Editorials

Career & Education shares with you this week the thoughts of Vivienne Turnbull concerning the value of male teachers in the classroom and how Jamaica could, potentially, attract more men to help educate and mentor the island's boys. Turnbull is an image and communications consultant.

WHEN I attended high school and college, there was no shortage of male teachers in the classroom. I suspect this had a positive impact on students, especially males.

Sometimes on quiet days (or when we want a distraction from all the work we have) we'll do a search on the internet about male teachers, men teachers, or this time "male teacher training programs."

How do we define culture and specifically what is a "male" culture - what are the qualities of a classroom and activities that are "male?" Is there a "female" culture? Isn't the idea of "male" and "female" changing all the time?

Here is one man's response:

The 2008 Working Forum (WF) on Men in Early Childhood Education (MECE) Honolulu was an incredible success. Like most everyone who assisted in the planning for the event, I know we all had some digging out to do. I received many personal expressions of appreciation regarding the WF MECE Honolulu from WF MECE attendees. Every single one of the comments I have received to date have been positive.

Here is an example:

I know we should be posting photos and daily reports about the event - after all it IS the first of its kind in history. But it's been unbelieveably full. From early morning until late at night.

I'll just list a few highlights and come back later to give a fuller report.

Are girls really out pacing boys in education?

[MenTeach: This is an interesting blog posting from the UK.]

It's been a good week for news about this. A report in the Observer takes another look at a familiar question: why are there so few men in primary and nursery education?

Some of my best friends are men. More importantly, some of my best teacher friends--sounding boards, inspirations and educational soul mates--are men. But men are a diminishing force in teaching, a distinct cause for alarm when you consider that half the pool of prospective teachers is men.

We have had the opportunity to look at many studies over the years and appreciate the challenges of conducting quality research.

One study published in Sex Roles concludes that boys don't benefit from having male teachers reading to them.

Is this a correct conclusion based on this study?

There are many ways to recruit more men to be teachers.

Start a large public awareness campaign
There needs to be constant, pervasive messages about the importance of men teaching children. Every media needs to show positive images of men teaching or telling stories about the value and significance of men teaching. Newspapers, magazine, television, the internet, movies and radio all need to help to shift people's perception that teaching is women's work.

In the past, people would complain to me that they couldn't find male teachers. With the internet and wider communication, you'll find more and more blogs written by male teachers. It's unlikely to be the most representative sample of male teachers and they vary in content and quality. They do however provide an interesting sample of what is being written by men in the classrooms.

Another movie about a male teacher will come out in the future starring Jack Black (he also starred School of Rock - 2003). In this new movie he will be a teacher that finds that he has magical powers like a witch and is recruited to attend a school for witches (a la Harry Potter) but the school is for all women.

Since the NBC Nightly News report and the Newsweek article there's been a flurry of messages posted to the Forum. Some veteran teachers share that they are unable to get jobs. Each of their stories is different but several feel that they are being discriminated against and not even getting an interview.

Some are saying that keeping salaries low is one of the reasons because more experienced teachers cost more.

Some are saying it has to do with ageism.

What do you think and more importantly - What do you think is the solution?