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DS asked why there aren't many male teachers

150 replies

IndigoBell · 23/03/2012 08:05

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

He said "Is it because women are cleverer?"

Shock Grin :(

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Ample · 24/03/2012 13:58

We have four male teachers at dd's primary. 30's and over.

nenehooo · 24/03/2012 14:39

I just have to add my thoughts on this... I think all this talk about male teachers having better, more natural disciplinary skills/presence is absolute rubbish. I am 5 foot nothing, smaller than most of the Year 6 children and am far better at controlling a class than many of the men that work in my school. And I'm only in my third year of teaching. And we have a school policy of no shouting so I have never once raised my voice to any child I have worked with, you don't need - and actually shouldn't have to rely on your voice to be able to silence a class or get their attention.
My (female) Head went through a phase of trying to actively recruit male teachers a while ago as at the time we only had 1 male TA (we now have 3). The two she found were rubbish and she's given up trying. I have known some great male teachers however, just as I've known some amazing and some awful female teachers.
A good teacher is a good teacher, regardless of age, gender, race... whatever.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 24/03/2012 14:46

Yes that's all well and good for you, nenehoo. Congratulations. It sounds as though you have your discipline sorted (though pride often comes before a fall in teaching, I found). All I was saying when I remarked on it, was that in general, men find discipline easier than many women teachers because of the rarity of adult male role models in many children's lives. And there is more to teaching than discipline, of course.

TheFallenMadonna · 24/03/2012 14:50

In general, I disagree Ariel.

alana39 · 24/03/2012 14:50

Hasn't it always been the case? My primary in the 70s had 2 male teachers (neither were head or deputy). While my sister was there for another few years they had 2 as well (different ones).

DS's school now has head of infants, plus 2 class teachers in juniors. A mix is great, but I agree with nenehooo that a good teacher is what matters, rather than a good male teacher. Also completely agree that discipline is not exclusive to male teachers. We have a 5 foot nothing teacher at our school (not you, based on the other points you made!) and she is seriously impressive at class control. Yr 4 male teacher of DS1 is lovely and very good but not a natural at discipline.

SparklyGothKat · 24/03/2012 14:54

Ds2 teacher is male (nursery) and so is dd2 (year 5) There is about 6 male teachers at their school and a male head.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 24/03/2012 14:55

In general, I disagree Ariel.

Ah well, that's what MN is for Grin

TheFallenMadonna · 24/03/2012 14:56

Ain't that the truth. ..

nenehooo · 24/03/2012 15:29

I wasn't personally attacking you Ariel! I just agree with other posters that a man shouldn't necessarily be applauded just for deciding to become a teacher - it's a hard enough job whoever does it.

StillSquiffy · 24/03/2012 15:40

There is a very straightforward reason why there are fewer male teachers and it is a very feminist issue.

If you look over history of professions in last 500 years you will see that the level of respect of individual professions relative to others matches the rise in female representation within these professions. So, judges for example are still seen as height of intellectual achievement, architects are highly thought of and so on. However, where teachers used to be considered pillars of the community 100 years ago, that respect has dropped away and the profession is not held in such high regard as it used to be (although of course, it is still a profession and ranks accordingly, I am just speaking in relative terms). Same is happening with GP profession where level of respect is nowhere near the levels of 100 years ago (although decline is slower because we have only had very high levels of female representation for 20 years or so). Legal profession, too. Interestingly you can see that even within the professions themselves, there is distinction between respect accorded headmasters, professors and surgeons (mostly male) and that accorded lower ranks (mostly female or mixed), and a further sub-division between strands, such that science teachers for example accorded more esteem than arts teachers. Again the gender split matches the level of respect.

Why? Research seems to imply that society as a whole buckets work into 'male-dominated', and 'female-dominated', and, as a profession switches the gender balance, so society values it differently, and also rewards it differently. This value and reward thing then sets a cycle in motion that creates an impression of gender stereotyping and low levels of pay. There is a strong correlation between respect accorded people and the money they earn, and this works against teachers and against attracting wide ranges into the profession.

That decline in pay can be explained by a simple economic model. Say there are 60 women and 60 men in a society with 120 jobs - 40 teaching jobs, 40 mechanics jobs and 40 fire fighter jobs. In our generation we now tell out children they can do any of these, but this was certainly not the UK situation immediately after WW2 when women wanted to work in very large numbers for the first time. So, back to model. 60 women look at the jobs on offer and the car/fire jobs simply aren't open to them, so they try to get the teacher jobs whilst the 60 men look around at all three jobs. This means appx 80 people (60 women and 20 men) chasing 40 teaching jobs, and 40 men chasing 80 alternative jobs. Simple supply and demand models dictate that salary of teachers will drop in this model until a level where half the applicants walk away, and salary of mechanics and fire fighters will rise until they can attract enough candidates. So, society creates the pay structure and inbalance that then labels a profession and puts off large sectors of society. You can see it in other professions too, working the other way round (Chemical Engineering as a career choice, anyone?)

There's always hope that in the next generation or two we might actually make headway into kicking all of this stereotyping into the long grass (although the lack of female role models makes me despair). In the meantime some of us should ask ourselves why we don't respect the primary school teacher as much as we respect the local vicar, doctor and judge. Because 100 years ago they'd all have been pretty much in the same bucket of respect, and nothing fundamentally has changed other than proportional representation. We are obviously our own worst enemies.

Bonsoir · 24/03/2012 15:49

I like your model, Squiffy, but I am not convinced that it is right about the reasons for gender imbalance.

I shall take a field I know well, Strategy Consulting. This is a male-dominated profession that is exceedingly keen to recruit women (for a host of reasons, including a different skill-set and because the profession wants to be viewed as forward thinking in HR), and has been for quite a while. There are plenty of suitable female candidates (albeit from the highest calibre universities and courses) and pay scales for men and women are identical. At entry level jobs, there are 50:50 gender splits in all the major consultancies and this has been the case for 20 years at least. But at partner level women are still a rarity. How does your model explain that?

StillSquiffy · 24/03/2012 16:01

See now, I also happen know strategic consultancy very well, too, and have seen this at first hand (spent a year working with one of the big4, advising them on diversity within their advisory division). I am currently writing a book on exactly this topic and have lots and lots to say on what stops women from rising to the top, even though at graduate level you cannot distinguish between the genders when to comes to ambition (at that point in time). That, however, is a whole other thread.

One snippet though that always makes me laugh is the interview I held with the head of M&A advisory in an unnamed org. He waxed lyrical on how he supports women in his firm because he understands the difficulties of caring for kids given that he looks after his own DCs every other weekend and knows that on those weekends he finds it difficult to juggle work. I rather pointedly asked him how he thought he'd have got to the top if he was the one responsible for them 12 days a week rather than 2. He went a bit pale at that point.

Bonsoir · 24/03/2012 16:07

Yes, "caring responsibilities" (for want of a better term) stop women from getting to the top, even in professions/organisations that constantly promote policies to help redress the gender imbalance.

And "caring responsibilities" attract women to careers as teachers and GPs (at least where there is a lovely NHS that enables doctors to work PT).

CookieTin · 24/03/2012 16:09

I'm a male KS1 teacher. I teach for the same reasons most do-I like helping children learn stuff. I like KS1, especially Yr1, because they develop more quickly there and the rewards are much greater. I'm not better or worse at that job because I'm a male, and how far it helps and hinders depends rather on individual children and on catchment.

But I did temporarily leave teaching, because the expectation of Heads was that academically gifted men should teach Upper KS2, which wasn't as much fun, or run football clubs, which was even less fun. Nothing above was an issue, more how the expectations of the job actually fitted with what I wanted to achieve doing it.

During that gap I worked as a university lecturer and careers advisor. I'm not knocking the deeper analysis here, but do feel it sometimes misses the way young people make decisions. When advising young men to think about career choices very few even thought about primary teaching far enough to dismiss it for any of the reasons given above. But a surprising number applied to ITT courses and became teachers once they started working in primary schools other out of a genuine spirit of trying stuff out, or (mainly) just to get some CV points for other jobs. Similarly, roughly half the men I've worked with have been career changers who experienced teaching and loved it, whilst most women have the enviable years of experience from having decided early on to do this job well.

Why so many men hadn't though about it is a very interesting question, but their responses when they did do suggest some thought needed about the reasons above (since they applied but were forgotten about).

StillSquiffy · 24/03/2012 16:15

And until we burst the myth that 'part-time = little commitment' we won't have a hope of opening up more of the professions at all levels.

I find it rather sad that although I could get multiple job offers within a week at a very senior level, should I choose to go back into paid employment, I can only get such offers if I am willing to work 60 or 70 hours a week, rather than 30 or 40. Even more Confused is that, as an independent consultant, I can currently work with exactly the same clients, on a part time basis. Except, instead of doing it as a strategic consultant working for X, I do it as an independent SME with my own firm. Funny, that (not).

Bonsoir · 24/03/2012 16:20

I've worked in a strategy consulting firm where 60% time (three day week) was heavily promoted (to both women and men) as a short and long term option. I have friends for whom it worked very well (they got rapid promotion etc) but none of them stayed at it for long - not more than three or four years. They all left of their own volition, not the firm's. I think there is something of a cultural difficulty - the intensity of the consulting culture is such that it is hard to put up with its ridiculousness unless you decide to devote 100% of your life to it.

Kensingtonia · 24/03/2012 16:20

My DD wonders why nearly the entire Senior Leadership Team at her secondary is male when a majority of teachers are female. There were a couple of male teachers at her primary school, including a fantastic year 6 teacher, with again a male head.

oooggs · 24/03/2012 16:36

Female head at a primary school with 7 teachers and 3 of them are male and are currently in years 2,3&6. All men under 30 (1 is a NQT).

oooggs · 24/03/2012 16:37

And the attached preschool has a male 'teacher' as well!

StillSquiffy · 24/03/2012 17:23

Bonsoir, hop over here - didn't want to hijack this thread, but think there's a good discussion to have around the stuff we wandered into

Fizzylemonade · 24/03/2012 17:46

My sons are in a 3 class per year school, we have one male teacher in every year including nursery.

The headteacher is male but the deputy and assistant heads are all female. Every phase leader is female. It is an outstanding school on Ofsted and has been for years.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 24/03/2012 17:46

I know nenehoo. I am just jealous of DH because he's a better, more popular teacher than me Grin

BlueberryPancake · 24/03/2012 18:39

My DH is a primary school teacher, I am very proud of him and I think that teaching is a very noble profession. He works hard, values his male and female collegues, but he does want to progress into management. Mostly because he is naturally ambitious, also because his previous career gave him a different view of how to manage an organisation. Mostly, he wants to bring in more money.

lovebunny · 24/03/2012 20:01

i'm in secondary and there are loads of male teachers.

lovebunny · 24/03/2012 20:02

so you only have to wait a bit...

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