MenTeach E-News
August 2013
1) Male teachers serving as role models at Rockford daycare centers
2) Teacher believes no job is more important than teaching
3) Men in the classroom: Back to the basics of primary
4) Program Puts Dads in Classroom
5) Azerbaijani women prevail over men in teaching
6) Women teachers on the rise in Congo, Africa
7) Ireland: More men returning to primary teaching
8) Shanghai’s male kindergarten principal is a class act
9) Men act as great role models in nursery settings
10) Male Teachers Get Top Marks: Children have a better perception of male teachers
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1) Male teachers serving as role models at Rockford daycare centers
In a career field dominated by women, male daycare teachers are making a difference in the lives of Rockford children.
Women make up 94.7 percent of all childcare workers, according to the January 2011 Household Data Annual Averages report by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. This disparity creates unique challenges for those daycare centers that employ male teachers, including Rockford centers Kindercare, Trinity Day Care, and Circles of Learning.
Shane Wernick, a teacher at Circles of Learning, has worked in the field for six years. He got interested in the field in high school. Throughout his time at Circles of Learning, he has found that children adapt as well to having a male daycare teacher as they would anyone else. Read the article: /node/2243
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2) Teacher believes no job is more important than teaching
Schoolchildren in Crawley could be growing up with a lack of male role models in their lives.
Less than a quarter of teachers in town are male and four Crawley schools have no male teachers whatsoever.
An independent report has said that, nationally, many children are in “man deserts” with one in four state primary schools having no full-time qualified male teacher. One male Crawley teacher, however, has sung the praises of his profession and hopes to encourage more men into teaching.
Euan Hanington (pictured above), who is assistant head of Southgate Primary School, has been teaching for 16 years. Read the article: /node/2245
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3) Men in the classroom: Back to the basics of primary
When Henry Yahn originally wanted to go into teaching, he wanted to teach high school physical education.
That’s a long way from where he is today – where he’s having not only lots of fun, but also where he’s finding lots of satisfaction.
Yahn teaches Grade 1.
“It’s neat to take them through (the transition),” said Yahn, noting Grade 1 is a time when youngsters, who enjoyed the play-based kindergarten program, encounter a new reality. They learn to sit and focus for longer periods, do sheets of work, and master the basics of reading and math.
“(They go) from not reading at all and just start to bloom. There’s a huge academic growth. It’s rewarding and it’s challenging.” Read the full story: /node/2247
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4) Program Puts Dads in Classroom
Tim Bullock is one of the DOGS.
He doesn’t bark or chase cars, but he’s there if a kid needs a little help spelling a word or solving a math problem.
The acronym stands for Dads Of Great Students, and Bullock is one of more than 20 men who are part of the program at New London Elementary.
The idea is to give students positive male role models. In a school where 40 percent of the 192 students in grades pre-kindergarten through fifth don’t have a father at home, the effort has proven successful.
Bullock, who retired as a corporal after a decade in the Army and two tours of Iraq, now works for a private security company in the Middle East and is gone for two months at a time. He is the stepfather of fourth-grader Bryson Murphy.
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5) Azerbaijani women prevail over men in teaching
The Ministry of Education has cited the reasons for the number of male teachers being below that of female teachers in the secondary schools of Azerbaijan.
Besides the salary, the small number of men involved in teaching is being influenced by other factors related to business activity and other issues, the ministry said on August 20.
It says that currently the vast majority of teachers who work in schools – 76.27 percent – are women. The number of women who sought jobs in schools was 70 percent in 2013.
“The dominance of women among secondary school teachers is typical for all countries, including Azerbaijan,” the statement reads. “However, studies of the psychological impact of this factor (positive or negative) on the students and their behavior were not conducted. Therefore, it is wrong to unambiguously regard the prevalence of female teachers in schools as a negative instance.”
Read the article: /node/2251
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6) Women teachers on the rise in Congo, Africa
At the Itsali primary school, on a dusty road near Brazzaville’s airport, all but one of the 20 teachers are women, a sign of the major gender shift in the Republic of Congo’s educational system over the past two decades.
The small school employs almost exclusively women, from its directors and teachers to administrators and secretaries.
“It is rare to ever find even five male members of teaching staff here,” said Rachel Mfina, who has been working at Itsali since the school was founded in 2003.
At Itsali, conditions are basic. Since there is not enough space to hold separate classes at the same time, lessons take place in five-hour-long “shifts” — one from early in the morning and another from 12:30 pm — while the school yard serves as a shortcut for locals.
But the teachers are enthusiastic. For 25-year-old Gloire Louzolo, who joined Itsala at the beginning of the 2012-2013 academic year, teaching has always been her vocation.
Read the article: /node/2254
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7) Ireland: More men returning to primary teaching
That rare thing in primary education – a male teacher – will be more in evidence this morning as new junior infants and their classmates troop into school. There has been a persistent drift of men back into primary school teaching after decades of domination of the profession by women.
Unfortunately this gender imbalance is not matched when it comes to apportioning senior posts within the school system. Men still greatly outnumber women in these posts.
The proportion of female students entering the two main primary teacher colleges, St Patrick’s in Drumcondra, Dublin, and Mary Immaculate in Limerick, has been in slow decline since 2005, according to figures from the Higher Education Authority. Read the article: /node/2256
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8) Shanghai’s male kindergarten principal is a class act
Zhu Jun’s first semester as a kindergarten principal has come to an end, leaving him feeling exhausted yet enlightened.
“The semester was really rewarding, because I accumulated a great deal of experience. But I feel a bit tired,” the 29-year-old says.
Zhu, who is Shanghai’s first male graduate of preschool education studies, has also become the city’s first male kindergarten principal with a professional education background.
“When I was a teacher, I only needed to take care of my class,” he says. Read his story: /node/2258
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9) Men act as great role models in nursery settings
Men in childcare are great roles models for children missing a father figure in their life, according to male nursery nurse Simon Austin.
Simon is a nursery nurse at the Walton-le-Dale setting of Carr Manor nursery and represents one of only 3% of males within the early years sector.
As the only male worker at his setting, Simon feels that he sometimes has more authority over the children than other female workers due to his gender.
“Some of the children are more favourable to me compared with the other female nurses. They see me as a figure of authority and listen to me, when sometimes they would react differently to female workers.
“Some can be a little hesitant towards me at first, but others think it’s cool that I’m a male nursery worker! I think I can be a good role model for some of the children who don’t have a father figure in their lives.” Read the article and the many comments: https://www.menteach.org/node/2260
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10) Male Teachers Get Top Marks: Children have a better perception of male teachers
In today’s world, as taxpayers everywhere are concerned over paying for schools, it comes as a shock to see that, according to new findings by Amine Ouazad, an Assistant Professor of Economics and Political Science at INSEAD, one of the most effective ways to get students to listen and work hard is to put a male teacher at the front of the classroom.
Ouazad, in collaboration with the University of Westminister, originally sought to understand whether pupils’ perceptions can explain differences in effort, motivation and educational achievement. What they found was that children have a better perception of male teachers; they try harder and think that male teachers will grade them more fairly.
“Actually, surprisingly, what we saw is that students have better perceptions of male teachers, but that male teachers are not rewarding students more than female teachers. So there is a disconnect between what students perceive and what teachers do,” says Ouazad. “We have seen that male teachers actually induce far more effort, much more investment and that is a good thing.” Read about the research: /node/1607
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