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Well said. This is why I'm frustrated to only hear about diversity in the tech field. Why not education? Wouldn't our kids benefit from diverse role models?
by ahartman00 10y ago
Well said. This is why I'm frustrated to only hear about diversity in the tech field. Why not education? Wouldn't our kids benefit from diverse role models?
- Mz 10y agoWouldn't our kids benefit from diverse role models? Potentially, yes. I vaguely recall seeing something once about the dearth of male teachers in elementary education and the negative impact this has on male students. I have also heard (back when I was involved in the online gifted education community) that a lot of (female) school teachers end up in elementary education due to their lack of competence in math. When they can't hack the math, they got told "Oh, go teach kids!" Men do not get this same message. I am a mathy woman. I tutored my ex husband in math when he took college classes. He had a serious career in the military where he ultimately retired as a high ranking NCO. No one ever suggested that his bad math abilities meant he should go teach kids. Furthermore, when men do desire to go into education, everyone looks askance at them, like they are obviously pedophiles. I ended up homeschooling my sons for many years. I had to put in a lot of effort to undo the damage to my oldest son's self esteem (and his relationship to math, which he hated by the time I pulled him out of school) from the awful baggage he got from public school regarding math. I firmly believe that women who are bad at math get their egos destroyed when they are blithely told "Oh, go teach little kids!" (implied: because you can't hack a real career) and they pass their math neurosis and incompetence on to many of the nation's kids and our entire nation is the worse off for it.