Change the K-12 education system so that it rewards on merit and is a 12-month-year job with competitive pay and benefits, and more men will be attracted to the job.
For some reason that I still do not understand, and this has been confirmed throughout my long corporate career, women, in general, are attracted to working less than full-time. They are not as ambitious in terms career advancement, and instead are attracted to more of the life-side of work-life balance. I don't know if this is social or biological or both, but teaching fails to attract males to the job because it is not a profession that is designed as a meritocracy, and it isn't really full-time work. However, I do think that males in general are attracted to the teaching role.
I thin the choice movement sweeping the nation is going to help here. As more private providers figure out models that work better, more males will join the profession.
My son started his undergrad work thinking he wanted to be a teacher. He changed his major after the first semester tell us that there was no way he could handle it given that it was almost 100% female and the professors and students were of the radical type. He said "dad, there is some mental health problem going on and the crazy people are going into teaching."
Interestingly, I went through a decent public school system many, many years ago. There were only TWO male teachers in our entire K-5 elementary school. There were more in intermediate school (perhaps 30%) and even more in high school (perhaps 50%).
I never had any issue with the female teachers, but remember being "amazed" when I got a male teacher in 4th grade -- it had not really ever occurred to me that boys could be teachers. So this is not a new problem -- although perhaps a burgeoning one.
Change the K-12 education system so that it rewards on merit and is a 12-month-year job with competitive pay and benefits, and more men will be attracted to the job.
For some reason that I still do not understand, and this has been confirmed throughout my long corporate career, women, in general, are attracted to working less than full-time. They are not as ambitious in terms career advancement, and instead are attracted to more of the life-side of work-life balance. I don't know if this is social or biological or both, but teaching fails to attract males to the job because it is not a profession that is designed as a meritocracy, and it isn't really full-time work. However, I do think that males in general are attracted to the teaching role.
I thin the choice movement sweeping the nation is going to help here. As more private providers figure out models that work better, more males will join the profession.
My son started his undergrad work thinking he wanted to be a teacher. He changed his major after the first semester tell us that there was no way he could handle it given that it was almost 100% female and the professors and students were of the radical type. He said "dad, there is some mental health problem going on and the crazy people are going into teaching."
Interestingly, I went through a decent public school system many, many years ago. There were only TWO male teachers in our entire K-5 elementary school. There were more in intermediate school (perhaps 30%) and even more in high school (perhaps 50%).
I never had any issue with the female teachers, but remember being "amazed" when I got a male teacher in 4th grade -- it had not really ever occurred to me that boys could be teachers. So this is not a new problem -- although perhaps a burgeoning one.
Always learn something interesting here.