DS asked why there aren't many male teachers

[IndigoBell]

DS2 (Y3) asked why there weren't many male teachers.

He said "Is it because women are cleverer?"

:(

Historical reasons, anything to do with children was seen as "woman's work". It's true & a good springboard for discussing why some prejudices and traditions aren't worth keeping.

Bill Clinton said something very interesting about this in the FT a few weeks ago, with reference to teaching standards in the US but many countries have a similar situation.

Historically, teaching primary school was one of the professional domains where it was easy for women to work. When many professional domains were closed to women, teaching attracted very clever women who were prepared to work for low pay because they had no alternative. These days, the very clever descendants of women teacher are lawyers, bankers and doctors because those jobs pay more. Women who go into teaching are no longer of the same tip-top calibre as yesteryear because the pay is low. In order to attract better candidates to teaching, salaries need to increase. This would also enable teaching to attract more men.

I don't think many men would ever be attracted to primary education though, as there is always the unwanted inferences, and the risks they run of false accusations - they are so often a target. (I am speaking as a friend of many teachers.)

Lots of male teachers in private prep schools.

My year 5 son has a male teacher for the first time this year. He thinks he is great as he talks about football with them.
I think it is a shame there aren't more as I think both sexes would benefit from a mixture of teachers.

Theres always been loads at my childrens Primary schools and there certainly were at my school in the olden days

I dont believe that men dont go into it because they are scared of false accusations.

I've met my fair share of male primary headmasters.

I guess there aren't that many female headmasters, primary or secondary.

The few primary school male teachers do seem to leave the teaching ranks to become headmasters... .

My DCs primary always has a handful of male teachers, it is harder if you arête only one (they also have ale TAs). You could point out that there are lots of male teachers at secondary level.

They do tend to gather in clusters - you'll find schools with a few, and other schools with none. It's harder to be the only one of either gender in a staff group I think.

It is nice that your DS should think that - that, not only are women cleverer, but you have to be really clever to be a primary teacher. It is just that far fewer men are attracted to primary teaching though the numbers are much more even in secondary school. These days, far more people go into teaching after than graduating in something else (rather than a 3/4 year teaching degree) so this has probably led to a further reduction of men in primary. When I was young there were more male teachers in primary but some of the older teachers would have come up through the old elementary school system and would have chosen to stick with junior school rather than teach in a secondary modern.

Because all the male teachers are senior management.

I'm secondary. It's predominantly female, but the hods of all the big depts are male. There are 8 senior mangers (including the head). 6 are male.

Glad to know Bonsoir thinks I'm not particularly bright too, thanks for that.

I think there's another reason, which is that in the 1960s and 1970s, the number and proportion of women entering higher education increased enormously. The female graduate was a rare breed before the 1960s; after the Robbins expansion, women started to enter university in greater and greater numbers. Now there are more female graduates than male.

All those women had to find jobs. And while we've seen numbers of women increase in law, medicine, accountancy and managerial jobs, they really went for teaching in a big way, because it's so attractive if you're planning a family. I think to some extent the women just edged the men out, to the point where primary school teaching, at any rate, was seen as a women's job and men stopped being interested.

Plenty of male classroom teachers at dds primary school. She had a male teacher every year in kS2. School has male Head and 2 deputies (one male one female). Rarer to have male teachers in KS1 though.
dds new secondary school has female Head (and deputy) but Assistant heads are all male. So has a good balance of male and female mangers managers.
Women who go into teaching are no longer of the same tip-top calibre as yesteryear I do not agree with this either. Know many women in teaching now with higher class or masters degrees whereas my grandmother's generation tended to have Diplomas or Cert Ed.

Oops . At least my typing's better than my handwriting.

My son in Y4 has a male teacher who he WORSHIPS!

Loads of male teachers at ds's school - one of the reasons we chose to send him there.

My son had male teachers in Y1, Y2 and currently has one in Y3.

In his infant school there was one male teacher per year group with 3 classes in all. Head teacher was male and deputy was female.

At his junior school there seems to be 2 male teachers and 2 female teachers per year group. The head teacher here is female and the deputy is male.

My other son is at another infant school to the one my first son went to and here it seems to be nearly all female. Reception is all females (4 classes), I think there is a male teacher in year 2 and that seems about it.

There were no male teachers at my dd's primary school but there are loads at her secondary. It is a sports academy so that might have something to do with it.

I wish there were male teachers in our DCs school and not just because we have boys. A mix of men and women makes for a more balanced and effective team be it in the boardroom or the classroom.

Backforgood may be on the right track, one of them anyway. I met a male primary school supply teacher the other day who said he is struggling to find work and said that while in theory everyone is pro male teachers in primary, the reality is that it upsets the cosy female coterie of the staff room. Alternatively he could be unemployed because he was a loud scruffy greasy specimen.

My DD7 has a male teacher .. the whole class adore him .. he just passed his probabtionary period last year and always comes out to bring in the line with a HUGE smile :)

I'm currently training to become a teacher through a three year Primary Education degree.

There are over 200 students on my course, yet from what I have seen in lectures I'd say there are probably only around 20 or so males.
Such a small percentage

It's not because the university rejected a higher number of males either, it's because so few applied in the first place. And at least two of the ones I know well aspire to be HoD or even headteachers within a few years.

Unfortunately, it is still seen as a 'female profession' but I think this is slowly changing.

DS1 has a male teacher, he teaches year 5, he is from New Zealand and my DS loves him, the HT is also male but teaches maths to DS2s year 3 class, I think it matters that boys have these role models tbh.