"It takes a man...."

[MadelynIris]

"to teach a child"


http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/07/13/male.teachers.ap/index.html

An interesting sidebar to the "it takes a family" thread.

 

[Irvine511]

i fully encourage men to become teachers. kids, especially younger kids, tend to *love* younger male teachers (so long as they are good teachers) simply because, many of them, are lacking in male attention at home.

however, as the article mentions, the reason why so many men don't go into teaching is that we simply don't pay teachers enough, or accord them enough respect, to lure significant numbers of men -- who are still subject to social pressures to be the breadwinners and achievers of their families -- into teaching.

let's pay teachers more, and respect them more, and we'll see more gender diversity which will do nothing but improve the quality of education for all children.

 

[verte76]

I think we're wasting alot of talent by not encouraging more men to become teachers. Some guys who'd make excellent teachers end up doing something else because of the social pressures.

 

[Sherry Darling]

let's pay teachers more, and respect them more, and we'll see more gender diversity which will do nothing but improve the quality of education for all children. [/B]

Man, it's just crazy enough to work!

 

[BAW]

In order to graduate from high school, my son was required to complete a senior project. After much thought he decided to "shadow" his middle school world history teacher and ended up going back for an extra week after the project was over. He loved the teaching environment and was allowed to plan a lesson and teach the class for one period.

He starts his first semester of college next month and hopes to someday be a world history teacher at the middle school level. I will be sending him this story

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

In order to graduate from high school, my son was required to complete a senior project. After much thought he decided to "shadow" his middle school world history teacher and ended up going back for an extra week after the project was over. He loved the teaching environment and was allowed to plan a lesson and teach the class for one period.

He starts his first semester of college next month and hopes to someday be a world history teacher at the middle school level. I will be sending him this story

That's great, Char. I know he'll be a great teacher one day.

 

[lmjhitman]

let's pay teachers more, and respect them more, and we'll see more gender diversity which will do nothing but improve the quality of education for all children.

 

[Irvine511]

i feel like i can speak from some experience on this, having come from a bit of a teaching background, and also having gone to one of those uppity colleges that tend to churn out future doctors, lawyers, bankers, and academics.

i know many, many smart and talented people who won't go into teaching, even though they love teaching, simply because it has the aroma of a 2nd tier profession, when compared to how much our society values doctors, lawyers, bankers, and professors. there's both that, and the pay, and the fact that it doesn't look as if teaching has the potentially to be continually creative and dynamic. much of this comes from experiences with bad teachers, especially in middle school and high school (we used to call them "pieces of driftwood" ... and many of them were men).

i mean none of this as an insult to teachers. i know people from both my college and others of similar stature who are, say, teaching public school in the Bronx. they do tremendous work, but they also don't see themselves doing that forever. burnout is very high, and pay and lack of respect don't do much to ameliorate burnout. i'm just trying to explicate the stigmas attached to non-university teaching that swim in the minds of many of our nation's top colleges and universities.

i have a whole host of suggestions on how to improve teaching, but that's too much to go into here.

 

[nbcrusader]

Men tend to abdicate the teaching role in general.

Whether it is in the home, school, church, etc. - most of the teaching is done by women.

It goes beyond the perception of one career path.

Hats off to any men who step up and teach children

 

[AvsGirl41]

i'm just trying to explicate the stigmas attached to non-university teaching that swim in the minds of many of our nation's top colleges and universities.

Higher education has many stigmas too--there's prestige, but there's also the stereotype of the liberal, ivory-tower academic... those who can't do teach, absent-minded professors, etc. I think it's ironic the way Americans look down their noses at college and college professors--yet require a degree for even the most basic job.

As you said before, American society needs to value education and all teachers more, period.

 

[AvsGirl41]

Men tend to abdicate the teaching role in general.

Whether it is in the home, school, church, etc. - most of the teaching is done by women.

It goes beyond the perception of one career path.

And it's a perception that has become ingrained in American culture, it's part of the whole Wild West myth. Education, religion and culture were seen as things brought to the West by women--after the real men had found, claimed and tamed it. Culture and education became feminine by association--something real American men shouldn't care about. It's a very different attitude than that held by Europe.

 

[Irvine511]

And it's a perception that has become ingrained in American culture, it's part of the whole Wild West myth. Education, religion and culture were seen as things brought to the West by women--after the real men had found, claimed and tamed it. Culture and education became feminine by association--something real American men shouldn't care about. It's a very different attitude than that held by Europe.

i think that's true.

Americans respect people who do, or fix, or build. those very pro-active, frontier values that were so vital in the 19th century have embedded themselves in the fabric of American culture, and can have both positive and negative effects. the positive, is that we feel very much in charge of our own destinies, we're good at letting people self-create and become who they want to be, and our economy and culture remain endlessly dynamic capable of constant renewal. the negative, we tend to be impulsive, act first and think later (uh ... Iraq?), disregard long-term consequences for short-term solutions, and don't have much respect for the attention to detail and appreciation of simplicity and stillness that can make so much of European life (particularly on the Continent) so delicious.

one result is that we've never had a true class of public intellectuals, with a few exceptions. the people who are listened to and to whom we look for ideas, interpretations, and reactions both to history and to world events tend to people people in the popular arts, but they still *make* things -- from Kerouac to Spielberg. from what i know, we've never had the equivalent of, say, a Sartre or Camus.

 

[financeguy]

Interesting, if one thinks of the male teachers in two popular American cartoons recently, Southpark and Beavis and Butthead, one character is gay while the guy in Beavis and Butthead is a stereotype of a hippyish liberal.

However I'm not sure if this is unique to America, the teaching professions in Ireland have a hard time attracting male candidates too.

 

[financeguy]

the negative, we tend to be impulsive, act first and think later (uh ... Iraq?)

You really shouldn't have done that.

I hereby predict that Sting2 will respond to your post, dealing solely with your comment on Iraq, without commenting on any of your other remarks.

I also predict that he will refer to at least 6 UN resolutions in his response.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I think there should be more male teachers- it gives young girls positive male examples, and creates positive role models for young boys as well.

Of course the most important thing is being a good teacher, male or female.

 

[meegannie]

However I'm not sure if this is unique to America, the teaching professions in Ireland have a hard time attracting male candidates too.

I don't think it's just an American thing either. There's been a lot of stuff here in the UK too about the shortage of males in teaching (especially at the primary level) and childcare roles. I think a lot of it is due to mistrust of men working with small children, and fears of sexual abuse/paedophilia.

 

[anitram]

My brother just finished his BA in Classical History and English and will be getting a BEd/MEd combination starting next fall. He's a huge, 6'4 athletic guy who loves kids, has been teaching music on a weekly basis for years.

A lot of his friends (the male ones anyway) still think it's a "girly" job.

 

[impy13]

A few of my friends are going to be teachers.



But that's because they want to be coaches, and the schools don't higher people to exclusively coach.

 

[Irvine511]

I think a lot of it is due to mistrust of men working with small children, and fears of sexual abuse/paedophilia.

such attitudes make me so angry i can hardly see straight.

 

[BVS]

such attitudes make me so angry i can hardly see straight.

Do you ever see "straight"?

 

[Maggie1]

Higher education has many stigmas too--there's prestige, but there's also the stereotype of the liberal, ivory-tower academic... those who can't do teach, absent-minded professors, etc. I think it's ironic the way Americans look down their noses at college and college professors--yet require a degree for even the most basic job.

As you said before, American society needs to value education and all teachers more, period.

Thank you for your comment. I agree the stigmas and pay are the reasons why men and women are staying away and getting out of the profession. I have a 4 year degree in education. I know people who have the same 4 year education with different majors, who are making 15 to 20 thousand dollars more per year than teachers. This proves to me our society places more importance on your profession not your education. I think most men look for a profession with more status and I don't blame them.

 

[Angela Harlem]

One career where men's wages mirror women. We see the effect where men do not seek such careers. There's other reasons of course, but the pay is shithouse. I'd like to see women do exactly what these chuavinist turds wish for, and for women to withdraw from the general workforce altogether. Yep. See men take up menial factory jobs and so on.
The ante is being raised in the wrong area.

 

[BonosSaint]

It is amazing that we are always talking about upping the status and pay of jobs to attract men, but we never talk about doing it to attract women. How valued we are.

 

[Maggie1]

It is amazing that we are always talking about upping the status and pay of jobs to attract men, but we never talk about doing it to attract women. How valued we are.

Good point!

 

[Irvine511]

Do you ever see "straight"?

i certainly wasn't seeing straight on my date last night ...

 

[verte76]

Yeah, society has a crazy attitude toward intellectuals. It's both negative and positive. The "learned professions", medicine and law, both have a high status in our society. It's ironic that many of the people who teach medical and law students get society's scorn. People aren't very nice to the bioethics profs who teach at medical schools, for example, but someone's got to teach these students bioethics. Would you want to see a doctor who's never cracked a bioethics book? I sure wouldn't.

 

[Liesje]

however, as the article mentions, the reason why so many men don't go into teaching is that we simply don't pay teachers enough, or accord them enough respect, to lure significant numbers of men -- who are still subject to social pressures to be the breadwinners and achievers of their families -- into teaching.

let's pay teachers more, and respect them more, and we'll see more gender diversity which will do nothing but improve the quality of education for all children.

My boyfriend would LOVE to be a teacher. He was going into el ed and qualified according to the state, but our school has much stricter standards and wouldn't let him in the program. I think he's still planning on going back to school for a teaching degree because he really wants to work with kids, especially in special education.

 

[dazzlingamy]

I think everyone has raised good points in this...

It angers me that people see teaching as a second class profession. It still requires a degree same as any other profession, and its doing the most important job in the world, introducing education to the future leaders of the world.

Do you think if Bill Gates didn't go to school, didn't learnt ot read and write he would be where he is today?

My mum is a teacher and has been for 35 years. She has taught children who have gone on to all the "major" professions, including two who have won australian of the year and one who was on a team that won a nobel prise. Do you not think that she as a year 4 teacher, helping them move through school didnt not help shape their intelligant just a bit? Yet she is seen as not as good as a doctor or lawyer or whatever...

and being paid less...its disgusting. Thats probably why there are more women then men as teachers, because it is seen as a secondary job and the man is the "bread winner" typically.

I do agree that there should be more men as primary teachers, because it would force a positive male role model into a world filled with broken homes.