MenTeach E-News
July 2021
1) California Legislative effort to hire more men of color as teachers
2) Male Teachers Share Advice for Getting More Men Into the Profession
3) A Black male preschool teacher is rare. He wishes it wasn’t
4) Breaking the gender barrier in childcare in New Zealand
5) Male teachers needed at Chinese kindergartens
6) For first time, more women teachers in schools than men in India
7) Sorority Makes $6,000 Donation to University of Virgin Islands With Aim of Attracting More Male Educators to Classrooms
8) ‘Have I chosen the right career?’: New teachers reflect on their first year
9) Tips for recruiting men into early years workforce in the United Kingdom: ‘childcare is not just a woman’s job’
10) Promising Practices: How a network of male teachers of color expanded leadership opportunities
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1) California Legislative effort to hire more men of color as teachers
For many students, the reflection of the face staring back at them in the classroom can be indicative of success, according to California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. He supports Assembly Bill 520.
“The research has shown us for years that there are benefits to students of color when there’s at least just one educator of color on a campus,” Thurmond said Tuesday.
AB 520, or California Diversifying the Teacher Workforce Grant Program, would set aside $15 million to recruit and retain male teachers of color.
Department of Education’s numbers show students of color make up 75% of California’s student population, yet Black male teachers make up just 1% of that workforce.
“This demographic mismatch can drive inequities in educational and academic outcomes,” said Assemblymember Mike Gipson, who authored the bill. Watch the video:
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2) Male Teachers Share Advice for Getting More Men Into the Profession
“It takes some degree either of social ignorance or of personal courage for a man to enter teaching at the elementary school level,” wrote education professor George I. Brown in a 1960 Phi Delta Kappan article about recruiting more men to the teaching profession. For a man to teach “is to spit in the face of a strong societal stereotype.”
More than 60 years later, these assertions may seem vastly outdated. But females continue to outnumber males in K-12 classrooms by about 3 to 1, and stereotyping persists.
“When I started teaching I was thought of as a lumbering football coach,” said Nick Schloeder, a 5th grade teacher at the all-boys Gilman School in Baltimore, Md., and offensive line coach for Johns Hopkins University’s football team. “They see a big male teacher. They don’t see him as being sensitive, well-read, thoughtful.”
Like many male elementary teachers around the nation, 28-year veteran teacher Schloeder has just one or two male colleagues—a dynamic he says hasn’t changed much over the years. It also seems to reflect nationwide numbers. Males made up 25 percent of all K-12 teachers during the 1999-2000 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics; in 2017-18, that number was 24 percent. Go to website: /node/3643
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3) A Black male preschool teacher is rare. He wishes it wasn’t
Walk into any child care or preschool center and what are you going to see other than small kids, toys, blocks and books?
Well, female teachers. There’s an absolute dearth of men in the field. Like, a big-time absence.
Estimates of men in early childhood teaching jobs range from 1% to 6%, with most guesses closer to the first number.
Meet Danny Darby, who’s ahead of his time, 40 years ahead. He’s a guy, he’s Black, and he’s a longtime preschool teacher, which makes him sort of a unicorn in the industry. He will retire on Tuesday as the curriculum coordinator at the Georgia State University Child Development Center after being hired there in 1981.
Former teachers at the center and his old students, some of whom are now pushing middle age, remember him as a “gentle giant” in a shirt and tie who was the guy to call in to calm an infant who would not stop wailing. Former students remember being exposed to all sorts of things at the school, such as reading, presentations about the Chinese New Year and Hanukkah, and lessons on how to resolve their problems. Read the article: /node/3646
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4) Breaking the gender barrier in childcare in New Zealand
On a scale of All Black to astronaut, “kindergarten teacher” is unlikely to make the cut on most Kiwi boys’ dream career wishlists.
In New Zealand, early childhood education is traditionally a female-dominated sector where men make up just 2 per cent of the workforce, according to Child Forum.
This comes as no surprise to Joseph Pomana – long accustomed to being mistaken for just another “dad” at the Palmerston North kindergarten where he works.
Pomana, a reliever teacher at Roslyn Kindergarten, is one of two men in a pool of about 200 early childhood teachers working in the Ruahine Kindergarten Association’s centres – and he loves his job.
“Kids are just brutally honest. Basically anything they say or do comes straight from the heart and there’s no half-measures with them. When they are happy they are delirious; when they are sad they are just heart-broken.”
Pomara is a rarity in more ways than one. After he and his wife, Brenda, started their family, she went back to work and he stayed at home with their three daughters. Read the article: /node/3650
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5) Male teachers needed at Chinese kindergartens
It’s that time of the year again, when millions of college graduates in China brace themselves for the brutally competitive job market. But if you’re a male graduate, at least one profession welcomes you with open arms.
A young man, in a traditionally female profession.
Liu Qiang graduated from college this year and holds a black belt in Taekwondo. He’s been interning at this kindergarten in Northeast China since last year, and intends to make it a full-time job.
Liu Qiang, intern of Harbin Shangzhi kindergarten, said, “This profession is in urgent need of men. Male teachers are very popular.”
His male colleague Wang Zhongshan says he decided to stay, not because he’s needed, but because he loves what he does.
Wang Zhongshan, intern of Harbin Shangzhi kindergarten, said, ” This is what I enjoy doing. I love kids.”
Male teachers are rare at Chinese preschools, rarer at kindergartens in China. With five campuses, 1800 students and 320 teachers and staff, this kindergarten in Harbin has just six male teachers. Read the article: /node/3651
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6) For first time, more women teachers in schools than men in India
For first time, more women teachers in schools than men in India outnumber their male counterparts, according to the Unified District Information on School Education report for 2019-20. Of the 96.8 lakh teachers in the country, 49.2 lakh are women.
In 2012-13, there were 35.8 lakh women teachers across India against 42.4 lakh men — marking a rise of 37% over seven years. In the same period, the number of male teachers rose from 42.4 lakh to 47.7.
There is a catch, though, women teachers top the head count only at the primary level. The report points out that upper primary onwards, the number of male teachers remains higher. At the pre-primary level, there are over 1 lakh women teachers to 27,000 men. In Karnataka, 57% or 2,57,790 of the 4,50,592 teachers are women.
The ratio is more balanced in primary grades, with 19.6 lakh women and 15.7 lakh male teachers. In upper primary classes, there are 11.5 lakh male and 10.6 lakh women teachers. From then on, the gap increases. In secondary schools, there are 6.3 lakh men and 5.2 lakh women teachers. In higher secondary, it’s 3.7 lakh men and 2.8 lakh women. In government and aided schools, the number of male teachers is higher, while in private unaided schools, women teachers are ahead. Read story: /node/3652
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7) Sorority Makes $6,000 Donation to University of Virgin Islands With Aim of Attracting More Male Educators to Classrooms
The St. Thomas Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority made a $6,000 donation on Thursday, June 24, to the Geraldine Heath Scholarship with the aim of attracting more male educators to classrooms, the University of the Virgin Islands has announced.
Established at UVI in 2008, the four-year scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate male education major enrolled at the institution of higher learning.
Immediate Past President Dr. Karen Brown and Immediate Past Vice President Pamela V. Berkeley of the St. Thomas Alumnae Chapter presented Dr. Alfred Health with the check at the Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library on Orville E. Kean Campus on St. Thomas. The Geraldine Heath Scholarship was created in honor of his late wife.
“I know that if she was here today, she would want me to say thank you and I am saying thank you very very much,” Dr. Heath exclaimed. Geraldine Heath was one of the founding members of the St. Thomas Alumnae Chapter, established on May 28, 1988. Read the story: /node/3655
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8) ‘Have I chosen the right career?’ New teachers reflect on their first year
From group bubbles to virtual classrooms, it was a strange year to be starting out in school. How did they cope?
It is nearly a year since the Guardian met three newly qualified teachers entering the classroom for their first full-time jobs. Excited, nervous, idealistic, all three saw teaching as a vocation, helping to support the next generation.
But what a year. Newly qualified to teach just as the Covid-19 pandemic was changing everything, they have been through a baptism of fire. They have had to manage virtual teaching, year group bubbles, and strict rules for hygiene and the use of equipment.
The two who were secondary teachers were like pack-horses, lugging their books and equipment around school, taking lessons to students until the end of the last term, when they finally got their own classrooms. There were different challenges in primary schools, where teachers could easily feel isolated in their own class bubbles. So how do they feel it went? Read the story: /node/3657
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9) Tips for recruiting men into early years workforce in the United Kingdom: ‘childcare is not just a woman’s job’
Recruitment remains one of the biggest challenges for the sector to solve, and a pressing issue is balancing the gender of the early years workforce, of which just four per cent are men.
Addressing the sector’s recruitment issues is important to ensure we have enough well qualified staff to keep the sector viable. An important part of resolving this involves resetting the gender balance, by encouraging more men to join the sector.
At the very core of this issue, is the lack of men who consider the sector as a viable route. Possibly the most causal factor of the gender disparity is the inherent notion that ‘childcare is a woman’s job’.
To address this, there needs to be a fundamental shift within society which emphasises the importance of early years educators, and highlights their role in children’s development.
Making career pathways clear is an important way to encourage men into the sector.
Read the article: /node/3661
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10) Promising Practices: How a network of male teachers of color expanded leadership opportunities
The Compton Male Teachers of Color Network is helping its district strengthen professional problem-solving skills and empower educators.
The district: The Compton Unified School District in California is located near Los Angeles and serves nearly 26,000 students. Students classified as Hispanic comprised 81.9% of the student body, and students identifying as Black were 16.9% of the student population, according to 2017 data from the U.S. Civil Rights Data Collection. More than 85% of students received free or reduced-price lunches.
The district’s graduation rate has been improving and was 87.1% in 2019, up 3.6% from the year before, according to state data.
The challenge: CUSD wanted to strengthen efforts to recruit, retain and promote male African American, Latino and Asian teachers who serve as effective and positive role models.
Nationally, public school teachers are overwhelmingly female and white. Only 24% of public school teachers were male in 2017–18, with fewer male teachers at the elementary school level (11%) than at the secondary school level (36%), according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. Teachers who classify as a race other than white, or as two or more races, make up only about 21% of the public elementary and secondary school teachers nationally, NCES data shows.
At CUSD schools, there was a desire to help male teachers of color build their skills and confidence in vying for leadership positions. Too often, male teachers of color only see themselves, or others see them, as father figures or disciplinarians but not curriculum or fiscal experts, mentors to other teachers or instructional directors, said Travis Bristol, assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, who helped create the Compton Male Teachers of Color Network in 2018. Read the article: /node/3664
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