A couple of years ago I met a male supply teacher in North Norfolk. He told me that when he teaches in primary schools he is often mobbed by the pupils, as he is an example of an increasingly rare breed - the male primary school teacher. David Willetts has drawn attention to this issue by pointing out the male primary school teachers are outnumbered by females by 12 to 1. Perhaps you're thinking this shouldn't matter. I think it does, and for this reason. All academic studies show that for a child to be be brought up in the best possible environment it needs both female and male role models. With so many marriages breaking up and so many children being brought up by lone parents (usually, but not always the mother) some children have hardly any male influences on their lives at all. At least if they have some male teachers that can change.
It seems that men are increasingly put off by poor wages and "paedophile paranoia" according to the Times Educational Supplement. Studies from the US show that boys do better in school when they have male teachers.
I'm not sure what can be done to tackle this growing problem, but it's clearly getting worse.
25 comments:
Don't agree at all, Iain. I went to an all-boys primary school in the 1960's. We didn't have a single male teacher and still had an excellent education. The little towcestarians on the other hand, have had male primary school teachers who have been, without exception, absolutely dire.
Based on my experiences, women seem to make significantly better primary school teachers, and at that tender age, having male role models in the school is probably of no great importance. Mixed gender classes, on the other hand, are a complete disaster for young boys.
Have you found out the ratio of males:females as primary school headteachers?
Interesting isnt it. What would the equal rights people say if that ratio was the other way round?
More can be done in the way of pupil behaviour. A while ago I did a PGCE course. It was dominated by politically correct thinking and I spent more time being quizzed on my attitude to minorities and not one lesson on maintaining discipline.
It was clear then that there was a daily risk of being accused of sexual misconduct by a disgruntled child. I hope your readers have some idea of what that involves and the devastating consequences.
I know that I would be quite capable of putting my arm around an upset child, just as I did with my own kids. These days I would probably be put on the register of sexual offenders for that. I am not even sure you are allowed to touch them.
What sort of messages is this hysteria giving out to kids? Is there any surprise that genuine decent men are not queuing up to work with primary age kids?
This is absolutely spot-on. I have often wondered why male teachers tend to take up Secondary careers, could it be because you are more of a jack of all-trades at Primary level?
An acquaintance of mine has just left the bright lights and the white lines of the London advertising scene to become a teacher out West somewhere. He fancies the nice long holidays etc etc and is counting on his gender being a huge advantage. He is married with two small people of his own, by the way.
Just to say, I agree with Ian, not Towcestarian.
Even little boys need a male role model.
Also, male teachers tend (as a generalisation, of course) to approach things differently. (eg when our local primary school finally got a male teacher, the children learnt how to follow instructions properly. He expected the children to do exactly what they had been asked to do, rather than accepting work which, although good, was not what he had asked for. For many - including my daughter - this was an important lesson!)
There should be more male primary school teachers, but there isn't because of precisely the reasons you mentioned. However, women also tend to react better with children of that age on a daily basis. So whilst there should certainly be a greater balance in the ratio between male and female primary school teachers, there is no need for a 50:50 split.
Great thread Iain. I have a good friend who was going to teach in secondary, and had no real interest teaching in primary. He made a change after a couple of years to a primary in Bristol - an opportunity due to the school having had a poor inspection. He loved it, and even got the kids interested in Shakespeare - not bad for the 'playstation' crowd.
But as you rightly say, only one idiot would need to accuse him maliciously of hitting them / mistreating them / something worse and he would be suspended for months until his name was cleared whereas the kid gets away scot free.
And even then, the innocence would always be questioned as the smear would be difficult to clean up due to the 'no smoke without fire' brigade. There are no easy answers to this, but steps have to be taken to put the teachers back in control.
I think you are right Iain, indeed that it is part of a more widespread problem.
http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=268
Is one of a number of things which suggest that the role of a father figure is even more important than that of a mother in bringing up a civilised adult.
If so the great increase in one parent families, overwhelmingly mother only, is building up a very great social disater. This could arguably account for all the increases in crime over the last few decades.
If so I don't know how to solve it either (tho changing the law to make it not automatic that custody goes to the mother would clearly help) but it should be faced.
My father is a primary school teacher (soon to retire), but he is one of few. I had one male teacher at primary level and he was a long term supply teacher.
It is worrying, especially when you get cabals of lefty loony female teachers... (the sexism towards male teachers can be horrendous).
Interestingly he's the only teacher who bothers to get to know the cleaners and kitchen staff well, and he's remembered by many pupils (who he can't remember) as their best teacher when they bump into him - but that's more to do with his style of teaching (engaging the children, being very tough on them, but very fair and most of all trying to instill a love of learning rather than exam passing - something which makes him a 'failing teacher' in the eyes of Osted...)
Odd that no equality body has waded in ( perhaps its instututional bias ).
Perhaps there should be an A list of potential teachers 50% of which is male regardless of their actual talents ?
(For the record my children's school had a trainee male teacher last year - the rest are women. )
I too would like to see more male teachers in primary schools but it's important to emphasise that the mere fact of their maleness is not necessarily a good thing of itself. It is absolutely vital that they set the best possible example of contemporary adult maleness for the benefit of boys and girls alike. At my younger children's school - which I waxed lyrical about on 18DSt last night - there are have been quite a few good male teachers and the one teaching my eight year-old at present is excellent in every way: he has a nice sense of humour, does sporting activities which ungage the sporty and un-sporty alike, expects high standards, genuinely likes children and is astute in his judgements of individual pupils' personalities and needs. In short, he combines the best of 'traditional' maleness with the most valuable "New Man' traits. These are the kinds of men we need teaching in our schools. How, though, do we recruit more of them?
My daughters primary school - a very large one with two classes of about 30 pupils per year group has two male teachers in the whole school.
In fact there are only three male members of staff full stop.
Each year group has two full time teachers, three lunchtime supervisors and three classroom assistants. On top of the classroom staff there are four admin staff, a janitor and a crossing guard.
There is ONE male teacher, the headmasters a man and the crossing guard (lolly pop man) is as you've guessed it - a man.
Of all the teachers in the school the man (who teaches year four) seems to be the most popular and well thought of - well him and a lolly pop man who gets high fives on the way in from all the lads.
But I don't think this is a completely new thing in primary schools - my primary school had no male teachers at all apart from the headmaster and neither did my wifes.
However there does seem to be a decline in secondary school male teachers which really is a shame. I've got a friend who teaches physics in secondary school, in fact he's one of the only physics teachers in the area with a degree in physics.
From what I've head there really is a fear among male graduates of false sexual descimination claims from disgruntled kids that would destroy their career and life that puts them off going down the teaching route - that's a real shame and loss to the future of Britain.
Perhaps the Department for Education should operate a Priority List which favours male candidates? I understand a similar scheme been a rip-roaring success elsewhere.
The same theory of course could be used to rightly outlaw homosexuals and other sorts from adopting children.
Yes, it's strange how the touchy-feely radical feminist equality & diversity brigade are not making such a big issue of this. After all, they vitually destroyed the British Fire Service with their plans to 'redress the imbalance' because it was almost exclusively white male dominated. Their mantra is that such organisations should 'reflect the society they serve'. The same could be said of the nursing profession - it's almost exclusively female dominated (I have nothing against being dominated by a woman...).
Also, I listened to a Five Live interview earlier this week with someone from the Probation Service and Leo McKinstry. The bold Leo pointed out a little known fact-that two thirds of the PS staff are female. He wondered what had happened to the equality & diversity agenda and all this 'reflecting society' pish. He also suggested this might be a reason why the system is in such a mess...perhaps it needs a more masculine approach (such heresy!)
Finally, this is not a new 'problem'. I managed to get through primary school in the 60s and all my teachers bar one were women...at least I had a good Scots education.
This is a question which used to worry me but which, certainly in the case of my children, has turned out to be a non-problem.
My eldest boy attended a small local primary school where there was no male teacher on the permanent staff (just the occasional supply teacher). He went from there to a huge comprehensive where he adapted to being taught by men with no appreciable difficulty.
His younger siblings (a boy and a girl) attended a larger primary school which had two men on the teaching staff, one of whom was very good, the other rather mediochre.
The upshot is that, in my experience, the gender of primary teachers is much less important than their teaching ability. That said, I would have thought that lack of male teachers must be having an adverse effect on the teaching of some sports at primary level (especially rugby and cricket).
I should perhaps add that my children have all lived with me since my marriage broke up around 5 years ago - so perhaps they've had more than their fair share of a male 'role model'! It would be interesting to know whether any single mums who read your blog feel that their children have benefited from having a male teacher at primary school.
With the probation service, it's probably seen more now as a 'social services' type of job.
My father was a primary school teacher, one of 2 in this school (out of 12 teachers, although the head was a man as well). He agrees that he probably wouldn't want to do the job now, expecially with the danger of being accused of molesation, and the restrictions in the job nowadays.
In some ways woman are more suited the job, as they can provide the mother figure is is important at that age. However it does mean that a lot of children with one lone mother, both girls and boys, do not have any real experience of interaction with male adults, which can cuase issues later in life.
A point rarely made is that men still tend to be the main breadwinners in a household. Primary Schools do not offer much in the way of a career path. For a male Primary teacher progress tends to be slow.
Given that most younger men with growing families are often strapped for cash it's hardly suprising that they are reluctant to take up the challenge of teaching small children. Pay is still quite low compared with what can be earned in industry and commerce. Many (no, not all) female Primary teachers are earning the household's second income.
Why should I care if my child's primary school teacher is a man or a woman - the real concern is whether they are preaching creationist lies to our innocent lambs!!
Fight the Faith
We all know that the plural of anecdote is not data. Nevertheless...
Up to the age of 6, I was educated in a mixed-sex school, by entirely female teachers. The teachers occupied the ecological niche of a substitute mother, and apart from the fact that in the playground all the boys played war and all the girls played house, sex wasn't an issue.
I then moved to an all-boys school, and having seen off the woman teacher we had in the first year (who was a cheerful well-meaning idiot), was taught by roughly a 2:1 ratio of men to women. The best teachers were of maths (a man) and science (a woman), and the worst were geography (a man) and art (a woman).
Enter age 12, and an all-boys senior school with precisely one (young) female teacher, and the bulk of the pupil gossip was concerned with which senior boy was going to be the first to shag her.
My conclusions? For an infant school, I think women tend to have the required skills and men tend not to. For a middle school and senior school, I rather suspect that the ideal is to have good teachers of both sexes, but that it is preferable to have good teachers of one sex than token indifferent teachers of the other.
I fully agree with you Iain.
It is of concern, perhaps you should draw up a A list.
I'll agree, I had a small debate about the Gender Gap in primary schools recently and I believe that boys need male teachers. All primary schools do at the moment is bring out the feminine side of young children and 'hide' the masculine side.
Teachers have a great influence on children subconsiously when you're young.
I spend a few days a week working in a primary school, and from first hand experiance I can say that a male teacjer can have a positive influence on a childs education.
But I can see many more teachers ingeneral abondoning the education system, if Lord adonis has his way of invovling pupils in the interviewing of theachers for job positions.
Post a Comment