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Friday, July 20, 2007

Quien es muy macho?

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

9 comments:

KauaiMark said...

I've had a few "fearful" kinders balk at seeing me instead of their regular teacher at the door. but they usually warm up after a while.

Anyway here are a few "guys" you forgot!
http://roomd2.blogspot.com/

And you forgot Darren at
http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/

Ms. Longhorn said...

Wooo let's hear it for the men! You guys are a breath of fresh air when I deal with hormonal women all day long.. Yes I know I am one of them and I'm sure people get sick of me too!

Who says that spot that is vacated by high teacher turnover is going to be filled by someone hot? LOL!!

Anonymous said...

I am male and I will be a social studies/geography/history teacher in 3 yrs

Mike in Texas said...

My school currently only has one male classroom teacher. The other males on campus are myself and the two P.E. coaches.

I was on the interview committee for 4 years and we never once even had a male applicant.

Mister Teacher said...

Mark, thanks for the input!
Eric, welcome, thanks for the comment, and good luck on achieving your goal!
Mike, it's no wonder, because you live in BFE!!! hehehe

Anonymous said...

For what it's worth, I am also a male teacher who blogs...

There are far more males involved in the secondary and administrative levels than there are in the elementary levels. I think it might possibly be the more competitive nature of secondary classes that draws men to those classes. Especially true in electives and athletics.

Smithie said...

There are definitely more men at the high school level than middle and elementary school. In the middle school in which I taught I was one of four males in a school of 650 students. In my current high school we are split almost exactly 50/50.

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Thanks for the line in your roundup of male teachers in the blogosphere!

Anonymous said...

You can also see additional information about men teaching at this site:

MenTeach - Recruiting male teachers for education