it's in the genes

In class tonight, my professor was talking about genograms, which are basically very detailed family trees which map out at least three generations. She had also stated that people are often influenced to choose careers based on their family's unique history and culture. This has inspired me to sit down and create a genogram of my family as it is right now.

It also made me think about the power of the role of educator in my family. When I considered which major to choose in college, I admit I was pretty confused. I had spent my childhood telling everyone that I would be a child psychologist, but somehow I just KNEW I should be a teacher. I was influenced by my mother, who began teaching elementary school full time when I was in junior high. As an Army brat, my extended family's career choices didn't have as much power. In fact, my mother's older brother, Ken, was a high school teacher and coach, and her older sister, Sharon, taught college level psych courses.

And then there was a legacy on my father's side. One night, soon after I'd graduated from the University of Arizona, my father and I sat up late talking. He told me about his dream to be a teacher before he was drafted into the Vietnam War as an officer. After the war, he remained in the army, and though he did complete his Master's in Education, he never did end up teaching. Then he told me that both his mother and father had unfulfilled dreams to be teachers, as well.

His father, Theodore, was a gruff but extroverted man who spent his childhood attending school and dreaming of leading the class someday. However, tragedy forced him to take over the family farm at a very young age (I believe he was 14 when he took full responsibility). My dad says that he remembers my grandfather driving into town to talk with town folk and support community efforts to improve education in their rural town. In a neighboring town, his wife and my grandmother, Eva, also grew up hoping to be a teacher. She got as far as eighth grade in a one room schoolhouse before she was "farmed out" as a worker on a neighboring farm. My father says that she was the one who really pushed him to study and go to college. Neither of my paternal grandparents nor my father ever did fulfill that dream but- my father told me- the fact that I was a teacher made him proud.

Of course, a few years later I quit teaching and a few years after that, enrolled in a grad program for school counseling. But just think: It's a perfect blend: the childhood dream of child psychologist set within the context of a public school! It was- and is- a wonderful feeling to find that a career choice that seemed almost a whim actually be backed with years of hopes, dreams, and history.