Male teachers - Mod Note Post #221

Glenster

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Strange, I thought I read you say they weren't.

Might want to make it clearer next time, might end up offending people.

????

nice_guy80

Most principals in Ireland continue to teach.
They are not admin principals

What do you consider a 'dynamic' job?
You're moulding the minds and inspiring the future lives of the kids around you
You can use any resource or technology available to you and allow the children to use their own ideas and imagination to research and present their work.
Sounds exciting to me.

I usually look forward to each days work.
Kids can be good fun too, if you don't take them too seriously and the support is there for them from home.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Most principals in Ireland continue to teach.
They are not admin principals

What do you consider a 'dynamic' job?
You're moulding the minds and inspiring the future lives of the kids around you

... except that the rest of the country just sees you as an overpaid babysitter.

You can use any resource or technology available to you and allow the children to use their own ideas and imagination to research and present their work.
Sounds exciting to me.

I'd agree - but (honest question) isn't what you teach and what resources you use pretty decided for you?

I usually look forward to each days work.
Kids can be good fun too, if you don't take them too seriously and the support is there for them from home.

Agree with you here: I had a few teachers - mostly young - when I was s kid and the lost three classroom by trying to be Big Boss and unnessecarily strict from the start.

Jobs OXO

The lucky lads are up to their oxters in clunge in the staff rooms apparently.

skankkuvhima

Jobs OXO wrote: »

The lucky lads are up to their oxters in clunge in the staff rooms apparently.

They probably should put that in the brochures, might attract more men into the profession

One eyed Jack

skankkuvhima wrote: »

They probably should put that in the brochures, might attract more men into the profession

I doubt it. The same day the schools closed for the Easter holidays, that night all the teachers were out on the town in force. I was chatting to one of them at the bar and she suggested I join them at their table. I took one look over at the table...

"Ehh, you're grand thanks, it's like an INTO conference over there!" :pac:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... except that the rest of the country just sees you as an overpaid babysitter.

Could you possibly sound any weaker. Pathetic.

Christy42

suicide_circus wrote: »

In western society, I honestly don't see (with my patriarchal male privileged eyes) the impediments to women working in STEM areas. Discrimination in the basis of gender is illegal. There are numerous special interest groups getting unlimited airtime pushing for girls to do STEM courses. I'm not saying that social and cultural issues don't exist under the surface but these take time to die out. No one in their right mind is actively opposed to equal opportunity in these fields. We may find however that given limitless choice and opportunity, certain genders will continue to lean certain ways and I feel like an awful lot of people and vested interests have put a huge amount of time and energy into the equality game and if society doesn't swing in the "right" direction these people will continue to labour under their beloved mantle of victimhood and will be unable to accept that much of the perceived inequality we see has not been a sinister orchestration but to some degree a fairly organic state of affairs after all.

We may but given that encouraging women into Stem has had a massive effect it bears further investigation into assuming we have done enough to stop the effects of years of denying some people into these professions.

Similarly we have the thing about male primary school teachers. We have had them in the past so why the change? Honestly I reckon the issue is that it is not a great profession (unless you love it) in terms of pay etc. So I reckon a deficit in teaching is not seen as the same as a deficit in stem which has some high paying sectors and is generally seen as an "in" field.

skankkuvhima

Christy42 wrote: »

We may but given that encouraging women into Stem has had a massive effect it bears further investigation into assuming we have done enough to stop the effects of years of denying some people into these professions.

I'm not familiar with these years, who denied who?

Christy42 wrote: »

Similarly we have the thing about male primary school teachers. We have had them in the past so why the change? Honestly I reckon the issue is that it is not a great profession (unless you love it) in terms of pay etc. So I reckon a deficit in teaching is not seen as the same as a deficit in stem which has some high paying sectors and is generally seen as an "in" field.

Perhaps we should have Men in Teaching (MIT) scholarships and grants?

Christy42

skankkuvhima wrote: »

I'm not familiar with these years, who denied who?

Perhaps we should have Men in Teaching (MIT) scholarships and grants?

You are kidding right? Women were absolutely held back from STEM fields for decades. As for who denied them, the people hiring and populating the relevant courses and even the parents/teachers telling them it is not women's work. Thankfully this is no longer the case as a complete wall but there is still the argument that women are being discouraged from these fields by being told (with bugger all evidence ) that they are not as good at these fields. This is potentially costing us millions in great stem workers not entering the field. I am unsure if we have hit the point were women are no longer discouraged but is certainly recent history.

Yes an argument could be made for grants to encourage more men as teachers. I mean why not? One issue is that the funding could be difficult to get (companies frequently sponsor the stem ones

silverharp

Christy42 wrote: »

You are kidding right? Women were absolutely held back from STEM fields for decades. As for who denied them, the people hiring and populating the relevant courses and even the parents/teachers telling them it is not women's work. Thankfully this is no longer the case as a complete wall but there is still the argument that women are being discouraged from these fields by being told (with bugger all evidence ) that they are not as good at these fields. This is potentially costing us millions in great stem workers not entering the field. I am unsure if we have hit the point were women are no longer discouraged but is certainly recent history.

Yes an argument could be made for grants to encourage more men as teachers. I mean why not? One issue is that the funding could be difficult to get (companies frequently sponsor the stem ones

you could say that in the past , but there is a balance now so short of forcing girls choices when they leave school, not sure what "needs" to happen. the only areas within STEM that girls are less interested in studying than boys are the physics, Engineering and IT side. Maybe they just don't want to, also Maths is the one area that boys outperform girls at the high end so maybe they are just playing to their strengths and those that are good go into medicine or pharmacy or similar

nice_guy80

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Most principals in Ireland continue to teach.
They are not admin principals

What do you consider a 'dynamic' job?
You're moulding the minds and inspiring the future lives of the kids around you

... except that the rest of the country just sees you as an overpaid babysitter.

You can use any resource or technology available to you and allow the children to use their own ideas and imagination to research and present their work.
Sounds exciting to me.

I'd agree - but (honest question) isn't what you teach and what resources you use pretty decided for you?

I usually look forward to each days work.
Kids can be good fun too, if you don't take them too seriously and the support is there for them from home.

Agree with you here: I had a few teachers - mostly young - when I was s kid and the lost three classroom by trying to be Big Boss and unnessecarily strict from the start.

I wish I was bring paid babysitter wages €5 per child per hour. That's... €125 per hour. Nice!

Who decides my resources and teaching content then? You seem fairly knowledgeable about the whole thing....


Sometimes you have to be strict with kids or they'll walk all over ya.
Kids appreciate rules and limits
Makes them feel much safer

py2006

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

... except that the rest of the country just sees you as an overpaid babysitter.

Ah now thats a bit harsh.
May be just you?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Could you possibly sound any weaker. Pathetic.

I didn't say I did, so ease up on the ad hominems! THAT'S pathetic.

Any time there's a discussion about teachers, you always get people complaining about short days, long holidays and suggesting teachers do work during their time off; and the general tone is very disrespectful.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Who decides my resources and teaching content then? You seem fairly knowledgeable about the whole thing....

I did say I wasn't sure. But I looked into teaching many years ago and it was the limits of having to stick to preapproved topics and ciurse material (and I'm not just taking about the curricula here).

silverharp

In the UK I believe they created an upgrade of a teacher qualification to get better maths teachers in the system. something similar might work to up the status for some people as there is too much of an opportunity cost at present. My own son who is only 12 god bless him mentioned that he thought he would make a good maths teacher but the pay isn't good enough

evolving_doors

silverharp wrote: »

In the UK I believe they created an upgrade of a teacher qualification to get better maths teachers in the system. something similar might work to up the status for some people as there is too much of an opportunity cost at present. My own son who is only 12 god bless him mentioned that he thought he would make a good maths teacher but the pay isn't good enough

They did that here too through UL (PDMT ).

He could also do a concurrent maths teaching degree/masters.
Tell yer young fella about the holidays :pac: (That's all I live for now )
It sounds like he enjoys the subject so must have a good teacher himself. That counts for a lot.

nice_guy80

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Who decides my resources and teaching content then? You seem fairly knowledgeable about the whole thing....

I did say I wasn't sure. But I looked into teaching many years ago and it was the limits of having to stick to preapproved topics and ciurse material (and I'm not just taking about the curricula here).

You'll have to point out what is missing
The curriculum is very broad. 10 subjects broad

Maybe you wanted to do some astrophysics or something.

One eyed Jack

Gebgbegb wrote: »

They did that here too through UL (PDMT ).

He could also do a concurrent maths teaching degree/masters.
Tell yer young fella about the holidays :pac: (That's all I live for now )
It sounds like he enjoys the subject so must have a good teacher himself. That counts for a lot.

I blame Andy Ruane from Scratch Saturday for putting me off the idea of becoming a maths teacher when I was 12 like silverharps child. We were rehearsing doing the piece to camera and Andy off-camera and it went like this -

"And what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be a maths teacher when I grow up"

"A what?", his arms flailing as he stepped out from behind the camera and came at me, "Do you not want to be something exciting, a footballer, an astronaut, come on, give me something"

"A footballer?"

"Great, let's do that again!"

I ended up working in software development, and contrary to popular misconceptions it isn't full of 'socially awkward males', and I've met plenty of women who are incredibly talented at what they do. If women want to work in STEM, they will, no different to men who want to work in education, they will too, and the idea that there should be any sort of advantages given to either gender to bump up the numbers, will lead to a reduction in the quality of candidates entering third level to study in these fields.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

I didn't say I did, so ease up on the ad hominems! THAT'S pathetic.

Any time there's a discussion about teachers, you always get people complaining about short days, long holidays and suggesting teachers do work during their time off; and the general tone is very disrespectful.

Probably my biggest thread ever on boards was me complaining about teachers years ago. Then I did it and realise two things.. How much you can affect a student's life and how hard the job actually is. And I have it easy compared to teachers in Ireland.

Balmed Out

Glenster wrote: »

If you had an ounce of ambition I don't see how you could justify doing it.

Where do teachers see themselves in 5/10 years time? Doing the exact same thing at the same level or not teaching at all...

Compared to most jobs there is a massive amount of job satisfaction, through what you do you have the potential to help shape a child's life in a positive way. You may go from coding to leading a team to managing projects or whatever but at the end of the day most people don't do work that has the same potential of feeling like you make a difference.

I regret not doing primary teaching. It was something I considered until constant child sex scandals caused a bit of a stigma or suspicion towards men working with small kids and then one by one all my secondary school teachers had nervous breakdowns and I decided to keep away from teaching.

If I were to do some sort of personality test to see what im best suited for it'd probably be teaching. Kids always feel at ease with me and never actually annoy me while I would lose patience easily enough with adults. I reckon if either my wife or I were to become a stay at home parent I would be fine with it while her head would be wrecked.

I could be wrong but I believe a man with a fantastic cv etc would never be given a job teaching junior infants in a girls school by any panel of a Roman Catholic school.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

nice_guy80 wrote: »

You'll have to point out what is missing
The curriculum is very broad. 10 subjects broad

Maybe you wanted to do some astrophysics or something.

Standard primary.

Deleted User wrote: »

Probably my biggest thread ever on boards was me complaining about teachers years ago. Then I did it and realise two things.. How much you can affect a student's life and how hard the job actually is. And I have it easy compared to teachers in Ireland.

Yep. My point entirely.

BrokenArrows

I honestly dont know how we have any teachers at all.

Becoming a teacher requires 3rd level qualifications and the knowledge that they will have to work their asses off for very very very little money.

Personally id prefer to be working in tesco stacking shelves than teaching a classroom full of kids that dont want to be there, or even worse teaching crying 4-5 year olds. Become a nanny if you want to take care of kids, probably pays the same and you just need to deal with 1 or 2 kids, not 30.

Pac1Man

Those holidays though.

skankkuvhima

I see the minister has a plan for getting more people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, students with a disability, and members of the Traveller community into teaching http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2017-Press-Releases/PR17-04-17.html

Must be enough men so I imagine.

BrokenArrows

Pac1Man wrote: »

Those holidays though.

Not really.
Most teachers ive known work an extra few hours at home every evening and a few hours over the weekend.

They also use the holidays eg. Easter, to catch up on work thats been piling up.

And they are basically trapped for the school term, they cant just pop away for a random long weekend break. They have to wait until a school break when the cost of a holiday is twice as much.

nice_guy80

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

nice_guy80 wrote: »

You'll have to point out what is missing
The curriculum is very broad. 10 subjects broad

Maybe you wanted to do some astrophysics or something.

Standard primary.

Deleted User wrote: »

Probably my biggest thread ever on boards was me complaining about teachers years ago. Then I did it and realise two things.. How much you can affect a student's life and how hard the job actually is. And I have it easy compared to teachers in Ireland.

Yep. My point entirely.

What was missing from the curriculum that put you off doing teaching?
Lack of testing on animals? I don't get why you wouldn't go into teaching

Most full timw teachers are paid ok
It's those recruited in the last 6/7 years with a huge gap in pay or a lack of fill time hours

Anyway, still the biggest barrier to males doing teaching, is that it Is now seen as a female dominated job with an increasing paperwork load. That swerves a lot of young lads straight away

There are far more positives than negatives in the job and I'm always trying to convince young lads to go for teacher training

Nothing more satisfying meeting someone who did their leaving cert or first year in college and them telling you all about how well they are doing and you remember them being a quiet and shy pupil in 3rd or 4th class

conorhal

I'd reccomend looking up Pholosopher, Christina Hoff Sommers, and here work on gender and education. She has long been warning that the treatment of masculinity as 'toxic' (can you even think of the word masculinity without that adjective these days?) is dammaging young boys as their natural tendencies patterns of behavior are treated as negatives or 'problematic'. There are many boys who's whole childhoods have been stripped of positive male role models, it's often acknowledged that girls 'need positive female role models', but not so boys for some reason.

Sommers did a series of interviews with Roaming Millennial that are well worth a look if anybody wishes to invest the time:

nice_guy80

skankkuvhima wrote: »

I see the minister has a plan for getting more people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, students with a disability, and members of the Traveller community into teaching http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2017-Press-Releases/PR17-04-17.html

Must be enough men so I imagine.

He should focus on why so many travellers don't complete secondary school

Kh1993

Always been a decent proportion of male teachers (me being one of them) in all the schools I've worked in or when on placement. All Dublin so maybe a city thing. I think about 1/3 of my year in college were men.

Only slagging (serious I mean, not the usual rehashed holidays joke) I'd ever get over teaching is off fellow male friends. So don't think there's any of this men being stopped by women. I've always fared well as a man getting jobs, never felt like a minority etc. Even favoured at times when it comes to senior classes..

No one ever held me back as a man being a teacher. I knew I wouldn't enjoy working STEM/finance so chose what I'd be happy to do. You can't force people into a profession if they're not interested in it.

What would hold someone getting into teaching back is increasing paperwork and middle management, salary, new entrant cut, lack of full time hours, and only promotion is to principal really. But I don't think them limitations would apply to males more than females.