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Endangered species: The male teacher
In elementary schools across the country, someone is increasingly absent from the classroom: The male teacher. A 2003 National Schools and Staffing Survey found that only 16 percent of all elementary school teachers are men. But why?
According to teacher and researcher Bryan G. Nelson, men shy away from the classroom for three main reasons: overzealous suspicions of sexual abuse, perceptions about their abilities to nurture students, and the low social status and low pay associated with the teaching profession.
The first and second reasons have a lot to do with the fact that some parents have strong feelings about the presence of male teachers in their young children’s classrooms. Take for example the following comments from a Colorado parent blog:
“…I was okay with our teacher assignment until I realized that not only is my son’s new teacher a man, (wait for it Mitch McDad, don’t get your boxers in a bunch just yet), he is also young and single! What’s a young single dude doing teaching fourth grade anyway?!”"
Thoughts?
back to top24 Comments to “Endangered species: The male teacher”
I am a man who has taught both elementary and middle school. I have had quite a few parents over the years tell me how happy they are that their boys are having the influence of a male teacher.
When my wife was teaching kindergarten, her students would sometimes hug me around the leg. I was a bit nervous about it. My principal said not to worry too much, because being married would make most of the parents trust me more than when I was single.
I have found that to be the case with lots of people. Their perception is that they need to watch out for single men around their children but married men, especially if they are fathers, are safe.
Some men are just naturally gifted teachers. It’s too bad that the job doesn’t carry greater prestige and provide a better salary.
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I didn’t have a male teacher until high school. Then, they taught shop, driver ed, and p.e.
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Part of the reason may also be the abundance of overbearing female principals who make men uncomfortable. Not all are that way, but my perception (subject to reality) is that a lot of female principals are feminists who are out to prove something, so men are seen as competition for control. Again, only my perception.
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As a male gynecologist with many teachers in the family, I believe #1 and 2 wholeheartedly. In America today, 100-lb. women can be firemen, but there are many things men just can’t do.
As to #3, I don’t believe it. Go to a party and notice the “ooh”s and “aahh”s next time someone announces she’s a teacher. She’s smothered with respect of the “I could never do what you do” variety. Paradoxically, a male teacher, particularly in a public school, gets even more respect. “They need someone like you to help preserve order and provide a role model to all those fatherless boys.” It may be racist or classist or whatever, but that’s the way it goes.
And #4 is patently untrue. 180 work days a year for a national average salary of $50,000. Even if they work 10 hours each and every day, that comes to about $28 an hour. Not rich, but not poverty, either.
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All these things make teaching difficult. But a good man can make a huge difference with kids, especially in urban areas where fathers are mostly absent.
The inner-city school where my husband teaches pushes the curve in test scores and discipline. So the district has all eyes there to see what is making the difference. Their conclusion? The principal has gathered a team of amazing teachers and a majority of male teachers.
Now if everyone would just quit getting shot at . . .
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Stubob,
$28 dollars an hour ain’t bad for a plumber. The “low pay’ idea comes in wih the amount of education needed to become a teacher. It you get that much education in other professions you make a lot more than you ever will as a teacher.
With all your education, would you be happy with $28 dollars an hour?
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My brother was hired as a teacher because he was a man–the principle, a family friend, had a bunch of unruly Armenian immigrant eighth graders who wouldn’t respect the female teachers. He wanted a big, strong, athletic guy who would go outside and play basketball with them during breaks and show them what a real man is.
He’s now in the same area as Adios’ husband, though at the high school, and gets such a kick out of the kids. And they like him too. I’m very proud of him.
Interestingly, when he goes to parties with his extremely successful wife’s colleagues, they don’t think much of his job either–until he tells them where he works and everything changes: suddenly, he’s a hero.
But I think all the above reasons, sadly, are what discourage young men. So, when I run into one who talks about being a teacher, I encourage and praise him.
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Make that principal–I really need the preview feature back–this read and type as you go isn’t sinking in well, yet with me!
Now that I think of it, my second grade teacher was a black man–and his assistant was a white guy. We loved the novelty back there in the dark ages . . .
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There are relatively few men teaching elementary school, but I wouldn’t say male teachers are “increasingly absent.” As Chas says, having all or nearly all female teachers was the norm several decades ago. In my elementary school, the only men were the principal and the custodian. My first male teacher was in 5th grade (5th grade was at another school). In middle school and high school it was pretty evenly split, though the science teachers were almost all men and the English and French teachers were almost all women.
My husband finds it difficult to deal with younger children, although he gets along great with middle school and older. He admits that patience is not one of his strengths, and dealing with younger children does take a lot of patience. My older son is talking about the possibility of becoming a music teacher, but he’ll only consider high school. He works with 4th and 5th grade kids at church because that’s the oldest group he’s currently allowed to work with, being only 16 himself, and he really doesn’t like the idea of having to work with younger kids. I would guess that a lot of men feel the same way – they might want to teach, but not until kids are old enough to converse on a level somewhat closer to adult.
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Teachers are definitely adequately paid. Education is among the easier routes in college. Not like getting an engineering degree.
A teacher in English or history, etc. makes more, has much better benefits and works less days than a business graduate. Sure, the business graduate may be successful and become president of GE or something, but for the average graduate, teaching is a better choice. The teachers unions are absolutely evil and should be outlawed.
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Oh, and I would be very pleased to have my son get a male teacher in elementary school. There’s one who teaches 5th grade, and he received a special award last year for his excellence at teaching. But there aren’t any men who teach K up through 3rd at my son’s school (I don’t know the 4th grade teachers yet).
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My first male teacher was in the sixth grade. I thought he was very cute and listened intently to every word he said.
Adios, I know a lot of people who have very good educations who do not make $28 an hour. My husband makes just a little more than that and he has to pay his own taxes and insurance. I never came anywhere close to that, though I did make a conscience choice to work for a ministry which I knew would pay less than a secular organization.
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My daughter’s kindergarten teacher was a man. Look how she turned out.
Be careful what you ask for.
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I think Pauline hit the nail on the head when she talked about some men dealing with younger children. Most of the men in my personal sphere prefer to be around older children than younger ones.
When my son was in Boy Scouts, he was a Troop Guide and he also worked at WEBELOS summer camp throughout his high school years, and while he enjoyed what he was doing he often said that if Weebs were any younger than 10 and 11, he wouldn’t want to do it.
He’s in grad school considering teaching when he’s through, but nothing younger than middle school, and preferably, high school or college.
Personally, my age group is high school, and I do better with older kids than I do with the preschool crowd.
Another anecdotal observation: when I was in elementary school, in the 60s, The principal was a man, same with Middle and High school. I did not have a male teacher until 5th grade, and somewhere around 7th grade and throughout High School, the male/female ratio was about 50-50. Female principals were few and far between.
And I just don’t understand the current prejudice against and distrust of single male teachers. I would not have had a problem with it. Don’t they do some kind of background check on all teachers before hirining them?
In fact, my son and daughter had male babysitters growing up. There were no problems.
And for the record, my brother and some of his peers were molested by a married guidance counselor in middle school. Married and single have nothing to do with it. Some individuals are just perverts.
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Teaching doesn’t pay enough to support a family on – at least until you have been teaching 15 years or more. That’s the problem. A man wants to be able to support his family. I work, because my husband, after graduating from college in 2001, still makes just $30,000/year. Can’t live on it. He gets plenty of respect, but the salary is far from adequate. For a woman who wants a job for a second income, part-time income, good working hours, etc, it’s a great job! I would be happy to have a male Kindergarten teacher for my son. It’s nice for them to have someone male in the classroom – at least part of the time.
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I have had many jobs during my lifetime.
At every place I worked, I observed a common (though not universal) phenomenon.
People thought: I don’t earn as much as I deserve. Other people in other departments, make more than they deserve.
I work much harder than other people appreciate. My work is much more difficult than other people appreciate.
Other people tend to have it fairly easy. They tend to goof off a lot, and get away with it.
However, I am sure the situation is different for everyone reading this.
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My granddaughter’s husband is an assistant principal. (Just got a master’s and working on a doctorate so that he qualifies as suprentendant, but that’s not part of the story.) He says he prefers elementary school because when you talk to the kids, they’re probably telling the truth. He says that by middle school, they lie and you can never believe what you hear.
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The youngest I taught was grade two, although last year I did teach grade one health and phys.ed. I prefer middle school.
Male teachers have always been absent from the early grades, but older colleagues have told me that back in the 70s men taught elementary because it was seen as an easy way to become principal, that is, less competition. Now that women are promoted as quickly as men, elementary teaching is no longer seen as an easy way up the ladder.
Chas — depending where you teach the K’s are also good at lying.
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RRBAR, #10,
I don’t know about that. I got an engineering degree (BSEE), along with a BA Economics, MBA, and grad courses in engineering and an Economics A.B.D.
But now, 20-odd years later, I’m going back for Ed. courses to teach 7-12 (physics/physical science). I’m finding them, for me at least, more challenging than my engineering classes. They demand creative thinking of a completely different sort than does engineering (or computer programming, which is how I actually make my living.)
Plus, when I hear the “war stories” of those of my current classmates who are working teachers, I realize their jobs, while more fulfilling than programming, are also much more challenging.
I wish StuBob’s figure of $50,000/year were what I will make. But the reality is, that’s what I make now. A public school job will probably be a 20-30% pay cut for me if I can get one. A Catholic school gig will be more like 40% pay cut.
To keep current, the (good) physics teachers in my area that I know of, attend monthly meetings on Saturday mornings sponsored by the local college, take summer workshops whenever they can, pay dues to join the AAPT. I would agree with StuBob, they probably average at least 50 or so hours per week during the school year – probably more – between setting up the classroom, grading homeworks and labs, keeping abreast of their profession, etc.
Yup, a few years down the road, I probably will be back at $50K/year. But from what I have seen, the good teachers are worth every penny of that.
Now, elementary teachers, that’s another question…
My SIL, and several other of our friends teach first and second grade. Not in a million years could I do what they do!
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The problem with the K’s (I’m assuming you mean kindergarteners) is that they really believe a monster came out of the closet and ate their homework.
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Oh my Cows, lady, it IS possible to have a single male worthy of trust!
Ranting moment over.
At my old school, it was exactly the opposite of the problem we’re recognizing here: There weren’t any male teachers in the middle and high school, when there clearly needed to be sometimes. But that was a tiny private school, so it may or may not be the norm.
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Adios, I have the same education as a teacher, and 15 years of experience in my field, and I’d be very, very happy with $50,000 a year…especially once you pile on a huge stack of benefits and an outrageously generous retirement package. No, teachers are not (as a rule) underpaid in this country. Some are, but I recently saw a statistic that most teachers start at $30,000-40,000. For entry level work that allows a second job in the summer, that’s good money. And it goes up sharply from there. Men probably would do best waiting till they’ve been in it for a few years and then get married, if the entry-level wages aren’t enough for a family in that area, but that’s true in any field these days.
Coming from a family that can stretch a dollar and where mothers do stay home, I think it’s probably possible for the vast majority of teachers to support a family on one paycheck, and for some to do so handsomely.
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You can’t raise a family on a teacher’s salary? Funny. I have been raising a family on a teaching salary or less for ten years. It all depends on where one lives (rural midwest). I am finally in the $50k range (because of a part time job, and another for the summer), and we have everything we need, and then some.
As for comparing the professions, there was a print out of an email in the teacher’s lounge today. It talked about how the attitudes of doctors, lawyers and other professionals would change about teachers if they had 30 – 40 clients in the waiting room, many of whom did not want to be there. It also mentioned the differences in treating each client, having to do so according to a government mandated form (called an IEP – Individual Education Plan).
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Amen, Cheryl D and Peter L, it IS possible to raise a family on salaries in the 30’s. We’ve done (and are doing) so, and are raising four children. Ain’t easy–just takes some planning, prayer, and lots of creativity!
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