet. 
Was I planning to be a teacher at this time? No. 
At this time I talked about becoming a lawyer. Having grown up without money I desired a job that paid a lot. Even though it was not in my plans, my teachers were already hinting that teaching would be a perfect job for me. 
I did not decide to be a teacher until my late 20's, which is why at my age I only have 11 years experience. I went to college, studied psychology, fell in love with that field,  yet crazy me though turned down several PhD programs in psychology (the grad students I worked with were unhappy and I did not want that, little did I realize it was their personal lives not the field that was causing their unhappiness). 
After college I went to grad school to get my masters in social work. I hated the social work job I had after I graduated, absolutely hated it, I needed to get out. I landed a job at a local college and worked in their continuing education department helping people sign up for classes. I worked with wonderful people and made decent money, but I knew my career was limited at that school, so I did some soul searching and decided it was time to teach. 
Why teach? 
I kept looking back at what I had done in the past that made me happy, and teaching kept coming up. I was always a tutor, took education courses, and my social work internship was in a school and I was happiest when I worked with the kids. Finally after years of walking away from the path I should have followed in the first place, I became a teacher. It really was the best decision for me. 
Recently a childhood friend shared this picture with me. 

I forgot about that experience until she sent me that picture. I remembered the teacher I worked with, and the little boy who always hugged me when I walked in. The teacher kept asking me why I wasn't an education major and was trying to tell me that I belonged in the classroom.

Let's face it, I can be a little stubborn and won't always do what people tell me to. Obviously it took a little longer to find my destiny, until it was my idea. At least I finally figured it out, I am a teacher.  
What inspired you to become a teacher?

Don't forget to check out the other links at The Teaching Tribune, lots of great Throwback Thursday pictures and stories about the destiny of teaching.

If you haven't already, check out Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin' this week. Alison is celebrating reaching over 500 blog followers with an awesome Amazon prize. 

As always thanks for stopping by!