Hello, my name is Mister Teacher, and I am a male teacher.
(Hi, Mister Teacher!)
Ms. Longhorn over at Fractions Speak Louder Than Nerds (funny name!!) has posted about the dearth of the XY chromosome within the education career path. She suggests that kids in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades are actually being done a disservice by having nothing but female teachers. If she were an ad-writer for the profession, this would appear in newspapers all across the country:
Seeking educated male with BA/BS and TeXes certification to work with 5-150 women daily who all eye you like a T-Bone steak anytime you walk into the room. Oh right, and you can change the world by teaching some little'uns too.
I honestly haven't felt like a piece of meat too often over the past four years. At least, not like it was during the teacher certification process, when I was the one guy among 30 girls.
I think that the trend has actually changed a lot in the last 10 years or so. I certainly never had any male teachers in elementary school; the first dude to teach me was my freshman algebra teacher in high school. But I actually teach at an elementary school where there are a lot of males.
When I first started there, there were only 5 or 6 of us that taught a grade level. The PE coach, the music teacher, the computer teacher, and the art teacher were all men, but as for K-6 teachers, there were only a handful. Over the past few years, there has been a lot of turnover at my school, and a lot more men have been hired. If Ms. Longhorn is correct, then this trend is very beneficial to the students at my school. However, I personally had mixed feelings about it, seeing as how each new man was one less possibility for a hot, single girl to fill a spot.
Personal feelings aside, most of the parents, and a lot of the kids are certainly more accustomed to having female teachers. On the very first day of my very first year, I got a couple of comments from parents, telling me, "My child has never had a man teacher before." I really couldn't tell whether they thought this was a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I'm sure their child had also never had a three-headed Martian teacher with no ears before.
I've also had a few students over the years refuse to come into my classroom because they are downright terrified of me. I'm guessing this doesn't happen too often with female teachers.
At any rate, there are certainly a lot of male teachers in the blogging world. For anyone interested, here is a short list:
Ed U. Cater (who actually works with me)
Mike in Texas
IMC Guy
Mr. Chips
KauaiMark
California Teacher Guy
The Smithie
Let's hear it for the men!!
Also, an update on the YouTube Challenge:
A big thank you to Redkudu for getting the ball rolling, but she no longer "pwns" me, which my girlfriend will no doubt be thankful to hear...
Don't miss out on your chance to win a T-shirt!
Updated:
Here are some more blog sites run by male teachers.
Darren
Teaching in the 408
Secondhand Thoughts
So You Want to Teach
