Teaching as a profession has been around from the earliest days. Such notable teachers as Socrates and Plato immediately spring to mind.

Despite the challenges, teaching still attracts a variety of individuals, including many from the same family. In an effort to find such teachers statewide, Y-Press contacted the Indiana State Teachers Association. Mark Shoup, coordinator of public relations, sent out an e-mail, and within days he received more than 60 responses from individuals who come from families of educators.

One is Lisa Fritz, a fourth-grade teacher in Noblesville. Both her aunt, Brownsburg Schools Superintendent Kathleen Corbin, and her grandmother, Betty Corbin, a retired teacher and counselor, paved the way for her, she said. Together, the three women have more than 50 years' teaching experience.

Kathleen Corbin has played many roles as an educator. "I've taught fourth, fifth and sixth grade in my teaching career. Then I was an elementary principal and a high school principal both. And then as assistant superintendent and superintendent, I'm responsible for grades K through 12," she said.

"I've only taught third or fourth grade," said Fritz, who has been a teacher for nine years.

"I was a teacher at the Mississinewa Valley High School and Elementary School in Union City, Ohio. I taught remedial math and reading under the Title I program," said Betty Corbin, whose 10-year career included serving as a guidance counselor for sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

While having three generations in the same field of work is noteworthy in itself, there is another fact that makes this trio different.

"We're a little bit unusual because I actually started teaching first," Kathleen Corbin explained. "My mother started teaching after I did because she went to college late in her life. She was 50 years old when she started college.

"And she graduated with a straight 4.0 (grade-point average). She graduated summa cum laude, and none of her children did, I'll tell you that."

With so many career choices available, why did teaching win out?

"We were just sort of a school-oriented kind of family," Kathleen Corbin said.

Seeing other generations choose the same job turned out to be an inspiration as well. "I would say probably the person that's influenced me the most was my grandmother," Fritz said.

Being related has its advantages, she added. "Having an aunt who's an administrator gives me a whole new perspective that sometimes you don't get. You see the other side of the administrative part of teaching. And so I think that's helped me a lot to be able to see that."

Spanning decades, the classroom experience for these three has changed drastically.

"I had the first computer in my classroom that there was at our school," said Betty Corbin, "and that was a gift from a parent who wanted his child to have access to a computer.

"We were a rural school, and we were so crowded. . . . When I first went there, I stepped over children's legs because they were sitting in the halls of that school. It was so crowded that they had lap desks, and we didn't have room for different classes. So they would line the halls."

Things have changed since Kathleen Corbin started teaching, too. "When I first started teaching, there was corporal punishment in schools," she said. "Discipline now in schools is much more complicated. Testing and accountability have been heightened."

For Fritz, Sept. 11 "probably was the single most defining thing in my teaching career, of having to try and explain (to students) what had happened," she said.

As with other professions, teaching never has been all fun and games. But people in general are more stressed today, and the emotional baggage children bring with them to school is greater.

Fritz explained, "Probably the worst thing is having these children (whose) home life you can't do anything about, and it eats you up because to me they're my kids and I want to protect them and help them any way I can."

Despite the challenges, Betty Corbin sees the present as the most advantageous time for teachers.

"(When I taught) we spent a lot of money out of our own pocketbooks because there wasn't any money for a lot of the things that now are just taken for granted," she said. "This is an exciting time to be a teacher because of all of the things that are possibilities. I guess if you'd say I could do it again, I'd do it now."

All three are happy they chose teaching for a career, and they are proud to see other family members doing the same.

"I'm still excited about my job. I still find it challenging. I still think it's very, very worthwhile, and I think that's an important thing in your career, to do something that you think means something," said Kathleen Corbin.

Just as ancient Greek scholars defined the philosophy of their times, today's teachers may affect more than their students' academic achievement.

"The people of our society turn over the most precious thing they own, their children, to the world, really. And the teachers are so important in that area because in a way teachers are kind of buttresses to a lot of the things that come along that are hard on children and young people," said Betty Corbin.

"I just feel like it's a gift that's given to people."

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Brandy Bledsoe, 16; Jennifer Maberto, 14; Andrew Nishio, 15.

REPORTERS: Meg Galasso, 13; Haejin Nishio, 11.