Articles

Sekani Malcolm was serving coffee and pastries at Dunkin’ Donuts last month, a 20-year-old high school graduate with no plans to go to college and few aspirations for a solid career. He had struggled in school, where he sometimes found trouble, and he was working the part-time job to help support his 3-month-old daughter.

Training for the profession of teaching, even in 1971, was not the easiest major to enter at Michigan State. When I transferred from Central Michigan as a junior, I was headed into secondary education, as I mentioned in my initial blog entry. After the first term, I decided to switch my major to elementary after several conversations with my oldest brother and his wife, both of whom were teachers.

Last November, Joe and Brandon, two of the male early childhood students attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference and participated in every presentation given by a male educator. These two men were affirmed in their decision to become early childhood teachers because they continually heard how important it is for children to have a male teacher.

A typical work day for East Alabama Medical Center nurse Charles Smith can consist of extreme emergencies, the stabilization of patients, collaborating with co-workers, educating families about medical conditions and anything that has to do with saving a life.

On some days at the intensive care unit, he might even be referred to as "doc."

Rodney McCloud is something of a rarity in the education profession. He’s an African American male educator who teaches a STEM-related class.

Across the country, teaching is considered an overwhelmingly female profession.

According to menteach.org in the Mississippi School Systems, grades k-12, only seventeen percent of teachers are made up of males.

The marines may be looking for a few good men but Mississippi School Systems are in the same position.

For many students in grade school a teacher is usually a Mrs. and if there are men in the school system they work as a bus driver, coach a sport or do vocational work.

To be a teacher, one must have a love for the class room.

Growing up, Summerville teacher ReZsaun Lewis never felt connected with school. He grew up in a rough North Charleston neighborhood and watched his two brothers suffer from poor decisions. Lewis said he, too, might have ended up in jail like one of them, or on a different life path, had his middle school chorus teacher Marianne Williams not taken him under her wing.

“Early childhood education in Ireland at the moment is at a very exciting place,” says David Kenna (29), a “floating” junior manager with Park Academy Childcare, which has eight centres in south Dublin/north Wicklow, including an outdoors nature kindergarten.

“It is all moving towards child-led learning and learning through play; that’s what really appeals to me.”

Adrian Ortiz made more money in Mexico than in the United States, but he’s not complaining.

Recently, I heard Tim McGraw's new song, Humble and Kind. Typically I am skeptical of reading too much emphasis into the lyrics of songs but something about this song keeps tugging at my heartstrings. Take some time to listen to the song here.

and feel free to read the lyrics here.

Recent efforts to break gender barriers in traditionally male-dominated fields present opportunities for women to advance in fields which were previously closed off to them. While there is still work to be done, initiatives such as Girls Who Code or the NYU organization Women In Science suggest there is hope for a female-friendly work environment. However, where there is imbalance in male-dominated professions, there is also an imbalance in female-dominated fields which must be similarly remedied.

[MenTeach: You read more about Tom's work here. And his story here. His blog postings here.

Tom Bedard has spent his career working with the youngest of students at Homecroft Early Learning Center in St. Paul.

"Birth to five years old, I've worked with thousands of children," he said.

Our nation hit two significant milestones in the last two years: for the first time, the majority of U.S. public school students and the majority of U.S. children under the age of five are of color.

Gerald Neff sits on a kindergartner-size table at the front of his classroom on a recent morning and welcomes his class to a new day.

"Morning Georgia! You're wearing a dress. Are you getting married today?" he asks a youngster in a blue frock and pink leggings. "Hey Miles, does your ear still hurt?" he asks a boy who holds a paper towel up to the side of his head.

My daughter Avery's grade five teacher is a bit of an anomaly. Students build different models of paper airplanes to test hang time during the unit on aerodynamics. The kids help choose and order school supplies as an exercise in budgeting and mathematics.