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Are too many teachers women?

Permabear

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nice_guy80

went to a primary schools' inservice last year where there were 9/10 schools present
I was the only male
scary stuff

[Deleted User]

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Maybe and again I am not saying it is right I am just saying there are scenarios where I think people would think twice, but let's look at this and try and be honest.

Football camp run by men in my local town every summer.
For boys and girls. - Do not think anyone would have an issue with this. Kids are not required to get showered of changed is it outside parents usually hang around and watch....

Tag Rugby and GAA - Same thing

Swimming lessons for young kids - They call it the little swimmers where I am from. They have male instructors but never male instructors without female instructors, I think the main reason for this there is an element where the kids need to get changed.

If two guys where running a swimming class for young girls do you think everyone would look at this exactly the same as if it was two women running a swimming class for young girls?

You asked if men were out there working with young kids and if it was really an everyday thing.

It is, as I said, in every town and village. Men are out there coaching kids, running clubs, taking out scouts, teaching martial arts. It is completely and totally an everyday occurrence.

Now you're changing the scenario to two men teaching an all girls swimming class. Now the answer I'd give here is that if two women were teaching an all boys class, they'd be stupid not to have a man around to take the kids to the loo or help them like that. And if two men had an all girls class the same applies.

You're inventing obstacles, the truth is that it's happening and men are involved in all kinds of kids activities - as they should be - and not everyone is walking around in a state of paralysis, denying themselves the career of their dreams because they run a risk of a false accusation. The simpler and more prosaic truth is that men aren't entering teaching because they don't want to enter teaching, and the issues that need to be addressed to change that may very well include wariness of working with children, but it would most likely be very far down a list of other factors that present greater barriers.

For example, the lack of permanent contracts, the conditions, the prospects and the various other reasons Spurious has posted about earlier from a place of experience.

Noveight

nice_guy80 wrote: »

went to a primary schools' inservice last year where there were 9/10 schools present
I was the only male
scary stuff

Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for 'crisis' as they do for 'opportunity'?

evolving_doors

nice_guy80 wrote: »

went to a primary schools' inservice last year where there were 9/10 schools present
I was the only male
scary stuff

out of interest (as a male teacher in primary)... have you an eye on a principal's position at some stage?

In 2014, 68 per cent of principals appointed in secondary schools were men, even though women comprise 70 per cent of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland’s (ASTI) membership.

here

ShowMeTheCash

Candie wrote: »

You asked if men were out there working with young kids and if it was really an everyday thing.

It is, as I said, in every town and village. Men are out there coaching kids, running clubs, taking out scouts, teaching martial arts. It is completely and totally an everyday occurrence.

Now you're changing the scenario to two men teaching an all girls swimming class. Now the answer I'd give here is that if two women were teaching an all boys class, they'd be stupid not to have a man around to take the kids to the loo or help them like that. And if two men had an all girls class the same applies.

You're inventing obstacles, the truth is that it's happening and men are involved in all kinds of kids activities - as they should be - and not everyone is walking around in a state of paralysis, denying themselves the career of their dreams because they run a risk of a false accusation. The simpler and more prosaic truth is that men aren't entering teaching because they don't want to enter teaching, and the issues that need to be addressed to change that may very well include wariness of working with children, but it would most likely be very far down a list of other factors that present greater barriers.

For example, the lack of permanent contracts, the conditions, the prospects and the various other reasons Spurious has posted about earlier from a place of experience.

See I am not changing the scenario at all, the original conversion was why men do not teach in national school with very young kids, my original statement was to give at least some weight to the argument men being or feeling uncomfortable due to at a perceived stigma of having to take on an almost parental role like the example you give above such as taking the kids to the loo.

I think that male teachers could worry that people might the get wrong idea around something that is innocent.

The OP then came in and started to argue this point and talk about volunteer work they did or out reach work to which is vague, two more op's give examples of news reports where male teachers and been falsely accused of wrong doing or some kind of abuse.

The OP continued in this vein of men work with kids every day.

So now we are looking at after school sport programs....

Kids 3 to 7 from play school to national school are left with staff and teachers. You leave them in their care.

My kids as far as after school sports go at that age I usually stay and watch them I do not leave.

evolving_doors

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

See I am not changing the scenario at all, the original conversion was why men do not teach in national school with very young kids, my original statement was to give at least some weight to the argument men being or feeling uncomfortable due to at a perceived stigma of having to take on an almost parental role like the example you give above such as taking the kids to the loo.

I think that male teachers could worry that people might the get wrong idea around something that is innocent.

The OP then came in and started to argue this point and talk about volunteer work they did or out reach work to which is vague, two more op's give examples of news reports where male teachers and been falsely accused of wrong doing or some kind of abuse.

The OP continued in this vein of men work with kids every day.

So now we are looking at after school sport programs....

Kids 3 to 7 from play school to national school are left with staff and teachers. You leave them in their care.

My kids as far as after school sports go at that age I usually stay and watch them I do not leave.

Why not?

ShowMeTheCash

Candie wrote: »

Now you're changing the scenario to two men teaching an all girls swimming class. Now the answer I'd give here is that if two women were teaching an all boys class, they'd be stupid not to have a man around to take the kids to the loo or help them like that. And if two men had an all girls class the same applies.

Also I think this is disingenuous.
If you had a class of 5 year olds you think it would be equally silly that a female teacher help a little boy go to the loo?

Have you even known a national school teacher who teaches infants or junior infants to be a male?

ShowMeTheCash

evolving_doors wrote: »

Why not?

Well partly because I enjoy watching them as do almost all the other parents.
Point I am making it is not the same as school where you are effectively leaving them in someones care for 3 - 4 hours.

Also technically I can assume a teacher is vetted, I would not make the same assumption to the a member of the local football club.

mikhail

People have argued that men aren't interested in a relatively low paying, low status job, and that STEM graduates can get more money elsewhere. Obviously, the solution is that we should offer higher pay to male teachers and STEM teachers. The teaching unions would be fine with this - they've already shown that they're happy to have unequal pay when they ****ed their younger/future members over in the second last pay deal.

Kidding aside (aside from the bit where I am paid at a lower point on a less generous pay scale than older colleagues doing exactly the same job), while I don't know that gender balance in most jobs is all that important a metric (it's much more important that gender doesn't prejudice outcomes in job/promotion interviews), teaching is an area where the gender of the teacher has been shown to have a big impact on outcomes for kids. We're doing a generation of boys a disservice as they are underperforming and will continue to underperform because we can't hire enough male teachers. We're doing the same to a generation of students (girls disproportionately) who have underqualified teachers or no offerings of STEM subjects like applied maths and physics.

mikhail

Noveight wrote: »

Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for 'crisis' as they do for 'opportunity'?

No, they don't.

Noveight

mikhail wrote: »

No, they don't.

nice_guy80

evolving_doors wrote: »

out of interest (as a male teacher in primary)... have you an eye on a principal's position at some stage?

here

why?
extra pay is terrible
hassle and pressure is huge - paperwork, responsibility, inspections
you're going to be in charge of a school and so trying to get a mainly female staff to change the way some things are done

nice_guy80

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Also I think this is disingenuous.
If you had a class of 5 year olds you think it would be equally silly that a female teacher help a little boy go to the loo?

Have you even known a national school teacher who teaches infants or junior infants to be a male?

yes, to the last question.

suicide_circus

CRUSH THE MATRIARCHY

[Deleted User]

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

See I am not changing the scenario at all, the original conversion was why men do not teach in national school with very young kids, my original statement was to give at least some weight to the argument men being or feeling uncomfortable due to at a perceived stigma of having to take on an almost parental role like the example you give above such as taking the kids to the loo.

I think that male teachers could worry that people might the get wrong idea around something that is innocent.

It's opinions like yours (and a small minority of people in society) that are perpetuating the fear and "stigma" (there is no stigma imo except in some people's heads). You obviously have a fear of your kids around men, that's quite obvious. This has no basis in anything except some crazy notion that men must want to work with kids for bad reasons. It's absolute bull and thankfully the vast majority of people in the country would not even let it enter their heads that a man can't be in charge of kids on his own.

It's only within a few steps of saying a man can't look after his own child or look after his nieces or nephews alone that's the road we will head down if the opinions you are displaying spread and intensify.

JMNolan

I was reading a report from Bernardos - "MEN IN CHILDCARE IN IRELAND" - https://www.barnardos.ie/assets/files/publications/free/childlinks_body28.pdf

Mostly people are in favor of men in childminding however there are definitely a cohort which are suspicious of men in childcare.

The less positive responses were:
‘ believe it is a risk too great to take to prevent sexual abuse.’
‘ would feel uncomfortable with a man minding my children.’
‘Yes I do but not to change girl’s nappies as I believe women should do it.’
‘Would feel uncomfortable, woman are more understanding.’
‘I would prefer a female with female children for toilet training etc., apart from that fine.’
‘No I wouldn’t like it; it’s a risk I do not want to take for my child’s safety.’
‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a male caring for my children.’

I also thought this was interesting

A study of a primary school in Norway with a 50/50 gender balance in staff showed that young boys with male teachers do better in school.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

newport2

Gravelly wrote: »

It's funny how the conversation on gender balance in the workplace differs so profoundly when people discuss male or female.
Why aren't there more female CEO's, engineers, computer programmers? Because we have not made these positions available or attractive to females, we must change the way we teach and work to make these jobs available to women. Companies with female CEO's perform on average 189% better (see the study carried out by my feminist empowerment think tank), female engineers are better at problem solving, female programmers make better software etc. etc. We must change the way evil men have set up society to keep the wimmin down - smash the patriarchy!
vs.

Why aren't there more male teachers? Ah shure what do you want, priests is it? Isn't there loads of them, and they only want the high paying jobs, and shure they'd only abuse the pupils, and feck 'em anyway.

This.

I don't know what the solution is, but if things as they are now in schools were reversed with the system churning out better male than female results year upon year, the term "Education Gap" would be a norm in the media to describe the epidemic. If on top of that most teachers were male, it would be a given that there was a link between the two. Teachers are male, therefore male pupils are doing better, how could you not see the link?

When any male dominated occupations come up, such as politics or STEM, the solution is approached along the lines of "how do we make these more attractive to women so that more will go into these fields?". Why not take the same approach with men in teaching, instead of "Meh, men don't want to do it, end of story". I think it would benefit both boys and girls to have a more balanced amount of teachers.

seamus

tastyt wrote: »

One point, teachers pay is not anywhere near ****, top of the scales between 60/70k.

Will ye cop on, what country are ye living in?

A country where someone with a decent degree will be on 60k before they're 40. Before they're 30 in some industries.

There's a huge wage disparity in various sectors. And unfortunately we tell young people to focus on earnings - current and potential - rather than aiming to do things they enjoy.

We tell young people (men in particular) to aim for the high-flying jobs - doctors, solicitors, actuaries - because these are the ones where you'll be wealthy with a big house in 10-15 years.

So why then would someone spend six years in college to go on a path where their earnings are so heavily capped? They see friends & siblings taking other career paths and doing much better than a teacher after five years.

We've told them to value money over job satisfaction, and then we wonder why they don't apply for jobs that don't have a lot of earning potential.

Chrongen

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I don't know when or where the change occurred but in my primary school (2nd to 6th class) out of 21 teachers there was only 1 female.

In my secondary school out of approximately 25 teachers only 4 were females.

silverharp

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

It also calls into question the nature of being the "best" if it equals "450" . The LC has an element of rewarding quantity over higher level thinking?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Ballstein

14 pages of a thread and a recurring theme seems to be the low status of teachers. I find this strange to be honest. Across the globe teachers are universally viewed as one of the most important group of people in a society. It's a profession that actually does some good in a society as opposed to something like the legal profession which by and large thrives on misery and misfortune. Male primary school teachers have such a huge impact on young boys development that I cannot understand how the current disparity in the genders isn't at the top of all the current issues. I think the whole issue of the brightest and best in our society being drawn away from professions that actually do some good like education and public service into empty, rapacious fields like finance, real estate development and law is leading us down a horrible path.

mirrorwall14

With all due respect there are bigger problems in getting teachers at all than the gender gap, though some of them are more obvious in the boy v girl debate.

I went into teaching with a STEM and an art subject. I’m female. Everyone around me though I was absolutely insane and that was over 10 years ago. Why would I ‘waste myself’. My career guidance teacher refused to see me again.

However I wanted to teach. So I did my best to eliminate issues by going with maths which I love but is also core subject and one where it’s possible to teach a full 22hrs even if I didn’t get my second subject on my timetable of Music.

It took 7 years to get CID status. Contracts were battles. Removing hours that were mine and attempting to give me hours that wouldn’t lead to permanency for example. (Two schools). Jobs advertised with misleading advertisements hoping that you’d be in the door and would stay on an inferior contract. When I finally got my CID, four of us that year, yes FOUR were given a contract of 17hrs 40 so as to avoid paying us full pay. 20 minutes extra on the contract would give full pay and we would teach full hours. Instead ETB tried to shaft us all out of 15% of our contract. Luckily I was paying attention. No joy with the principal who shrugged his shoulders so the union got me my contract. Two of us fought it, both of us got the full time contract. We shouldn’t have had to fight it. I taught full hours that year and every year since.

The government campaign against public servants in the recession and the union campaigns in the early 21st century (yes I acknowledge that) have been successful in removing almost all respect for teaching as a profession. We are vilified in the media, our minister appears to despise us even going so far as suggesting putting unqualified homeowners in classrooms after we have spent thousands and thousands getting the qualifications that the teaching council enforce (not a bad thing in most ways imo). Few want to go into teaching now, and some of those are only in it for the sound bite reason ‘June, July and august’

The education system here is rapidly heading into the failed system of the UK. It’s literally like watching a train crash in slow motion. The NCCA whistleblowers have even come out and said that their work is not well researched. Teachers teaching the specifications have been saying that but NO one will listen. Even when we held lunch time protests about it, the media and public insisted it was about pay and we were greedy. It wasn’t. We were trying to protect student learning. No one listened.

There is initiative after initiative being announced and forced into the schools. We spend more time collecting data than actually doing anything with it. Our school has about 15 different committees running now trying to stay on top of the paperwork. All of this extra work is (largely) voluntary but good will is running out as teachers burn out. It is stark that the extra curricular being run is moving even more towards part timers (looking for permanency) and even PME teachers than ever before. Teachers on full timetables are too bloody tired.

To finish my rant, I don’t know anyone in teaching aged between around 30-50 who isn’t keeping their options open. Management courses that they fully intend to take to other sectors. Upskilling in STEM/technology to potentially move to other industries. Anything that will get them out of the classroom because we can all see the UK style burnout coming. I know I don’t have all my eggs in one basket and have no illusions as to whether being a teacher will still even be considered an profession in ten years when you look at where we are headed

ShowMeTheCash

nice_guy80 wrote: »

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Also I think this is disingenuous.
If you had a class of 5 year olds you think it would be equally silly that a female teacher help a little boy go to the loo?

Have you even known a national school teacher who teaches infants or junior infants to be a male?

yes, to the last question.

Well of course you would be one of the few people who knows a male primary school teacher that teaches juniour or senior infants, I literally know no one nor do I know any school that has one. I reckon you would be lucky to find a handful in the entire country!
That being said looking at other forums around this here are some of the commments I have seen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1212309-Male-teachers-in-primary-school

"[font=Roboto, sans-serif]My brother is a primary school teacher. Somebody once 'joked' to me that he might therefore be a paedophile [/font] 6.gif.pagespeed.ce.7QCbzgu8RR.gif

[font=Roboto, sans-serif]. FFS!!"[/font]
And again I do not think this is right there is something wrong that elements in society think like this, but you seem to want to deny that anyone does think like this and is therefore not a concern any man you is contemplating being a primary school teacher......

ShowMeTheCash

nice_guy80 wrote: »

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Also I think this is disingenuous.
If you had a class of 5 year olds you think it would be equally silly that a female teacher help a little boy go to the loo?

Have you even known a national school teacher who teaches infants or junior infants to be a male?

yes, to the last question.

Buford T. Justice XIX

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Well of course you would be one of the few people who knows a male primary school teacher that teaches juniour or senior infants, I literally know no one nor do I know any school that has one. I reckon you would be lucky to find a handful in the entire country!
That being said looking at other forums around this here are some of the commments I have seen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1212309-Male-teachers-in-primary-school

"[font=Roboto, sans-serif]My brother is a primary school teacher. Somebody once 'joked' to me that he might therefore be a paedophile [/font][font=Roboto, sans-serif]. FFS!!"[/font]
And again I do not think this is right there is something wrong that elements in society think like this, but you seem to want to deny that anyone does think like this and is therefore not a concern any man you is contemplating being a primary school teacher......

My neighbour was a primary school teacher. If he had to carry a child home that was sick or hurt, he would have to take three children in his car, the sick child and two other children so he would never be alone with one child in his car after dropping off the first child.

It is definitely an issue.

nice_guy80

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Well of course you would be one of the few people who knows a male primary school teacher that teaches juniour or senior infants, I literally know no one nor do I know any school that has one. I reckon you would be lucky to find a handful in the entire country!
That being said looking at other forums around this here are some of the commments I have seen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1212309-Male-teachers-in-primary-school

"[font=Roboto, sans-serif]My brother is a primary school teacher. Somebody once 'joked' to me that he might therefore be a paedophile [/font][font=Roboto, sans-serif]. FFS!!"[/font]
And again I do not think this is right there is something wrong that elements in society think like this, but you seem to want to deny that anyone does think like this and is therefore not a concern any man you is contemplating being a primary school teacher......

ok, but it kinda makes your other point invalid
plenty of males are or have been infant teachers

mirrorwall has more or less hit the nail on the head
teaching is becoming very frustrating
it is being treated as a business - initiatives, input and results.
primary teaching seems so busy and stressful compared to a decade ago when I started.
more or more being asked of the teaching staff, with less time to do it.

pay doesn't start off great considering all the hoops you've to jump through, doesn't really improve by much over your career and even if you do get into management the pay isn't great for the responsibility needed.

ShowMeTheCash

Jake Orange Molecule wrote: »

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

See I am not changing the scenario at all, the original conversion was why men do not teach in national school with very young kids, my original statement was to give at least some weight to the argument men being or feeling uncomfortable due to at a perceived stigma of having to take on an almost parental role like the example you give above such as taking the kids to the loo.

I think that male teachers could worry that people might the get wrong idea around something that is innocent.

It's opinions like yours (and a small minority of people in society) that are perpetuating the fear and "stigma" (there is no stigma imo except in some people's heads). You obviously have a fear of your kids around men, that's quite obvious. This has no basis in anything except some crazy notion that men must want to work with kids for bad reasons. It's absolute bull and thankfully the vast majority of people in the country would not even let it enter their heads that a man can't be in charge of kids on his own.

It's only within a few steps of saying a man can't look after his own child or look after his nieces or nephews alone that's the road we will head down if the opinions you are displaying spread and intensify.

You seem to have this backward maybe try taking a breath and read what I am saying and not what you think I am saying, I personally have no fear of my kids around other men, that being said I mean within reason, I am not totally irrisponsible when it comes to my kids.
The fear I am talking about is being a man being around other peoples kids not a fear of men being around mine. Personally I think this largely has come from feminists over the last number of years demonising men as sexual deviants and arbiters of misogyny.
I already talked about the post about the father and son in the shower when the son was sick and how the internet mostly females when nuts crazed feminists looked at this is some kind of sexual abuse!
What you seem to want to do is deny that this kind of thing happens.
My suggestion to you if you are a women maybe try and liten to the fears some men have and try to understand why.

ShowMeTheCash

nice_guy80 wrote: »

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Well of course you would be one of the few people who knows a male primary school teacher that teaches juniour or senior infants, I literally know no one nor do I know any school that has one. I reckon you would be lucky to find a handful in the entire country!
That being said looking at other forums around this here are some of the commments I have seen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1212309-Male-teachers-in-primary-school

"[font=Roboto, sans-serif]My brother is a primary school teacher. Somebody once 'joked' to me that he might therefore be a paedophile [/font][font=Roboto, sans-serif]. FFS!!"[/font]
And again I do not think this is right there is something wrong that elements in society think like this, but you seem to want to deny that anyone does think like this and is therefore not a concern any man you is contemplating being a primary school teacher......

ok, but it kinda makes your other point invalid
plenty of males are or have been infant teachers

mirrorwall has more or less hit the nail on the head
teaching is becoming very frustrating
it is being treated as a business - initiatives, input and results.
primary teaching seems so busy and stressful compared to a decade ago when I started.
more or more being asked of the teaching staff, with less time to do it.

pay doesn't start off great considering all the hoops you've to jump through, doesn't really improve by much over your career and even if you do get into management the pay isn't great for the responsibility needed.

How does it make it invalid?
I am not saying there is no male infant teachers at all, I am saying there is nearly no infant teachers.
Between my two kids 3 creches and two primary schools not a single make teacher in any of them.
Come seconday school the numbers shift a little but still very much female dominated.
We are looking to all the reasons why men do not look at teaching as a viable career move.