After never seeing primary school teaching as a career path, Ryan Brown now believes he's found his "calling", but he's one of just two male classroom teachers at his Canberra primary school.
Article suggests gender quotas and scholarships. Has anyone considered treating, and paying, teachers like the vital professionals they are?
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"Firstly, there is a large economic factor, and that is, on average and compared to women, men can earn more in other industries," Dr McGrath said.
"Second, there are social expectations around who belongs in the teaching profession — teaching is often associated with stereotypical traits of being caring and nurturing."
Pretty sure neither of these are the actual reason.
I think money is a huge part of the reason. I never even considered a teaching career because teachers don't get paid enough.
I wanted to be a teacher since I was 6 years old. My brother taught me so much growing up and I realized my peers didn't know as much. I got a lot of satisfaction from getting my friends - who were trouble makers - into doing well at school. I always got them to a comfort level where they could ask obviously dumb questions. I can't afford to trade that in, in this economy.
Although, most people say the teachers who are idealistic like myself don't last. The ones that treat it like a job do.
Idealistic teachers don't last because they aren't treated like professionals with judgement and autonomy. In my opinion this is a bigger problem than pay, although better pay would help and be the morally correct thing to do for such a vital profession.
In my opinion this is a bigger problem than pay
100% this. I am not myself a teacher, but I'm very close to a large number of teachers, and I don't think pay would rank in even the top 5 problems with the job. I'm not going to claim my list is comprehensive (there may be other equally- or more-important factors beyond the 5 I name), and it's not necessarily in any particular order (except that each of these is more of a problem than pay):
The expectation of using their own money to pay for classroom resources
The time worked
Class sizes
Student behaviour
Administrative burden/curriculum bullshit
Teachers I know regularly spend their own money on stationary for their classrooms, on print-outs of worksheets, on posters and other educational decorations around the classroom. Some schools do better than others in this regard, but it's not uncommon for teachers to be given "print budgets" which are wildly unrealistic with respect to how much printing they need for their classes.
A common refrain from people opposing the increase of teachers' pay is how short the hours they work are. This could not be further from the truth. In my job, I work 9–5 and never think about it outside of that. I have never met a teacher who can say the same. They bring it home with them, constantly, and it becomes even worse around report card time or parent-teacher meetings.
Class sizes in Australia seem to have a limit or average hovering around 24–28 depend on age and state. That is much too large to be effective, and only adds to the amount of their burden with many of these other factors.
Teachers should be able to spend their time teaching. It is not in their core job to manage the behaviour of naughty children. And yet all too often, that is what they are expected to do. The extent of bad behaviour in classrooms is a huge indictment on the parenting and on broader cultural/societal factors. And it is not fair to expect teachers to fix this, or to the other students to have their learning interrupted because of this.
Being forced to teach to a curriculum can kill a teacher's love of their subject and of teaching it. It can stifle their ability to tailor lessons to what works best for their students, which in turn kills their ability to inspire a love of the subject in their kids. On top of that, they're often forced to do all sorts of useless administrative tasks
It all comes back to the same thing: that society does not treat teachers with the respect they deserve. Students don't respect their teachers. Parents certainly don't treat them with respect. The government screws them around on working conditions and classroom funding. Which is all so frustrating, because teachers are, bar none, the most important occupation we have.
That's a good list, except I would have thought that number 4 is an important responsibility for teachers? Probably the most important thing kids need to learn is how to behave in an acceptable manner. We can't rely on all parents to be able to do that unless we start putting draconian restrictions on parenting. So, it has to be part of teachers jobs.
Maybe there just needs to be better processes in place to handle problematic children, especially in high school.
We can’t rely on all parents to be able to do that
The truth is I don't think the problem lies exclusively with parents. It probably does to some extent, but I genuinely think there must be something (and I use the nebulous "something" very deliberately. I have no idea what that something could be) in our broader society that is leading to the problem, for it to be so much more of a notable problem today than it was 40 years ago.
Regardless of the cause though, no, it isn't a teacher's duty to single-handedly fix the failure to bring up the kids right. When students don't respect their teachers, and parents don't respect them enough to back them when conflict does arise, it's not even possible for them to do anything meaningful.
Because apparently men are not capable of being caring and nurturing.
/s for the easily triggered people
We are not allowed to be caring and nurturing. Any man that is, is often seen as "suspect".
This idea always makes me angry. As a doctor and as a member of a community I am always kind and affectionate to children. Anyone who says I shouldn't be can fuck off back to paranoid lala land.
It frustrates me as well.
Apparently the biggest problem for male teachers is accusations. For a female teacher, there needs to be proof. They get the benefit of the doubt. Male teachers don't. Many parents and even other teachers take the "no smoke without fire" mentality. It's stressful to do the job, when you dare not let yourself be in a room with a student without someone else present.
As a dad, I try and help with dad's being seen as care givers, as well as just providers. It's a long and slow fight however.
Sorry to hear that. A school in Singapore had a high profile case where a student accused the then headmaster of inappropriate contact. Many ex students came out in support and he was eventually acquitted. Didn't stop the school from shipping him off to a posting in Indonesia though. It sucks all round.
It angers me too. I have male friends that refuse to interact with kids because of how society could view them… heart breaking for them, a critical loss to society
Unfortunate too, because the kids only get brought up with one segments preconceived ideas. Imo that's not healthy.
Just a couple months ago I was giving snacks to my kids by a river, with one of them on my lap. Then a lady started yelling across the river, saying I was suspicious and asking my son if I was really his dad... It changed a really nice moment into something horrible.
