Too few male teachers in primary schools?

[edupak]

I'm interested in parents' views concerning what I rightly or wrongly perceive as the ongoing feminisation of staffing in primary schools. Most state primary schools seem unable to attract a balanced mix of male and female staff. Is this necessarily an issue? Several friends have told me that they would prefer their boys to have a mix of male and female role models/teachers. Would be great to hear other views/experiences...

I don't see why the same efforts that have been made to attract girls into science/tech jobs can't be done to attract boys to nursing/teaching etc. There's a glaring lack of push for boys to broaden their outlook to female dominated roles. It means a targeted campaign is needed and the will of the public to fund it.

Dd1 will have had a make teacher for years 3-6 in her primary ( 3 different teachers) with a female head.

Saying that I appreciate that there are schools with no male teacher son the staff.

In my experience it is not actually the quiet, well-behaved girls who monopolise the teacher's attention - of either gender - but the the rumbustious boys running round the classroom breaking things

Seems to be pretty much equal in my sons' school which is a junior school so only years 3-6. My son has only had 2 female class teachers and he is in year 6, my other son is on his first male class teacher in year 3. Head teacher is female and deputy is male.

The male teachers that I have encountered are all great so I am pretty much sure they were employed for their suitability for the role rather than their sex.

However, the infant schools (reception to year 2) had a lot more women than men but the heads were female.

edupak - you really do need to learn the difference between someone being able to empathise with male children and someone being a good male role model. It is crass and offensive in the extreme to buy into the stereotype that women can't cope with little boys running around and being boisterous. Yes, I think you have a valid point that there should, ideally, be more male primary school teachers, and that men are different from women (no shit, Sherlock...), but both boys AND girls need to see that. Girls need fathers and male teachers just as much as boys do. Both boys and girls have to grow up capable of empathising with each other, working together, having children together and bringing up the next generation of children together. Female teachers do not feminise boys by trying to turn them into well behaved little girls any more than male teachers try to force little girls to be more like little boys. All children are different and if anyone is suffering from a case of stereotypes, it is you.

OP - you're approaching the problem back-to-front. Head teachers should appoint the most suitable candidate, regardless of their gender. To do anything else would lower teaching standards.

AliceAnneB - you cannot compare the two. At present we have a similar percentage of male and female PhD students. However, once it comes to academia, over 68% of the senior academics are white male. This disparity is even greater in STEMM academia. As an undergraduate in a STEMM subject, I am involved in equality and part of the school's Athena SWAN SAT team; this is an area close to my heart and really does need rectified.

The converse is true in education. Most of the graduates and applicants are female; I found data from 2011-2012 and over 80% of graduates from that year in subjects allied to education were female. Therefore, it stands to reason that there are going to be far more female teachers or female applicants for each role.

The only way to effect change is to encourage our children now to view primary teaching as a career for both men and women.

FAMD I agree with you! Except that male HMs who employ mostly men may too be misogynists and to be condemned too - pejorative enough? Are you saying there are no female heads who secretly discriminate against men? I'm just as sure there are male heads who discriminate against women. The issue though is that the discrimination against men is, in this rare case, mostly the problem - not the other way round. I have been to dozens of primary schools where the ethos, attitude and ideals are far too feminine to attract good male teachers. It's quite deliberate that some set up the school this way and for others it just reflects the fact that they have mostly female staff. It's a vicious cycle. Much more could be done by heads to turn this round. Some and only some, who won't admit it anyway, like it to be this way, some male hms just as guilty, to the detriment of their children. Imagine being a five year old boy who has only ever been brought up by his mother and then spends his whole time up to the age of 11 say with female staff. He's well looked after, loved, encouraged but what will he one day think about gender values and stereotypes. We must challenge this and right thinking feminists will!! The end

Yes Bunny, and the way to do that is to have good male teachers on the ground.

It's a bit chicken and egg!

I'm finding this thread very interesting in relation to a thread which was running a few weeks ago about female pilots. Very similar arguments, in reverse.

DH is a primary teacher, loves it, is adored by pupils, they learn well with him, and behave wonderfully for him. Is it because he is male? Of course not. And it gets boring to have people comment on how wonderful it must be for his school to have a male teacher, as if his finest quality is his gender. Think of all the good teachers you have met...they are/were good because of their abilities and personalities, not because of which toilet they go in to

One final point to all those people out there who don't seem to understand empathy. The most profound level of empathy exists when one person has experienced what another is going through. In some matters, not all, a father's ability to empathise with a son is more advanced than a mother's just as a mother's empathy for her daughter in some matters, you know the sort of stuff, is more advanced than the father's - by definition!!! Boys and girls need a balance of good male and good female teachers otherwise they may feel less well understood and act accordingly and when they do they are labelled as naughty or problem children. Don't sweep the problem of gender balance in our primary schools under the carpet. The elephant has been in the room too long. Governments, Schools, universities and parents need to do far more to challenge the status quo and the rest of us can too.

I assume your DH (or you, if you are male) will be grabbing every opportunity going to go into school to read with the class, set up craft tables, run after school clubs etc?

edupak - alas, there is no hope for humankind, then, if we are only capable of profound empathy for our clones. Also, on that basis, why on earth do you want a mix of men and women in primary schools? You now appear to be arguing that only a man could understand a little boy well enough to be his teacher and, presumably, therefore, that only a woman could understand a little girl well enough. You also appear to be wanting teachers to usurp the role of all other adults in a child's life. School should not be the centre of a child's universe and experiences - they should have access to sympathetic adults of both sexes outside of school, too. As for assuming that, because you are the same sex as someone, you will better understand their reactions to things - please do give examples of the sorts of situations you are thinking about that are particularly relevant to young primary school-age children which result in them requiring a full time class teacher to handle it.

I always found my df more empathetic and understanding of my viewpoint than my dm, because my personality was more like his, so I always felt better understood by him. I asked my dm about practical things relating solely to women, like sanitary products, inserting tampons, shaving my legs, finding a bra that fits, but I didn't go to her first to talk about my feelings, or ask about schoolwork or subjects to choose for options, or tell her if I felt depressed, because I knew my df would understand my reactions to things that little bit better, given that we were more similar in personality and outlook. One of my dbs, on the other hand, was a lot like my dm and would chat away with her for hours.

You also make no mention of little boys who do not run around and break things, but who like to get on with their work. Would they get more empathy from a male teacher, or a female teacher?... Or would that depend on whether the male teacher in question was boisterous himself as a child, or liked to get on with his work? Are you just looking for a school stuffed full of old-fashioned stereotypes, where boys are only normal if they run around and break things and girls are only normal if they are either eager to please, or bitchy?

Except that male HMs who employ mostly men may too be misogynists and to be condemned too - pejorative enough?

I wasn't asking you to be equal-opportunities pejorative. I was simply pointing out that you reserved your perjorative statement for female HTs and that you provided no evidence for your assertion of the reason why some females HTs don't employ male teachers. Do you have any?

Are you saying there are no female heads who secretly discriminate against men?

I am not saying anything - I have no idea whether there are not. My point is, do you have any evidence that they are?

I have been to dozens of primary schools where the ethos, attitude and ideals are far too feminine to attract good male teachers. It's quite deliberate that some set up the school this way and for others it just reflects the fact that they have mostly female staff.

I can't imagine what you mean by this? What "ethos, attitude and ideals" are you talking about? What is a feminine ethos, attitude or ideal anyway? I am not being disingenuous. I genuinely have no idea what you mean by this, and particularly not in the context of a primary school trying to educate young children.

And how do you know that the female HTs in question have set up the school this way (whatever way that is) deliberately?

These are all wild assertions with absolutely no evidence to back them up.

And just to be clear, I think it would be great to have more male primary teachers, although not just for the sake of gender balance.

Yes but Edupak, surely the vast, vast majority of what a primary - aged child goes through is simply not gender-specific. What is so specific to little boys which would make a woman be unable to deal empathetically with them? I have a daughter and a son (both primary age) I genuinely do not feel any more empathy for my daughter than my son, I am glad to say. I'm afraid most of this 'boys' brains are sooo different from girls' brains' stuff is misogyny - something of which you are accusing others!

A woman will be able to empathise with a young girl who has been through the same hormonal changes for example. A father or male teacher would be less able to empathise obviously and vice versa obviously. Some posts seem to think that I think women don't understand boys and men don't understand girls - what a load of nonsense, my point one last time is that children do better when their own gender is part of their learning and playing etc. It's unnatural for boys to be surrounded by women all the time and thank goodness many of the posts here reflect that. To the rest of you stop being so conditioned by what has become normalised primary school recruitment practices for far far too long. Primary heads need to be more creative, the government more flexible and push unqualified good male role models into primary classrooms. Balance is vital not for its own sake but for the enrichment of our C's education. Think about it when you next see a single mum with her son in an all female run school. Is that really acceptable? If you were a single dad with a daughter and she had male only staff would this not be just as bad? Think about it...

"and push unqualified good male role models into primary classrooms"

Do you exhort all the fathers of your acquaintance to help out at school?

WTF?! Are you really saying that men shouldn't need to qualify?

Primary heads need to be more creative, the government more flexible and push unqualified good male role models into primary classrooms.

But I thought you were talking about teaching staff? In my experience, schools try very hard to get male role models involved in other capacities - getting the Dads involved in extra-curricular activities, coming in to do talks, volunteering to read with the children etc. But it is difficult. Partly because most fathers are working during the school day and it tends to be mainly women who either work part-time or are SAHPs, so have the time to get involved in these things. But also because men don't always tend to volunteer even where they could do, eg. for weekend activities like fairs etc. and even where a specific request has been put out for Dads to volunteer.

That said, some fathers do accompany school trips at DD's school, and they are welcomed with open arms. Her school is quite good though, with quite a lot of men involved in the PTFA etc.

I think it is changing with regard to fathers getting involved in their children's schools. And maybe that in its turn will encourage more men to become teachers - they will start to see it is not just a purely female environment. But I do think maybe there should be a focus by the Government on this issue.

Surely the hormonal changes thing isn't really an issue for most of primary though?

My dd started her new school this year in year 5. She has a male teacher who she will stay with in year 6. Should I be worried that he won't empathise with her hormonal changes?

Do you think that every class should have a male teacher and female teacher job - sharing? Because boys probably won't have much contact with a male teacher if he isn't their class teacher.

Yes, let's get a few unqualified male nurses into the profession, too. And unqualified female CEOs, STEM subject professors and engineers. And there was silly old me thinking that all types of entry to the teaching profession were open to both men and women already - clearly it's still too difficult and men should be allowed to call themselves teachers before they've even done Teach First, let alone anything else. Just have a man walk into the classroom and everyone should start calling him "teacher." Silly old headteachers for not grabbing men off the street and frogmarching them into school.

edupak - why on earth do you persist in thinking that the problem is primary school recruitment practices, rather than a lack of men wanting to go into primary school teaching??? What recruitment practices are you thinking of that are discriminatory against men?

OP, I think it's more a question of having strong, confident, assertive teachers with a good sense of humour and proportion who do not take things personally than whether they are male or female.

My spirited alpha-male DS responded way better to the strong female teachers at Primary, plus a couple of fabulous male TA's who ran the footy team, etc than the one male teacher he had.

Whilst it may be unnatural for boys to be surrounded by women all the time (which they aren't at school, in any event - they are surrounded by other children, with a minority of adult supervisors, and at secondary school are surrounded by more men than women...), it is nevertheless the case that for centuries or longer, small children have traditionally been dominated by women - even going back to the days of hunter gatherers, when the men would disappear off to hunt while the women stayed behind to gather berries and look after the kids together until the men made it home. It was actually the norm for an exceptionally long time that boys were largely cared for by women until they reached a certain age, when they were whisked away from the women and taught how to become "real" men and made to go through various rites of passage, culminating in them thenceforth considering themselves to have become superior to women and the dominant sex. Is this what you want to go back to, as more "natural"? Or are you looking for a new kind of "natural"? In which case, how do you know what's normal and natural and what isn't, if human beings haven't actually done things your way, before???

On my PGCE course of 200 there were 10 men.

How are school supposed to recruit 50% men from that?