Topical Teaching

I think the experts have it all wrong when it comes to the lack of male teachers in Primary schools.  Sure, the male teachers currently working in the primary/elementary system are generally doing a great job, especially in teaching boys, but there are legitimate reasons why male teachers are not lining up to teach.

It was great to read a blog post by writer and educator Katharine Birbalsingh, who dispels the far-fetched assumptions made about the lack of male primary teachers :

Only 12.4 per cent of the primary school workforce is male. 27 per cent of primary schools in Britain are staffed entirely by women. And in secondary schools, only 37.5 per cent of teachers are male. In an age where some fathers have so little to do with their children, these statistics are seen to be scandalous. Clearly this must explain why some of our boys end up in gangs, why boys underachieve at GCSE in comparison to girls – a gap that widened to record level this year – and why chaos reins in our classrooms. Or does it?

Ms. Birbalsingh goes on to conclude that whilst male teachers have a positive effect on male students, the real issue is the fathers of these students.

Sure, having more men in our schools would be a good thing. And absent fathers is a bad thing. But no teacher can really ever replace a missing father. And that’s where the problem for our boys lies on the whole. What we need are families. Indeed, not too long ago, when ordinary families were more the norm, when fathers were present, male teachers hardly existed, and our boys were doing just fine. So are the schools really to blame for the underachievement of our boys? I would think not. I would think the onus is on our broken families.

My view is that the obsession for male teachers is unhealthy.  Men just don’t seem to be interested in taking up teaching.  My former classmates just assume that I fell into teaching and that my grades must have been so poor that I didn’t have much of an option.  Whilst this couldn’t be further from the truth, it does tell us a bit about the average man’s attitude to teaching – there is no interest in the profession whatsoever.  Especially teaching children under the age of 13.

And I ask you, who would you rather have teaching your son, a diligent, professional and passionate female teacher or a male teacher who reluctantly signed up because the Government were offering cash incentives too good to refuse?

I love teaching at the Primary level and wouldn’t swap my job for any other.  I know other male teachers who feel the same way.  But the reality is, men just don’t want to teach.  We can’t expect them to do something they just don’t want to do.

My school doesn’t even have a male toilets.  The male staff members of our school are forced to use the disabled toilets when they need to go.  As sad as that sounds, it’s hard to justify building a toilet in the current climate.