Are too many teachers women?

BrokenArrows

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

I think there is an argument to be hand around preference.

Why do more women go into teaching..... Maybe because they want too!
Why do men not go into teaching.... Maybe because they don't want too!

The same question was made around STEM subjects. Why are more women not going into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math subjects. Again, maybe they do not want too?

It seems we want to force people people into category's so the numbers look to be equal not sure that is what equality is all about.

But that thinking (correct thinking) doesnt work for those people who want full equality regardless of the reasons for inequality.

That was the whole reason behind that google employees paper.

Women and Men have different preferences to the chosen jobs because of the way men and women think differently.

Women tend choose more customer facing roles which require more emotion.
Men tend to choose more cold business roles which require less emotion.

Men used to dominate teaching but that was in a time when the majority of women would get married and stay at home to take care of the kids. Since society changed it naturally swung towards Females dominating the field.

Gatling

Yes there is too many ,but if it's intensional or not is subjective

I'm looking into getting into teaching myself and most primary schools I've been to or spoke to have a serious gender imbalance ,

My own kids school has a female 29 -3 male ratio on the current teaching staff

Shemale

Speedwell wrote: »

That if people are going to argue from the evidence that "women are just more interested in teaching", then they would also be obliged to argue "men are just more interested in assaulting students".

That is retarded.

All you have to do is look at the gender breakdown in Pats, Marino and Hibernia to see more women are enrolled ergo more women are interested.

ShowMeTheCash

BrokenArrows wrote: »

But that thinking (correct thinking) doesnt work for those people who want full equality regardless of the original reasons.

That was the whole reason behind that google employees paper.

Women and Men have different preferences to the chosen jobs because of the way men and women think differently.

Women tend choose more customer facing roles which require more emotion.
Men tend to choose more cold business roles which require less emotion.

Men used to dominate teaching but that was in a time when the majority of women would get married and stay at home to take care of the kids. Since society changed it naturally swung towards Females dominating the field.

James Damore, I read his paper.
He is in the process of a legal case against them.

Shemale

Speedwell wrote: »

Don't be obtuse. There are clearly societal and cultural pressures that discourage men from seeking the kind of education needed to be a teacher. .

Nope, I can't think of anything worse than spending a day with 30 unruly kids a lot of whom have crap parents therefore I didn't apply to teaching college.

Pac1Man

Does it matter if there are 'too many'? As long as the quality of teaching is good.

I could have done with more male teachers though. Staring at yer wan's arse all day did me no favours.

mariaalice

So its either a conspiracy against men.


Or


There are clear cultural, structural, financial reasons why more men do not become teachers.

JMNolan

Pac1Man wrote: »

Does it matter if there are 'too many'? As long as the quality of teaching is good.

I could have done with more male teachers though. Staring at yer wan's arse all day did me no favours.

Good question. There is a report from about 10 years ago about primary teaching which points out

The general consensus among the partners in education is that the absence of male role models in primary education is a critical and increasing problem, because the primary school experience of both girls and boys requires a practical witnessing of gender roles. Children need to spend time with both men and women. Since half a child’s day is spent in school, the school needs to reflect the social world in which both men and women play their parts. It is necessary, therefore, in the context of providing a full and appropriate curriculum to have male and female role models in primary schools.

Link to report https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy-Reports/Males-into-Primary-Teaching-Report-of-the-Primary-Education-Committee-2006-.pdf

BrokenArrows

super_furry wrote: »

Again at the risk of sounding sexist, I think that there are other aspects outside of wages that make it more attractive to women – the hours mainly and the fact that they’re very family friendly when it comes to raising a family.

Are you mad?
The hours that teachers work are insane. This is one of the most negative aspects of the job.

On paper teachers work very little but its impossible for them to keep on top of marking homework and scheduling and planning lessons to do this within work hours.

Every teacher ive ever known spends their evenings working, they spend at least 1/3 of their "time off" for mid term breaks just catching up and planning for their return.
The Summer holidays i would say barely cover the amount of extra hours they work compared to someone who simply clocks in and out of their 9-5.

ShowMeTheCash

Pac1Man wrote: »

Does it matter if there are 'too many'? As long as the quality of teaching is good.

I could have done with more male teachers though. Staring at yer wan's arse all day did me no favours.

Staring at wan mans arse all day not enough for you?
You are a serial arse starer i take it :P

Gravelly

mariaalice wrote: »

So its either a conspiracy against men.


Or


There are clear cultural, structural, financial reasons why more men do not become teachers.

This could never be admitted, because if it was, then there might be some brave soul that would suggest that the same applies to women in other careers, and that obviously can't be the case.

Christy42

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

What is your sales pitch? Come to a low paid, not overly respected profession instead of a high flying stem job? Deal with brats and their parents who feel their angel can do no wrong?

I think the big issue is that it is not seen as an "in" profession to encourage people towards. It is not seen as a benefit for the men to get into teaching. Maybe we should encourage male teachers for the children's benefit but you still need a sales pitch to get the men into teaching when they could focus on a stem job with better pay etc.

Now teaching should probably be more respected but it is what it is. Get better pay for teachers and have it seen as more of a badge of honour like a six figure wage is seen now and you could do something.

Shemale

Pac1Man wrote: »

Does it matter if there are 'too many'? As long as the quality of teaching is good.

It is far better to have more people who want to do the job and have the aptitude to do the job better than appearing to comply with the PC brigade.

BrokenArrows

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Are you mad?
The hours that teachers work are insane. This is one of the most negative aspects of the job.

On paper teachers work very little but its impossible for them to keep on top of marking homework and scheduling and planning lessons to do this within work hours.

Every teacher ive ever known spends their evenings working, they spend at least 1/3 of their "time off" for mid term breaks just catching up and planning for their return.
The Summer holidays i would say barely cover the amount of extra hours they work compared to someone who simply clocks in and out of their 9-5.

This is something I really need explained to me properly.

In my secondary school the average per teacher was under 6/9 lessons per day, including SPHE, CSPE, non-exam Religion, Computers, subjects that had no homework or tests for correction. Of the rest, the lesson plan would be a silly thing to do because we followed the textbook. Most classes started with "where did we finish yesterday?". Homework was corrected in class. On average we would hand up one piece of work every 3-4 weeks that the teacher would actually have to correct.
I genuinely don't see how the average 2 hours a day (not including lunch and break) without having a class weren't at least close to enough to keep up with their corrections.

Christy42

Christy42 wrote: »

I think the big issue is that it is not seen as an "in" profession to encourage people towards. It is not seen as a benefit for the men to get into teaching. Maybe we should encourage male teachers for the children's benefit but you still need a sales pitch to get the men into teaching when they could focus on a stem job with better pay etc.

I think another issue is that when it's not easy to get into teaching it's still very easy for a certain sub-group of people and next to impossible for others.

lawred2

well maybe they should offer higher pay to encourage more men to enter teaching..

Gatling

lawred2 wrote: »

well maybe they should offer higher pay to encourage more men to enter teaching..

But would it ,

I personally don't think it would ,

Gravelly

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Are you mad?
The hours that teachers work are insane. This is one of the most negative aspects of the job.

On paper teachers work very little but its impossible for them to keep on top of marking homework and scheduling and planning lessons to do this within work hours.

Every teacher ive ever known spends their evenings working, they spend at least 1/3 of their "time off" for mid term breaks just catching up and planning for their return.
The Summer holidays i would say barely cover the amount of extra hours they work compared to someone who simply clocks in and out of their 9-5.

Hmmmm. I don't want to be one of those people that knock teachers at every turn, but I'm not sure this is really the case. I've one offspring still in secondary school, and most of the correction is done in class, and a lot of the teaching via homework. How much planning and scheduling do lessons take? The curriculum is set and they follow it. I'm involved in a couple of sports clubs, and nearly every committee in sports clubs, charities etc. is dominated by teachers, because they are the only full-time workers with enough free time to do it. The preponderance of teachers in politics, at both local and national level would also indicate that they are not as busy as you indicate. Again, I'm not knocking teachers, and it's a job I certainly wouldn't do, but I think it's untrue that their hours are as long as they'd have you believe. It's a bit like all the civil servants that pretend that they are overworked and that there's any danger of them being fired for incompetence. It makes it difficult to take what they say seriously.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

cantdecide

lawred2 wrote: »

well maybe they should offer higher pay to encourage more men to enter teaching..

Men need a fruitful, full time, permanent job with some kind of hope for progression to be the bread winner and teaching simply doesn't promise this these days. If teaching could promise these things (once more), then more men will get over the stigma and get back into it. Men can't afford the compromises.

Pac1Man

JMNolan wrote: »

Good question. There is a report from about 10 years ago about primary teaching which points out..

Thinking back I had two male teachers (25%) in primary. One was excellent, probably the best teacher I ever had. The other read the newspaper all day.

These studies always leave me skeptical. I think one great teacher can leave a much larger impression on you rather than focussing on the generic benefits of a gender spread (if that makes sense!?).

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Staring at wan mans arse all day not enough for you?
You are a serial arse starer i take it :P

A man's arse doesn't have the same allure as a woman's. And yes to the second part. From the waist down is where it's at.

quintana76

A slight change of topic but wasn't (and possibly it still is) primary school teaching a favoured profession for the tuned in prospective politician. This applied whether they were from a political family or were just in the know. The benefits are obvious. Must have had an effect on the number of male teachers.

mariaalice

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Allrigh then what do you think the reasons an 18 year old male in 6th year does not put primary school teaching as number one on their cao.

spurious

Deleted User wrote: »

This is something I really need explained to me properly.

In my secondary school the average per teacher was under 6/9 lessons per day, including SPHE, CSPE, non-exam Religion, Computers, subjects that had no homework or tests for correction. Of the rest, the lesson plan would be a silly thing to do because we followed the textbook. Most classes started with "where did we finish yesterday?". Homework was corrected in class. On average we would hand up one piece of work every 3-4 weeks that the teacher would actually have to correct.
I genuinely don't see how the average 2 hours a day (not including lunch and break) without having a class weren't at least close to enough to keep up with their corrections.

Things have changed somewhat. Look at some inspection reports. All they want now is bits of paper and reports on this, that and the other and learning objectives written on the board and using your so called free class to fill in for colleagues. Following the text book is not encouraged it's all flashy presentations for the short attention span brigade. Fur coat and no knickers.

Geuze

super_furry wrote: »

I think teacher is an unattractive profession because the pay is so poor. It requires an education level and commitment that would bring you a much higher pay-packet in other industries and even when you qualify as a teacher, it can’t take years to eventually get a full-time job.

It’s not surprising that there’s only six people in training to be physics teachers. Someone with a degree in physics could walk into a job that would pay multiples of what teaching would.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I’m just not sure it’s a job that appeals to highly qualified men as much as it does women. I could be wrong and totally off base but I believe that the only way to get more men teaching would be to drastically improve the wages.

It's strange that multiple posters on this thread say that the pay is poor, whereas elsewhere, in other forums, people complain that the pay is too high!!

spurious

spurious wrote: »

Things have changed somewhat. Look at some inspection reports. All they want now is bits of paper and reports on this, that and the other and learning objectives written on the board and using your so called free class to fill in for colleagues. Following the text book is not encouraged it's all flashy presentations for the short attention span brigade. Fur coat and no knickers.

Yet the same argument was used before all the bells and whistles which have been introduced, so was that just an argument to suit themselves?
Are there more inspections now? My whole way through secondary school we had an inspector for 2 classes in a week where a trainee was in.
Do these learning objectives change year after year?


BTW, the best teacher I had used a notebook that was about 10 years old with everything done out in it and never changed. Only for project maths (ugh) coming in I doubt she would have ever changed it and I would have loved to see someone tell her to. :pac:

Knex*

brevity wrote: »

The question I would ask is why don't more men want to be teachers?

Money and status would be contributing factors.

People don't want to admit it, but on average, men and women have different goals and objectives in their career.

I'm sure that a campaign of sorts could encourage more men into teaching, as there possibly is some who reject the notion either consciously or subconsciously because of how the job is viewed, but just like we're seeing in Engineering and science with the gender roles reversed, I don't think it'll be a massive difference.

Can we help, sure. But I think we also have to be a little conscious across the board that we're never going to have a 50/50 ratio in all job titles, such is the composition of the genders. Again, on average I'm saying here.

The gender quotas and so on are absolute horse****. Demanding that your actual makeup is a massively warped figure to your supply is insanity.

kylith wrote: »

Nonsense. Historically many men went into teaching careers. We need to look at why this has changed.

The status and money relative to what can be achieved elsewhere with the same knowledge/effort has not remained static.

mariaalice

Geuze wrote: »

It's strange that multiple posters on this thread say that the pay is poor, whereas elsewhere, in other forums, people complain that the pay is too high!!

It all about the bubble you live in, in comparison to a lot of middle class professions its mediocre for pay but for someone who's top earning is likely to be 30/35k its viewed very well paid.

It is also to do with where you live on a teacher or two teacher incomes your going to struggle to buy a house in D14 but in Sligo you would have a very good life style on the money.

Christy42

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

As I said it is still not massively respected. See the amount of complaints about holidays etc. It is also how it is seen. It is a safe job with a decent wage but a low ceiling. Good luck advertising that to teenagers. When looking at stem jobs most will assume incorrectly that they will end up in the above average section.

Maybe ask the women who go for it about their motivation for their sales pitch. I still think you will struggle to find a good one to increase either gender to sign up for it more frequently without increasing the level.

How many places is that for? Remember general science is low because hundreds go through it.

I would be curious as to the thought processes of those that go for it or avoid it. Do boys even consider it? Or is it just not thought about? I still feel people are far to eager to throw everything off as a difference between the genders without any serious evidence of what is going on. Maybe it is a difference but we definitely don't have enough data to show that and we could well be missing out on quality teachers to people not thinking of it as an option and,as you say, the benefits of some positive male role models.

andekwarhola

Maybe a lot of men read boards and think they will just incur the wrath of most of society for being supposedly overpaid, underworked parasites on people's tax dollars?