MenTeach E-News
August 2014
1) Column: Men in Early Childhood Education – On the Retreat In Hawaii
2) Ten new University Programs to teach men teachers
3) Why Are There So Few Men in Jewish Nursery School Classrooms?
4) How Boston Public Schools Can Recruit and Retain Black Male Teachers
5) Jefferson welcomes district’s only male kindergarten teacher
6) Childcare should be ‘actively promoted’ as a career for men
7) New teachers, nervous as kindergartners, prepare for the first day of school
8) Men Gather Every Year at Retreat to Learn and Play
9) Male Teachers Needed In Primary Grades
10) Resources: Scholarships, Grants, Awards & Programs
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1) Column: Men in Early Childhood Education – On the Retreat In Hawaii
[MenTeach: This is a column from ten years ago that Don Piburn wrote. It’s still relevant today and Don continues his work recruiting men to teach on a global basis.]
Our Hawaii Affiliate of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) – Men in Education Network Retreat was a resounding success!
By design, the majority of attendees were men who work directly with young childre,n birth through age 8 years old, yet their professional positions and experiences range from PhD’s and teachers of 25 years, to first-year students, teacher assistants, and a long-time doorman at an early childhood center.
Attendee evaluations were filled with descriptive words like “amazing,” “rejuvenating,” and “healing.”
All gratitude belongs to those who pioneered the retreat concept, as we just followed the dots from Bryan Nelson’s NAEYC bulletin: “How to Organize a Retreat for Men.” Read Don Piburn’s editorial from 2004: /node/2481
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2) Ten new University Programs to teach men teachers
The goal of this new initiative is to help institutions increase the percentage of Black and Hispanic men receiving initial teaching certification through education preparation programs. AACTE invited member institutions to apply to join Changing the Demographic Makeup of the Teaching Workforce.
More than 50 member institutions in 25 states applied to be a part of this inaugural NIC and following a rigorous review by the AACTE Committee on Professional Preparation and Accountabilty, AACTE congratulates the following institutions on their selection: /node/2480
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3) Why Are There So Few Men in Jewish Nursery School Classrooms?
It’s circle time in classroom four. Sixteen 5-year-olds sit on the carpet and patiently wait for the weather report. After observing Amsterdam Avenue through the large windows of the JCC in Manhattan’s nursery school, a blond girl in a pink dress announces, “It’s sunny and cloudy.” Her peers seem content with the analysis, and the girl turns to await feedback from her teacher, a 30-year-old man with short hair, a ginger beard and freckles on his arms.
“Very good,” Adam Metzger says. “There’s also a word for it: overcast.”
Once today’s schedule has been discussed (no yoga because the instructor has a baby) and the days left in the spring semester counted (it’s day 37 of 49), it’s finally snack time (a piece of banana and three crackers). Metzger, the co-head teacher, somehow manages to fold shrink his tall frame into a tiny wooden chair as he explains the meaning of “tart” (as in taste) to two boys who discuss what they had for breakfast. Read the article: /node/2482
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4) How Boston Public Schools Can Recruit and Retain Black Male Teachers
Our guest author today is Travis J. Bristol, former high school English teacher in New York City public schools and teacher educator with the Boston Teacher Residency program, who is currently a research and policy fellow at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) at Stanford University.
The challenges faced by Black male teachers in schools may serve as the canary in the coalmine that begins to explain the debilitating condition faced by Black boys in schools. Black males represent 1.9% of all public school teachers yet have one of the highest rates of turnover. Attempts to increase the number of Black male teachers are based on research that suggests these new recruits can improve Black students’ schooling outcomes.
Below, I discuss my study of the school-based experiences of 27 Black male teachers in Boston Public Schools (BPS), who represent approximately 10 percent of all Black male teachers in the district. This study, which I recently discussed in Boston’s NPR news station, is one of the largest studies conducted exclusively on Black male teachers and has implications for policymakers as well as school administrators looking to recruit and retain Black male educators. Read the article: /node/2483
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5) Jefferson welcomes district’s only male kindergarten teacher
Jefferson Elementary School will employ the district’s only male kindergarten teacher this school year.
Grant Jones, 22, will teach about 20 kindergartners when classes begin Aug. 13. He will be the only man among 25 kindergarten teachers.
Jefferson principal Roben Frentzel said Jones is a great guy. She said Jefferson also is home to male teacher Kory Hartinger, who teaches third grade.
Both Jones and Hartinger also coach football. Jones is an assistant coach at Gahanna Lincoln High School, and Hartinger coaches at Middle School South.
Jones said he knew when he was a kid that he wanted to become a teacher. Read the article: /node/2485
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6) Childcare should be ‘actively promoted’ as a career for men
he Government should do more to encourage boys and men to work in the childcare sector, according to a new briefing by the Fatherhood Institute.
The document calls on the Government to require careers advisers to actively promote childcare jobs to boys and men, while supporting girls and women in choosing careers that are not traditionally considered ‘female’.
The institute adds that the exclusion of men and boys from careers in the childcare sector is contributing to the gender pay gap in the UK.
The institute’s joint chief executive Adrienne Burgess said, ‘We believe it is vital that careers guidance programmes begin to appreciate and promote the substantial career opportunities available to boys and men in childcare and related professions. Read the article: /node/2486
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7) New teachers, nervous as kindergartners, prepare for the first day of school
Along with the hundreds of thousands of students heading back to school across the region this week and next, there are hundreds of new teachers, some of them leading a classroom for the first time.
And some of those teachers are just as nervous as the students.
Bryan Curtis, who starts his first teaching job at Greenbelt Middle School in Prince George’s County when school opens Tuesday morning, has been preoccupied for weeks. Questions have been replaying in his mind: How should I manage my classroom? What’s the best way to communicate with parents?
“I’ve been obsessing,” Curtis said. Read the article: /node/2491
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8) Men Gather Every Year at Retreat to Learn and Play
[MenTeach: More and more groups trying to recruit and retain men teachers are developing throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and throughout the world. Here’s an older article about how one group successfully held a retreat for men that work with young children].
In the morning, in a circle on the floor, the men recite a series of children’s rhymes. Later, in the afternoon, they go outside for a rough-and-tumble game of broomball. The action resembles other winter games men play in northern climates, yet when one of the men is knocked down, all the other players stop to ask, “Hey, are you okay?” If the man says yeah, the play continues.
For almost 20 years, a group of men who work with young children and families have been gathering to learn new nursery rhymes, play broomball, and talk about the importance of men in the lives of children and families. The Men in Child Care and Elementary Education Winter Retreat is held every February at a resort near a frozen lake in northern Minnesota. Men from all over the Midwest come together to talk about their lives and their work in early and elementary education.
Read more about the book: /node/91
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9) Male Teachers Needed In Primary Grades
Often, when we think about the fields of elementary education, early childhood education, special education and even English, we tend to think about them as being female-dominated. Having a specific gender committed to these professions is wonderful, but poses a major problem for our public educational system.
Why is this a problem? Numerous households in America are run by single mothers. To many children, especially in urban areas, do not have a positive father figure and role model to whom they can relate — that is the problem. Sometimes, if parents are absent, those students rely on their teachers to provide the guidance and stability of a missing parent. Even though women have a very important place in primary-level classrooms, men have an equally important role to play as well. /node/2492
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10) Resources: Scholarships, Grants, Awards & Programs
There seems to be a growing number of options to get funding to become a teacher. There are programs to enroll in to become a teacher, for example, Teach for America or Richmond Teacher Residency (RTR) Program or Call Me Mister, and there are loan forgiveness programs, awards and scholarships. If you know of any others, please let us know so we can share it with others.
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