Should government develop a plan to attract more men to the teaching profession?

[Rage for Order]

I was reading http://www.sunherald.com/2011/01/22/2798569/male-teachers-in-the-minority.html">this article and came across an amazing statistic: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 18 percent of teachers in elementary and middle schools are male. The inverse, of course, means that 82% of teachers in elementary and middle schools are women. 82%! When we were told of the large imbalance of men vs. women in fields like science, law enforcement, engineering, the military, etc. it was seen as something that needed to be addressed and various outreach plans were developed to reduce the discrepancy between the sexes. Well, here we have one of the largest such discrepancies and nobody seems to be talking about it. So what do you think? Should a concerted effort be made to encourage more men to enter the teaching profession, especially in lower grade levels?

From the article:

Bryan Nelson is the founding director of menteach.org, a Web site that works to promote hiring men and minorities in K-12 schools. He worked as a teacher and an administrator before attending Harvard, where he did research about why there aren’t more male teachers.

Nelson’s research showed there were three main reasons men weren’t drawn to the teaching profession: stereotypes, fear of false accusations and low status and pay.

Nelson said there’s a stereotype that men aren’t nurturing and so they can’t be teachers.

“There’s a message in our society that nurturing isn’t valuable,” he said.

He added that some men fear they will be accused of wanting to be close to young children for the wrong reasons and that’s why they don’t go into teaching. Also, the pay tends to be less for teachers than administrators. If a man is the breadwinner in the family, he may choose to be an administrator even though he loves teaching.

Nelson said in order to steer more male college students toward teaching, he believes the climate needs to change and that schools should embrace different teaching methods that accommodate male and female teachers.

“Children need strong men in their lives every day,” he said. “We want a good teacher, and we want students exposed to a variety of teachers.”

[seabeyond]

1. i agree we need more men in early teaching. it is not the system keeping them out. the system

understands there is a lack and need and i have read much on adms in areas looking for ways to encourage and get men in elementary teaching. it has to do with societal conditioning. work on those. encourage men to go into lower grades. you would have to increase pay for ALL to encourage mans desire to work in areas (and that isn't going to happen).

but the articles i have read, adm are trying to encourage men into the lower grades.

[bettyellen]

2. yeah, pay them well. they don't want the jobs as it stands now

[dkf]

3. False accusations even at the elementary level?

I know male high school teachers have got to be on their toes about this but this seems extreme.

[customerserviceguy]

5. The smallest children are the most vulnerable to molesters

It would not surprise me that someone so inclined would try to get to be a teacher at the elementary level. Unfortunately, that makes every man who has the highest motivations suspect, but I really don't see any way around that.

Also, look at what happens when teachers get busted for having sex with students at the high school level. The men get the book thrown at them (which is how it should be) while the women get much lighter sentences, especially the "pretty" ones. When you see all the sick idiots out there who think that Mary Kay Letourneau is just some love story rather than an abuse of power, then you start to see why men feel there are better options than teaching.

[customerserviceguy]

4. Don't we already have enough people in the teaching profession?

What's the point in attracting more? I would imagine that women have been motivated out of going into teaching by the wide range of jobs that went from being traditionally male-only to being open to both genders, and if that still leaves a lot who want to be teachers, then that's OK by me.

[treestar]

6. No. Let people pick their own professions

why would it make a difference whether a teacher is male or female? Or any other profession?

[JackDragna]

9. I'll play Devil's advocate here.

It's not that it matters on a case-by-case basis whether teacher X is male or female. The idea is that we're sending messages to kids, and to society as a whole, by who we encourage to teach. There are still plenty of people who think teaching is "women's work," something that should be done by a person who is unmarried and only in the workforce for a short time or who is earning a supplemental income for a family. There's a stigma that men are just bad with young children and aren't good role models until high school (and sometimes not even then) and shouldn't bother. I've also encountered, as a male teacher, the social stigma that comes with being a teacher: as a man, I'm expected to do more important, vital things with my time than waste it on children that aren't my own. I should be out there earning millions as a lawyer or doctor or financial consultant or some other "brainy" job.
I think it'd be good for there to be more male teachers, not because I think anyone of a particular gender does a better job, but as part of a larger cultural shift away from treating the profession as a glorified babysitting position.

[snot]

7. Good question. But for me, higher priority to work on retaining women in professions where they're

under-rep'd.

[JackDragna]

8. Yes, we do, but not merely to get male teachers.

We need better teachers overall. The things that will make teaching more attractive as a profession will attract everyone, regardless of gender. I'm a male teacher and I still get disapproving clucks of the tongue from some of my family members and friends about my career choice, that I'm somehow letting myself down by not taking a job that would pay more.