h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello

I'm doing some university research* on men as teachers, especially in key stages one and two. Anyone around of that description?

I would also like to pick the brains of any parents with children currently going through the school system.


I only have a few questions...

Andy





* I fetched up here with a similar request but on a different subject last year.

... the first of which is:

Do you think there are enough men teaching primary school children?

I don't think there are no.my little one is in the first year of juniors(year 3) and has had one male teacher! He only sees him once a week for an extra history lesson too..

No I don't either - my 2 girls both went through the whole of the primary school system and in all that time they had a man teacher for a combined total of about 3 terms. Both the men teachers they had were excellent (which is not to say that some of the women weren't as well!!)

No, I don't think there are enough male primary school teachers. However hard the staff try to present a balanced approach, the atmosphere is different with an all female staff.
There should not be discrimination in appointing staff, men should be encouraged to be primary school teachers so that there is a better chance of having both male & female candidates.
What schools can do is encourage fathers to get involved, or look out for opportunities to have male visitors or specialists.

Definitely not!!The few there are seldom stay in the classroom I'm sorry to say.They quickly move up the ladder.

And the really good ones get headhunted.Happened to my daughter's last primary teacher who I believe was very good for her development in her last year in juniors.

Sadly my son never had a male teacher until he went to secondary school.

BTW teaching is one of the few professions where women predominate.

In my research on attitudes to male teachers, I found this quote. It was on an education site, but I don't know if it comes from a teacher or a parent.

"Everyone is acutely aware that more males than females are convicted of sex offences, and violence but as the relevant checks are now under review, and staff are encouraged to report more concerns, we need to rally and support the change.

"I understand this is still a risky business employing males to work with children, and it is hard to discriminate if you have no evidence, but have a concern about someone's manner, etc."

Do you think this sort of attitude might effect the intentions of male graduates?

I'm not male nor am I a teacher but I think if I were a man thinking of going into teaching I would not necessarily be put off by that quote - but I think I would be put off if I were looking to recruit. As a parent, I've never heard anything to suggest that other parents don't like male teachers looking after their children - in fact, all the mothers I ever spoke to at my daughters' school were of the opinion that a few more men would be a good thing.

I don't think of it in terms of gender. There are enough good teachers at my son's school, who cares whether they've got a willy or not?

Nothing! However it would still be nice for there to be more men supplying input to infant and junior age children.Some boys lacking a good male role model can benefit enormously from a male teacher at that age.

Andy, have you thought of popping over to the TES staffroom and doing a search through the forums there to see if anyone has already expressed opinions? http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/ I realise this means leaving h2g2 for a while, but you might get some ideas.

In fact I found a question from a Year 5 teacher who gave his class some sweets at the end of a Friday only to overhear a mother say to her son "that's how dirty old men get their way with boys".

I think it's the mother that needs the educating.

OMG, that mother deserves a good slapping! (not that I advocate violence, but she really needs to wake up)

A lot of kids don't have a regular or permanent male influence in their life. The lack of male teachers doesn't help this at all.

I can't speak for the UK but here we seem to have desperately few male teachers. Although I am extremely lucky that in our village school (only 120 kids) two of the teachers are men (one does music art and some sport, the other is Gruesome #1s class teacher who also teaches English). The rest of the staff are women.

The good thing about our two guys is that because of what they teach, they have contact with all the kids.

I've been researching the eight schools in my area. The results are:

57 women teachers
7 men (all in key stage 2, including a non-teaching head).

This seems pretty much standard in the south-west.

I'll check out the TES forum. Thanks for that.

As a non-teacher, but a male, could the fact that in the competitive, dog-eat-dog world of teaching where everyone is striving to get ahead (sometimes quite lidderally ), that primary teaching is not seen by males as the pinnacle of achievement?

RF

Maybe someone should ask Master B why he chose a senior school, rather than a primary school to teach.

It could simply be the differences in the sexes - women do have a more nuturing nature**, and little kids do need more nurturing.

** please note I know this is a bit sweeping, but it's basically true. Although if I had to spend all day with a bunch of kids I'd chose teenagers over tinies.

I think women would probably make better primary school teachers than men, in general. Primary school is not really about imparting facts. It is about teaching children to socialise, and women are so much better than men at that!

When I was in primary school (I left in 1954!)there were several male teachers who had done the shortened course for teachers after the war. They were fantastic, dealing with classes of fifty and they WERE caring and nurturing. I went to see one of them a year ago (on my sixtieth birthday tour round all the places in England that I had once lived in). He was able to prove to my children that he remembered me. What struck me as very sad was that he said he would not/ could not be a primary school teacher nowadays as he would be slung into jail in the first week for putting an arm round crying children to comfort them.

That is certainly sad, .