Few Good Men: University Class, research look at lack of male early childhood teachers

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Early in his teaching career, Shaun Johnson felt odd about his career path. Already facing the challenges of any teacher in the Washington, D.C. public school system, he said that during his year teaching, he constantly confronted his inner feelings. “Who am I to have chosen it?” Johnson asked himself. “What’s different about me?”

Outwardly, for Johnson’s work environment, plenty appeared different. As a second-year curriculum and instruction doctoral student, he sported a beard (which he has since shaved). Such maleness is what was different about him when he taught in his elementary school. He found what men who enter early childhood instruction discover: they are virtually isolated.