MenTeach E-News
July 2022
1) Editorial: Eight-year-old author takes other children on an adventure of a lifetime
2) Around 30% Of Teachers Are Males In Fiji
3) ‘Black Men Teach Cleveland’ campaigns to encourage men of color to become teachers
4) Normandale rebrands program to train Black male teachers
5) Strong influences help mold 2022 U.S. Teacher of the Year
6) New Jersey College Scholarship Aids Future Black Male School Teachers
7) Just a quarter of a city teachers are men in United Kingdom
8) Grambling State University, in Louisiana, hosted first ever Call Me Mister Conference to develop more black male educators
9) Men in United Kingdom ‘face prejudice when working in childcare’
10) Meet Ireland’s male pre-school teachers keen to banish gender stereotypes
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1) Editorial: Eight-year-old author takes other children on an adventure of a lifetime
While the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged our world in 2021, Praise B. Nelson gained a new appreciation for animal companionships and deepened the relationship with her German Shepherd Dog friend (Aslan). Lockdowns also gave her new appreciation for friendships because she missed going on adventures with friends.
Having lost two beloved aunts that year (non-Covid related), Praise had ample opportunity to reflect, to get sick, get healed, and channel her love for writing. She wondered about the possibility of planets inhabited by wise animals who knew more than a thing or two about medicine, science, and engineering, and she decidedly parlayed her love for adventure, storytelling, animals, and science into a book the likes of which has never been seen before. Big Little Wonders: A collection of never-told-before adventures is a delightfully told, beautifully illustrated, and moral-driven anthology book for middle-grade adventurers, teaching kids some important life lessons while keeping them entertained for hours. Praise introduces us to tinkering, engineering cats that attend MIT, planet-hopping buddies, and a continent where tuna fish is plenty, and cats are acrobats and 911 operators. With wisdom for one so young, she writes about gratitude, space missions, science and shows us why sisters are the best. She emphatically states this is a book of anthropomorphism adventures for adventurers. In her words, “I love, love, love to write stories. I also love drawing animals, playing my guitar, writing songs, and playing basketball. Of course, not all at once.” Read the editorial: /node/3683
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2) Around 30 % Of Teachers Are Males In Fiji
Get your sons and grandsons to work hard in school and earn a teaching profession because there is a shortage of male teachers.
That was the message echoed by the Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Premila Kumar, during a talanoa session with school managers in Ovalau earlier this week.
While responding to queries from concerned managers regarding the teacher-gender imbalance, the minister said 69 per cent of teachers in the education system were female.
Around 30 per cent of teachers in the country are males.
Ms Kumar was told that sometimes the students were disrespectful to the female teachers.
She then reminded the school managers that respect started from home and that was where students needed to be taught the value of respecting women.
“Women are mothers, they raise children, they know better than anyone else. Whether they are running the school, running the kitchen or they are running the country. They are doing a good job and let us not underestimate women,” she said. Read the story: /node/3689
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3) ‘Black Men Teach Cleveland’ campaigns to encourage men of color to become teachers
Diversity in the classroom is a matter close to the hearts of many educators.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about eight in 10 U.S. public school teachers, or 79%, identified as non-Hispanic white during the 2017-18 school year. Less than 7% identify as Black and only 24 % are male.
In Cleveland, just 2% identify as Black males.
All the while, the demographics of school districts including here in Northeast Ohio are far more diverse, with populations of Black, Hispanic and Asian American students increasing rapidly—making up nearly half the classroom.
The push to diversify educators is now in full swing.
An organization called “Black Men Teach Cleveland” recently teamed up with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to help encourage Black men and other races to become teachers.
“We want Black male educators, as well as other educators of all races,” said Bruce Ransom. “It’s very important that students have someone to look at as a role model. And what better person than a Black educated man to have them help guide their education in their learning and also life choices?”
Ransom, an educator at CMSD for the past 27 years, is the chair of “Black Men Teach Cleveland.” He said the group has a five-phase theory of action to help attract more Black men to be teachers by offering ways to help them grow professionally. Read the article: /node/3690
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4) Normandale rebrands program to train Black male teachers
Normandale Community College is rebranding the program launched in Fall 2021 under the temporary name Black Men in Teaching to “Sirtify.”
“Sirtify is a fun and memorable play on words evoking the program’s target audience and goal,” according to Program Coordinator Marvis Kilgore. “We wanted a name that would distinguish our program from the work of other organizations with complementary missions. In Sirtify, together with its tagline CULTIVATING BLACK MALE TEACHERS, we found a name that captures our program’s fresh, unique personality.”
According to the most recent data available, 101,388 of the 870,506 students enrolled in Minnesota schools in the 2019-2020 school year (11.6%) were Black/African American (MN Dept. of Education, Minnesota Report Card), but only 1,521 of Minnesota’s K-12 teachers holding a license (1.5%) were Black/African American (PELSB, 2021 Biennial Report of Supply & Demand of Teachers in Minnesota).
Normandale Community College President Dr. Joyce Ester developed the program to recruit and help prepare Black men to be K-12 teachers. She created Black Men in Teaching, to recruit and support Black, African American, and African men get into the K-12 teaching profession. Read the article: /node/3693
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5) Strong influences help mold 2022 U.S. Teacher of the Year
It hardly seems a stretch to say Kurt Russell was born to be a history teacher.
Raised on his mother’s stories about segregation and the civil rights movement in Alabama and influenced by teachers from his childhood, the 50-year-old Russell has spent the last 25 years teaching history and African American history at Oberlin High School outside Cleveland.
The Council of Chief State School Officers announced Tuesday that Russell is the organization’s National Teacher of the Year for 2022. The group previously named him Ohio’s teacher of the year.
“Kurt’s extensive career shows the power of educators to shape the lives of students from the classroom to extracurricular activities to the basketball court,” CCSSO Chief Executive Officer Carissa Moffat Miller said in a statement.
Russell will spend the next year representing educators and serving as an ambassador for students and teachers across the country, the organization said. Read the article: /node/3696
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6) New Jersey College Scholarship Aids Future Black Male School Teachers
Across the country, about 20% of teachers are people of color, and Black men make up a mere 2% of all U.S. teachers,” said Sharon Harden, Pillar College Program Chair of Elementary Education. “In Newark, that percentage is slightly higher, around 8%”. That is still too low, and that is why Pillar College is on a mission to provide eligible Black men with tuition-free* scholarships to their BA in Elementary Education degree program, through its B.E.S.T. (Black Elementary School Teachers) for Men Scholarship.
According to Professor Harden, The B.E.S.T. for Men initiative was “developed earlier this year in response to a program proposal submitted by Dr. Ralph T. Grant, VP of Academic Advancement.” She went on to say that, “the current initiative grew out of a collaboration of cross-functional team members representing the leadership and administration of the college including President, Dr. Rupert A. Hayles, Jr., Chancellor, Dr. David Schroeder, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Erica Oliver, Sharon Harden, Dan Reeve, Amy Huber, Giselle Llerena, Michaele Clayborne-Crosby, and Elena Marin.” Read story: /node/3698
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7) Just a quarter of a city teachers are men in United Kingdom
Figures from the Department of Education (DfE) have revealed that male teachers make up just a quarter of the Bury school workforce.
They found that out of 1,725 in state-funded schools in Bury as of November 2021, just 418 of them were men.
This means male teachers only make up 24.2 per cent of the workforce in the area in the 2021/22 academic year however, this is up from 23.6 per cent in 2020/21.
The Association of School and College Leaders has called on the government to reverse the fall in teacher salaries nationally to attract more men and women into the profession.
Across England, just 14 per cent of nursery and primary school teachers, 35 per cent of secondary teachers, and 25 per cent of special school and PRU teachers are men.
However, it varies across the country with one in three teachers are male in Westminster and Islington, while just 19 per cent are in Wokingham. Reaad the article: /node/3700
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8) Grambling State University, in Louisiana, hosted first ever Call Me Mister Conference to develop more black male educators
Grambling State University hosted their first ever called me a mister conference the university’s black male teacher initiative of partner with Clemson university’s program where was first created to help develop and recruit more African American males answer the teaching profession.
The program strives to increase the pool of available male teachers from a more diverse background into the education field.
Founder of the program Roy Jones who serves as Director of Call Me Mister at Clemson University says “Attracting black educators that will be effective in any classroom in any place in the state.”
According to the state department of education 27 percent of Louisiana teachers are people of color black men make five percent of the Louisiana education workforce. Read the story: /node/3701
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9) Men in United Kingdom ‘face prejudice when working in childcare’
A male childminder has opened up on the prejudices encountered by men in the childcare industry.
Leigh Walker says that men who choose a career in childcare often face additional hurdles in comparison to their female colleagues due to the stigma of a man working with young children. He began working as a childminder nine years ago and has steadily built up a good reputation within his local community but that has not been without its challenges.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Leigh, 43, said: “There is a stigma around men in childcare. I think people see us and say ‘Why is he not doing a proper man’s job?’ As we know now there are no male or female jobs.
“When people ring up looking for childcare and they ask for Leigh Walker a lot of the time they think it is a woman but as soon as I answer the phone they just hang up. I understand there are not many of us and I get where it comes from because when I first started childminding it was hard. Read the artile: /node/3703
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10) Meet Ireland’s male pre-school teachers keen to banish gender stereotypes
A group of male pre-school teachers are keen to banish gender stereotypes linked with the childcare industry as they lead the way for men entering the sector.
Mark Walsh, Eduardo Heredia and Maidar Gutierrez, who are employed as male childcare workers at Generation Education pre-school in Glounthaune, are calling for more career guidance counsellors in schools to suggest childcare as a career option for teenage boys as well as girls contemplating what to do with their lives.
Some 98.2% of the childcare industry in Ireland is currently made up of females. This is in spite of a slight rise that saw men working with children increase from 1.5% between 2017 and 2021.
Generation Pre-school in Glounthaune, which also offers an after-school service, is one of few childcare facilities in Cork with three male employees. It has in turn been described as one of Cork’s most progressive and diverse workplaces.
Mark, Eduardo and Maidar jokingly refer to themselves as “Irene’s angels” as a nod to the setting’s owner Irene Heredia Ariño. Read the article: /node/3706
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