She was a third grade teacher at Jeannette Elementary School in Pennsylvania. Debbie always said how much she loved her job and her students. One day she invited me to help her set up her classroom in the summer before school started. I was ten years old at the time. I really had a great time with her and loved the feeling of setting up a classroom. I also started to imagine how I would set up my future classroom. Thanks to her I learned a lot about what it means to be a teacher. Another influence was when I taught ballet classes at the Coastal Dance Center with children ages three to eleven. I absolutely loved teaching them and it helped me realize that teaching was for me. I liked it when a student performed a dance position correctly because he smiled with pride at his achievement. Having control of the classroom was a great experience. I had to learn when to slow down or when to speed up to accommodate each student. Having real experience definitely helped my decision to want to become a teacher. I think everyone should experience teaching first hand before making the decision to study teaching. After seeing my Aunt Debbie accomplish so much as a teacher, I hope to accomplish things like