Male primary school teachers

BrendaN_f · 03-09-2015 12:15PM #1

Do they exist anymore? A school I was helping at started this week, and the only male staff member was the janitor!

Sh1tbag OToole · 03-09-2015 12:17PM

I know one who is just about to finish his training.

jimgoose · 03-09-2015 12:17PM

About 14% of primary school teachers are male, according the last figures I saw. What of it?

osarusan · 03-09-2015 12:18PM

My daughter's teacher is a man.

Also know another couple of male primary school teachers.

I have heard that the ration of men to women in the job is getting ever more skewed though, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

Balmed Out · 03-09-2015 12:20PM

jimgoose wrote: »

About 14% of primary school teachers are male, according the last figures I saw. What of it?

I think its good for kids to have a mix of male and female teachers.

Shelga · 03-09-2015 12:23PM

Why don't they offer incentives to entice men to become primary school teachers, like they do for women in engineering?

Not that I think this is necessarily such a great thing... let the chips fall where they may.

But why are some professions endlessly pursuing and promoting equal numbers of men and women working in them, and others aren't?

ancapailldorcha · 03-09-2015 12:25PM

osarusan wrote: »

My daughter's teacher is a man.

Also know another couple of male primary school teachers.

I have heard that the ration of men to women in the job is getting ever more skewed though, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

The last time I looked it was 76% to 24% with more women than men.

The_Valeyard · 03-09-2015 12:26PM

There need a to be more male teachers in primary schools, need a healthy mix of both.

c_man · 03-09-2015 12:32PM

Shelga wrote: »

Why don't they offer incentives to entice men to become primary school teachers, like they do for women in engineering?

Tbh is there any female dominated profession in which there is campaigns/incentives to get males into...?

eviltwin · 03-09-2015 12:35PM

My son's primary school has at least three that I know of, a couple of male SNA's as well. There should be balance but the pay is pretty crap for a new teacher, apart from holidays there isn't much to attract people into it.

kneemos · 03-09-2015 12:37PM

c_man wrote: »

Tbh is there any female dominated profession in which there is campaigns/incentives to get males into...?

Should just keep a few for breeding and kill the rest at birth.

smash · 03-09-2015 12:39PM

c_man wrote: »

Tbh is there any female dominated profession in which there is campaigns/incentives to get males into...?

It's only on the radar of interest groups when it's a high paying job in a male dominated industry.

josip · 03-09-2015 12:39PM

Our son's mixed primary school has all female teachers.
Will a lot of kids then grow up subconsciously thinking that (primary) teaching is a job for females, thus skewing the percentages further?

biko · 03-09-2015 12:40PM

kneemos wrote: »

Should just keep a few for breeding and kill the rest at birth.

"Breed or Death?"

"Eh, breed please."

"Very well! Make him breed!"

"Oh, thanks very much. It's very nice."

c_man · 03-09-2015 12:42PM

kneemos wrote: »

Should just keep a few for breeding and kill the rest at birth.

Right, I'll take that a no then.

Barely There · 03-09-2015 12:44PM

Shelga wrote: »

Why don't they offer incentives to entice men to become primary school teachers, like they do for women in engineering?

They don't offer incentives to women to enter engineering.

Whoever 'they' are.

OneOfThem · 03-09-2015 12:48PM

Balmed Out wrote: »

I think its good for kids to have a mix of male and female teachers.

Why, out of curiosity?

newport2 · 03-09-2015 12:50PM

OneOfThem wrote: »

Why, out of curiosity?

Perhaps to get a more balanced perception of things in life, along with helping to prevent gender stereoptypes from an early age. I also think it would help boys do better in school.

Harry Palmr · 03-09-2015 12:55PM

OneOfThem wrote: »

Why, out of curiosity?

To know that men exist, many fathers are largely absent esp in the working week.

tastyt · 03-09-2015 01:02PM

I know 2 of my friends after completing college who would have loved to go back primary teaching and had honours Irish. Very clever lads with a good temperament for the job. They were made do an oral Irish interview and didn't get a place because of this.

They had the Irish honours but said some of the people ( mostly female ) at these interviews had spent weeks in the gaeltacht preparing for these interviews and that the whole competition was all about the Irish, according to people there who were interviewing for the third and fourth time.

It's a joke of a system that such an outdated language has such a huge effect on the quality of person we get to teach our children.

One eyed Jack · 03-09-2015 01:08PM

newport2 wrote: »

Perhaps to get a more balanced perception of things in life, along with helping to prevent gender stereoptypes from an early age. I also think it would help boys do better in school.

Is everything in life actually balanced? Of course it isn't, so this 'perception' of everything being balanced in life is your own perception really that's at fault. Who's actually guilty of gender stereotyping in spotting these perceived imbalances based on gender in the first place then? Why should anyone be encouraged to go into a career based on their gender and not on their ability or their desire to enter that profession?

Are boys not doing well in school? Is this solely based on their gender? I don't think it is, but you can reduce any argument down like that to the point where it becomes absurd.

Harry Palmr wrote: »

To know that men exist, many fathers are largely absent esp in the working week.

I'm sure children are aware that men exist. I'm absent during the working week, so is my child, because he's in school, where he mixes with other boys and girls and he has both female and male teachers, well, at least those teachers who are present during the working week.

arayess · 03-09-2015 01:09PM

jimgoose wrote: »

About 14% of primary school teachers are male, according the last figures I saw. What of it?

what of it? indeed.

My son had bar one year all female teachers in primary. some good some average and one a complete donkey

the year he had a male teacher he thrived because he could relate to him.
I think young boys need male teachers not every year but some years in their formative education.

NachoBusiness · 03-09-2015 01:13PM

c_man wrote: »

Tbh is there any female dominated profession in which there is campaigns/incentives to get males into...?

I've sent in seventeen job applications for a job as a dancer at Lapellos. Not one reply.

Shelga · 03-09-2015 01:16PM

Barely There wrote: »

They don't offer incentives to women to enter engineering.

Whoever 'they' are.

There are actually, plenty of these incentives. When I was in sixth year, looking to get into engineering, a lucrative scholarship was offered to the girl in the school who got the best Leaving Cert results in maths and science subjects (offered by the Institute of Engineers in Ireland), worth around €10,000 over the 4 years in university. The funding continuing throughout college was subject to her maintaining a 2:1, if I remember rightly.

No such reward was given for a male in the class who averaged, say, 85%.

It struck me at the time as deeply unfair, and I still hold that opinion. Now, 10 years later, I work as a manufacturing engineer and am constantly bombarded with STEM propaganda aimed at luring women into these professions with money and rewards. This is just one such example: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681999/challenging-girls-to-get-involved-in-stem-with-a-10000-incentive

If a nursing course offered a man money for achieving average results, simply because he's a man, and didn't give female students anything, they would rightly be decried as sexist. No such incentives do seem to exist for female-dominated professions; I'm wondering why. Probably because teaching and nursing are seen as vocations and there's not much money to be made in them, whereas the CEOs of private engineering companies need as wide a workforce as they can get, ultimately to increase profits.

I'm a woman, btw.

OneOfThem · 03-09-2015 01:18PM

arayess wrote: »

what of it? indeed.

My son had bar one year all female teachers in primary. some good some average and one a complete donkey

the year he had a male teacher he thrived because he could relate to him.
I think young boys need male teachers not every year but some years in their formative education.

I'd only one male teacher in primary school. For first and second class. A female teacher before that. And two after that. One for maths and another for the other subjects (just how my school did it.) Kicked ass in Maths with that female teacher. She was a bit of a hard bitch, but fair and a really good teacher. Can't say I related to the male teacher too much. Had a cock (presumably - no homo), but beyond that, not really that I was aware of, 50 year old kinda religious guy from Mayo, married with kids, not much to relate to for an 8 year old kid from Tallaght. Well... there was the cock.

This was an all boys school btw. A male teacher had one of the other 2 forth, fifth and sixth classes, when I was in those years. Don't remember them out performing the other classes. When it came to entrance exams for secondary, or that national performance test thing that I remember in forth class.

I dunno, I accept this is all anecdotal. Are there any reliable studies or whatever in relation to students performance as related to the gender matching or differing from their teachers?

newport2 · 03-09-2015 01:20PM

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Is everything in life actually balanced? Of course it isn't, so this 'perception' of everything being balanced in life is your own perception really that's at fault. .

No, everything in life isn't actually balanced and that is not my perception of it. But then that's not what I said, nor does having a balanced perception mean that you see everything as "balanced".

The Randy Riverbeast · 03-09-2015 01:21PM

I'd agree with another person, the amount of women in it probably makes boys think that it's a job for girls. Secondary school doesn't seem to have this issue or at least it isn't as skewed.

Barely There wrote: »

They don't offer incentives to women to enter engineering.

Whoever 'they' are.

There's scholarships and awards offered to women in engineering with the idea being that you do your work placement or project with them so you are more likely to work for that company.

There is a huge demand for women engineers for the reason of being female.

Dirty Dingus McGee · 03-09-2015 01:28PM

Hardly surprising as being a primary school teacher is basically like being a baby sitter at times I would think.

One eyed Jack · 03-09-2015 01:37PM

newport2 wrote: »

No, everything in life isn't actually balanced and that is not my perception of it. But then that's not what I said, nor does having a balanced perception mean that you see everything as "balanced".

Did you mean a perception of 'equality' then? Because I don't think that applies either. Having equal numbers of men and women in any profession isn't in any way useful in giving a person any 'balanced perception', that's simply the perception of gender equality in a given profession.

newport2 · 03-09-2015 01:53PM

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Did you mean a perception of 'equality' then? Because I don't think that applies either. Having equal numbers of men and women in any profession isn't in any way useful in giving a person any 'balanced perception', that's simply the perception of gender equality in a given profession.

Nope. I mean a balanced perspective as in being able to look at things objectively. The bigger the variety of perspectives given to someone getting educated, the more balanced a perspective the person educated will have of things, allowing then to look at things from a variety of angles. Which effectively allows them to see how balanced or unbalanced things in life often are for themselves.

In general men and women can often have quite a different perspective on certain things, so in my opinion it's better that education receives inputs from both of these. You obviously don't agree, so let's just agree to disagree

jimgoose · 03-09-2015 01:57PM

Harry Palmr wrote: »

To know that men exist, many fathers are largely absent esp in the working week.

Which sends the correct message. Fathers go to work and earn money. That's what men do. And rather than getting into yet another Equal Opportunities flap maybe we'd do better to accept that many men simply do not yearn for a job confined to a classroom teaching small children.

Male primary school teachers

Comments