The endangered male teacher

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2010-10-20 01:56

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new study says male elementary teachers live in a steady state of anxiety, with 13 per cent reporting they had been wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with students. Part 2 of a six-part series.

The male elementary teacher is the spotted owl of the education system, the leatherback turtle, the Beluga.

His presence is so endangered that in many public schools his numbers can be counted on a single hand. In some schools, it requires no hands at all.

“It is now possible for a child in Canada to go through elementary school and high school and never see a male at the front of the class,” says Jon Bradley, an associate professor of education at McGill University, where men make up just five per cent of the elementary teachers in training.'

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'Rosemary Tannock, a psychologist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, doesn't buy the idea of school boys in crisis. She doesn't believe their poor performance reflects a feminized education system but suggests that current testing methods are not an accurate way to gauge how well boys are learning. While she thinks that having more male teachers would be valuable for girls and boys, she says that “gender makes no difference [to academic performance] –it's the quality of the teaching."'

What absolute twisted garbage. So there is this expansive problem facing boys including national tests, grades, participation, dropout, enrolment and she tries call it a simple testing bias...

Ok lets run with that statement. If there is widespread testing bias against boys creating that kind of margin then you would expect teaching methods to be baised against boys too. Evaluation and teaching are part and parcel. Add to that a testing bias sets up a hostile environment to boys.

The boy crisis cannot be denied or written off.

It is very strange for her to say that boys operate differently (testing) but to say that the sex of the teacher makes no difference in the teaching and learning process. I'd guess that the sex of the teach is an aspect that matters and that having only female teaching hurts education. I usually don't believe in quotas but this is about doing the job at hand and giving boys what they are owed, proper education and development.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Wed, 2010-10-20 04:56

my friends (couple) and i were headed for an event, but we had to stop by
my best friend's wife's school (she was the principal) and get some papers or something. so while we waited i looked around. that elem. school was totally feminine. there were doillies and frillies and such everywhere. i remarked about it and she said she had no idea what i was talking about.

i pointed at the feminine decorations around the doorwar as evidence when we pulled away by remarking that little boys have to tell other kids that is their school. she acted sort of offended. if the bunch i grew up with had, when i was that age, seen me going into that school, well, it wouldn't have been pretty. believe that if you believe nothing else i say.

for my friend's sake, i let it go; but, it did show me the heart of the problem.
its not about the little boys, and what is best for them. as usual, it is about...

well, you know.

boy's need men around. girls do too. its just natural. this p.c. crap has gotten waaaay out of hand.

nuttinu - ssdd

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Submitted by daveinga on Fri, 2010-10-22 02:18