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Having more male teachers in K-12, with a specific need on the earlier years, can help boys stay interested in education longer. 76% of the teachers are female
by lev99 9y ago
Having more male teachers in K-12, with a specific need on the earlier years, can help boys stay interested in education longer. 76% of the teachers are female [0], with most of the male teachers teaching in later years. This isn't a silver bullet, and I don't have advice on how to achieve this, but my gut tells me this can help.
Male teachers provide male role models for boys to look up to.
Male teachers have a more personal understanding of what it is to be a boy.
Men and boys communicate differently than women and boys do.
Male teachers show boys that education is something males value enough with their time and attention.
[0]https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
- mistermann 9y agoConsidering the current climate in the West, a man would have to be on Evil Knievel's level of foolhardiness to take a job teaching.
- nicky0 9y agoHow so?
- pattisapu 9y agoAccusations of molestation or being creepy are much greater risks for men considering the field.
- IntronExon 9y agoEdit: Oh hell I didn’t realize the climate was this polarized here. I’m just deleting what I can and getting out, I come to HN to avoid this, not embrace it.
- cwbrandsma 9y agoTodays headline in my local community is about a female teacher having sex with a 17 year old boy and then harassing him. These situations happen with both genders. But we have also determined that men are predators and women are victims. So this case will either forgotten or seen as an oddity in a moments notice. Flip the genders and it is "See, men are evil!".
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- lev99 9y agoI imagine a clean dataset like this would be hard to obtain. How many crimes go unreported? How many true accusations are disbelieved?
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- mistermann 9y agoYou come to HN to avoid reality?
- lev99 9y agoThere is a certain terrible stigma associated with men in early childhood education [0]. [0]https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=ZISEWpecLdfIjwPdmIvwDw&q=men+early+childhood+education+stigma&oq=men+early+childhood+education+stigma&gs_l=psy-ab.3...948.8311.0.8409.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.75wYXGnKnIQ https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=ZISEWpecLdfIjwPdm...
- bocklund 9y agoIt has been this way even before the current climate. I think it’s more a gender roles thing. Women are seen culturally as caretakers and pre-K and K “education” has a significant babysitting/caretaking role.
- mistermann 9y ago> Women are seen culturally as caretakers Depending on the topic of conversation of course. When the topic changes to, say female representation in corporate board rooms, many of the same people will then say women are indistinguishable from men. And they sincerely believe both, And this is why living in Western Society circa 2018 feels like living in an insane asylum.
- imglorp 9y agoThere is also the current political and business climate that is fundamentally opposed to: public education, university and graduate education, and investment in basic research and long-term outlook/planning. Primary schools are on the front lines of this war and things are about to get very bad with funding.
- bjornstjerne 9y agoThe parent comment shouldn't be downvoted, men definitely do receive an extra level of suspicion when it comes to children, especially younger ones.
- fixermark 9y agoCan't say for certain of course, but I believe the downvotes are because parent comment makes a claim without any factual backup or clarification of meaning.
- mistermann 9y agoYou forgot the most important part: and it wasn't in-line with the "proper" thinking. People make "claims without any factual backup or clarification of meaning" on HN all day every day, and no one bats an eye provided they are consistent with the proper thinking. Once you see this, it can't be unseen. But getting to the point of being able to see it is easier said than done, it isn't merely having an alternative political ideology, but rather understanding how the human mind works. But once you've got a good handle on that, things like reading the news are completely different experiences than before.
- djschnei 9y agoAre you insinuating inherent natural or social differences between men and women, boys and girls?! Sexist!
- ct0 9y agoMen do not necessarily have to be a teacher to become a role model. Kids at these ages are also doing sports and activities on the weekends, well maybe a small majority is, but it should not be discounted that men can impact children's lives in other very positives ways outside of the classroom too.
- whatok 9y agoOptional weekend activities are (potentially) a tiny percentage of time vs mandated school time. There's really no comparison.
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- MrVitaliy 9y agoThis is slowly getting disproved -- http://freakonomics.com/podcast/when-helping-hurts/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/when-helping-hurts/
- lev99 9y agoI re-listened to this after your link. The take away is that intervening in at-risk kids life can lead to both negative and positive outcomes and that it's important to further study which interventions are successful and which are hurtful. This says nothing about children not at-risk. Furthermore it suggests there is the potential for really powerful intervention programs for at-risk youth. Basically, if you want to volunteer to help the children please make sure you carefully select which program you help with.
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- tenpies 9y agoExtremely anecdotal, but has anyone else also noticed an alarming amount of anti-male sentiment in K-12 teachers? Even thinking back to my education, it is pretty clear there was not just a lack of male educators, but also female teachers who simply did not want boys to succeed.
- wheaties 9y agoIt was an open secret at my school. We knew which teachers were which and passed down the "secrets" of how to exist in certain classrooms. I'm sure there was similar feelings on the other side. When you're young, you tend to only externalize that which impedes you.
- bilbo0s 9y agoThis. I feel like it has been true that many teachers target boys to make them do worse for a long time. I mean, let's be honest, there are always "those people" out there. And it's probably been true for many different groups of students by the way, not just boys. There are probably teachers who don't like Asians, or what if you're hispanic? or... heaven forbid... what if you're black for instance? But I think, for ALL these students, the more helpful question to answer is, how do we help them to successfully navigate this and other obstacles to their education? Because they are going to run up against it, there's really nothing they can do to avoid hitting that obstacle in today's world. If we can find an answer to this question, we'd really make progress towards improving outcomes in our educational system.
- dandersh 9y agoNo, in fact I would say the opposite. For example, having a male 5th grade teacher whose primary "fun" interaction with students was through things like playing touch football, playing chess, etc. actives that overwhelmingly appeal to males. Of those that struggled with coursework it was oftentimes males that received a disproportionate amount of attention from female teachers. While I would say at least part of it was usually due to lack of discipline, the disparity often existed and was noticeable.
- Consultant32452 9y agoI agree with everything you said, but wanted to add some more. Boys behave differently than girls do. Boys need much more rough and tumble play time. These days that's going to result in a call to the police. Not to mention behavior is now a part of your grade, so normal, healthy boy behavior is penalized. Boys tend to perform better on tests but relatively poorly on homework compared to girls. Grading emphasis has been tilted towards the benefit of girls here. I want to be clear that I'm not advocating re-masculinizing education. It seems obvious to me that the maximal benefit to society would be a system in which everyone reaches their maximum potential. There must be a third path where boys are still encouraged to be properly socialized while simultaneously not penalized for being boys, and we must be able to do that without harming girls.
- elboru 9y agoTotally agree, some boys (like myself some years ago) learn that they must behave in certain ways, they learn that rough playing is not how a "good boy" behaves, so they are raised believing that they shouldn't be too "rough" in order to be accepted, you should not rise your voice, you should always listen, you must be nice all the time, then you grow up and have a difficult time socializing in high school, then you think how unfair is the world, why the "bad guys" get all the attention even from teachers who are supposed to repeal those behaviors, then you spend your twenties fighting those nice guy impulses, until you learn that you shouldn't care that much, and stop thinking too much about it, then you learn to just be yourself, and start putting yourself first, it takes a long time to realize this stuff by oneself.