News

New Zealand - Men in Early Childhood Education Annual Summit 2012

Bryan G Nelson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:35:47 -0600

Body:

The Annual National Gathering for men who work or study in Early Childhood Education.

Saturday 17th -Sunday 18th March 2012

Top Ten Motor Camp, Whanganui
Phone & Fax: 06 343 8402
Free Phone: 0800 272 664

If you know a man interested in, or thinking of working in ECE encourage him to attend.

We also welcome supportive women as well as ECE recruiters, employers and trainers.
Special emphasis this year on Pasifica activities and culture.

Registration Fee:
Students $75.00
EC-MENz Members $100.00
Non-members: $125.00

For queries regarding the registration form, contact davidbax(at) paradise.net.nz
All other registration queries to Michael Inch - <marianna(at)paradiseforangels.co.nz>

our theme this year will be:

'Pasifika Pride'

Friday Night

Early Registration, campfire and singalong at Born and Raised Pasifika ECC

Saturday from 9am

Powhiri Cook Islands Style

Official welcome from Whanganui Mayor and Tangata Whenua

Workshops focusing on crafts from Samoa, Fiji, and the Cook Islands, also the value of vehicle play

Keynote presentation from experienced ECE teacher Peter Visser of Far North REAP

More hands-on workshops including rope skills, massage for babies, and ukulele

Short AGM to finish by 4:30

Saturday Night from 7:30

Island feast at Whanganui Racecourse, with entertainment and a guest presenter speaking about the Pasifika Education Plan

Sunday Morning from 9am
Short Pasifika Church service for those wishing to attend

Brunch
A chance to hear stories from our colleagues across the country, and share your own! Adam Buckingham will start us off with feedback from the Global Men in ECE gathering in Hawaii

12:30 Sunday
Summit closing, time to go home with plenty of new ideas and new friends

MenTeach E-News - January 2012

Bryan G Nelson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:47:18 -0600

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1) Smith Strives to Inspire On and Off the Basketball Court
2) Gender imbalance in Korean Schools
3) Alternative Teacher Training Programs Better Attracting Male & Minority Trainees
4) Project PRIDE will help increase minority & male teachers with $12.1 million
5) More male teachers are needed in Australian schools to help boys perform better, a new teacher survey shows
6) Blokes-in-kindy challenge
7) PRIDE is spreading in Florida
8) Fathers would be more involved if there were more male staff
9) MenTeach - New England Awards & Reception
10) Demand for male early childhood teachers cannot be met

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1) Smith Strives to Inspire On and Off the Basketball Court
Senior Ben Smith traded his Wichita State basketball uniform and Nike sneakers for slacks and a necktie when he walked into a third grade classroom as "Mr. Smith" at OK Elementary School this fall. As part of his elementary education degree program, Smith taught six lessons to grade school students at the school located on Wichita's west side. He prepared and gave lessons in reading and social studies between the Shockers' basketball practices, games and his own college coursework. Read his story: http://www.menteach.org/node/1830

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2) Gender imbalance in Korean Schools
As of 2011, women teachers accounted for 75.8 percent in the nation's primary schools, 66.8 percent in middle schools and 46.2 percent in high schools. These figures represent significant rise in the presence of female teachers at primary and secondary schools since a decade ago, when the respective figures were 68 percent, 59 percent and 35 percent. Read the editorial: http://www.menteach.org/node/1831

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3) Alternative Teacher Training Programs Better Attracting Male & Minority Trainees
Teacher training and quality has long been a topic of discussion among policymakers, especially as states have expanded access to alternative teacher training programs outside of traditional schools of education. While many remain skeptical about the effectiveness and worth of such programs, 45 states have implemented alternative routes to certification and 11 percent of teacher trainees attend such programs. The issue was no doubt important enough that in 2008 Congress required that the U.S. Department of Education collect and report data on participation in various types of teacher training programs. The Department made that data available late last year through a report called "Preparing and Credentialing the Nation's Teachers: The Secretary's Eighth Report on Teacher Quality Based on Data Provided for 2008, 2009, 2010." To read the entire story: http://www.menteach.org/node/1835

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4) Project PRIDE will help increase minority & male teachers with $12.1 million
To help reduce the demographic disparity between students and teachers, Polk County Public Schools has partnered with the University of South Florida Polytechnic to actively recruit and provide scholarships to future male and minority school teachers. The $12.1 million funding comes from Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion U.S. Department of Education competition grant designed to spur innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. Read the article: http://www.menteach.org/node/1836

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5) More male teachers are needed in Australian schools to help boys perform better, a new teacher survey shows
The survey shows teachers believe little is being done to address the performance gap between girls and boys. The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the findings of the latest Staff in Australia Schools survey, which asked more than 15,000 teachers and principals about their working conditions. The report found fewer than one in five primary school teachers is male, with the number of female teachers rising in the 2010 survey to 81 per cent.
Read the article: http://www.menteach.org/node/1837

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6) Blokes-in-kindy challenge
Marlborough's only male kindergarten teacher is encouraging other men to "throw the stigma out the window" and join the profession. Michael Clark, the head teacher at Springlands Kindergarten, said he wanted men to forget about what people might think about them being in early childhood education. "If it's something you really want to do and something you're keen on, get off your rear and go do it." Male kindergarten teachers make up only 1.7 per cent of the country's teachers.Read the article & comments: http://www.menteach.org/node/1838

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7) PRIDE is spreading in Florida
When Juliun Kinsey recently volunteered as an instructor at Terwilliger Elementary School, the Santa Fe College graduate noticed something missing. The children, he said, had few teachers who, like him, shared their skin color. "Teachers should reflect the student body," Kinsey said. "If a majority of your kids are minority, but 90 percent of your teachers are white females, it limits what a kid believes is successful." Research analysis shows that minority students perform better when their teachers are of the same race. Read the story: http://www.menteach.org/node/1840

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8) Fathers would be more involved if there were more male staff
[MenTeach: We posted the wrong link for the study about fathers. We have corrected the link to the correct report].
A survey with results from nearly 500 Minnesota fathers and 250 early childhood education professionals and practitioners reveals key findings:
- That families and children want fathers involved.
- The barriers to father involvement in Early Childhood Programs are known.
- There are successful stories and strategies to more effectively involve fathers. Father involvement in early childhood programs has increased over the past decade. But barriers that prevent their involvement still exist. Read & download the full report: http://www.menteach.org/node/1778

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9) MenTeach - New England Awards & Reception
MenTeach - New England is proud to welcome you to a social event and award reception after the conference. We are a group representing various disciplines in the field of early education advocating for men in the lives of children. See the flyer and location: http://www.menteach.org/node/1843

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10) Demand for male early childhood teachers cannot be met
While an increasing number of New Zealand families would like men to be teaching their under fives, the men are not there to be employed, says an early childhood organisation that represents 1100 centres nationwide. Chief Executive of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds said today that early childhood centres would employ many more male teachers if such teachers existed. And he called for teacher trainers 'to get more active in the promotion of our sector to men'. The absence of men from early childhood centres robbed from families the right to choose male teachers, Mr Reynolds said. But it could not be remedied by early childhood centres on their own, 'because you cannot employ male teachers who do not exist'. Go to the website: http://www.menteach.org/node/1844

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Demand for male early childhood teachers cannot be met

Bryan G Nelson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Body:

While an increasing number of New Zealand families would like men to be teaching their under fives, the men are not there to be employed, says an early childhood organisation that represents 1100 centres nationwide.

Chief Executive of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds said today that early childhood centres would employ many more male teachers if such teachers existed. And he called for teacher trainers 'to get more active in the promotion of our sector to men'.

The absence of men from early childhood centres robbed from families the right to choose male teachers, Mr Reynolds said. But it could not be remedied by early childhood centres on their own, 'because you cannot employ male teachers who do not exist'.

Early childhood teaching was one of the most gender-segregated professions in New Zealand, Mr Reynolds said, with fewer than two per cent of teachers being men.

'Such segregation would not be tolerated in law or medicine. And it is unacceptable in a sector with the fundamentally important job of helping ensure our youngest of children arrive at school ready to learn'.

Even a small increase in numbers of male teachers would benefit thousands of children and families, Mr Reynolds said.

'It would, for example, impact the many children who lack a reliable male figure in their lives, and especially those who have little but bad experiences of men.'

The absence of men from both primary and early childhood education had seen thousand of such children effectively quarantined from all but the most destructive of males, Mr Reynolds said. And the results had been 'disastrous'.

An increase in numbers of male teachers had been achieved in countries such as Scotland, Norway and Denmark and it could be achieved in New Zealand 'if we summoned the commitment'.

Such change would provide valuable encounters with safe men for women and children whose experiences of men had been anything but safe, he said. It would benefit boys who were more responsive to 'male' interactions. And it would help teach boys that nurturing was part of the male job description.

Mr Reynolds said 'the paedophile hysteria' of the 1990s had caused many good men to disengage from caring for children.

'But the worst of that nonsense is over, and there is now a renewed desire from both families and centres for there to be many more men working in the early childhood sector.'

The Early Childhood Council is the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand. Its 1100 member centres are both community-owned and commercially owned, employ more than 7000 staff, and care for more than 50,000 children.

January 31, 2012

Go to website.

MenTeach - New England Reception

Bryan G Nelson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:09:48 -0600

Body:

March 16, 2012 - 5:00 - 6:30PM
Westford Regency
Westford, MA
MenTeach - New England is proud to welcome you to a social event and award reception after the conference. We are a group representing various disciplines in the field of early education advocating for men in the lives of children.

For contact:

Call Craig at 617-623-9293
or e-mail him at cs4202144 at yahoo.com

PRIDE is spreading in Florida

Bryan G Nelson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600

Author:

by Jackie Alexander - Gainesville.com

Body:

When Juliun Kinsey recently volunteered as an instructor at Terwilliger Elementary School, the Santa Fe College graduate noticed something missing.

The children, he said, had few teachers who, like him, shared their skin color.

"Teachers should reflect the student body," Kinsey said. "If a majority of your kids are minority, but 90 percent of your teachers are white females, it limits what a kid believes is successful."

Research analysis shows that minority students perform better when their teachers are of the same race.

A 2011 working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that community college students of color were more likely to pass courses taught by teachers of the same skin color. The economists on the project dubbed the result the "role-model effect," which is particularly effective on younger students.

Education researcher Thomas Dee published in the journal Education Next an analysis of performance of minority students during the Tennessee STAR project.

Dee showed that minority students paired with a minority teacher performed as much as 5 percentage points better on the SAT in math. On the SAT reading test, the scores were better by as much as 6 percentage points.

Alachua County Public Schools officials say they hope to implement programs to attract more minority teachers to the district and keep them there, but getting them from college to the classroom is challenging enough with recent cuts to two programs that assist aspiring minority teachers.

Herschel Lyons, assistant superintendent for human resources, said the problem isn't limited to this county.

"The entire state is struggling with recruiting minority teachers," he said.

In Alachua County public schools, about 11 percent of teachers are black, while about a third of the students are black.

"We need to look at ways to recruit from within," Lyons said, by targeting minority students and encouraging them to join educational programs and then rejoining the district.

Two programs designed to attract minority students to teaching have suffered major cutbacks.

Funding for Minority Teachers, a program created in 1996, provides scholarships to minority students at various colleges.

State statute calls for the program to provide annual scholarships of $4,000 for each aspiring minority teaching scholar in his or her junior year.

In recent years, the program has taken a financial hit. Under Gov. Rick Scott's budget, $100,000 would be allocated for scholarships with another $985,000 earmarked for operations.

During the 2008 fiscal year, more than $3 million was earmarked for the program.

The Call Me MISTER program, which originated at Clemson University, also has been shuttered because of budget cuts. The program provided full tuition, books and fees for five minority men at several community and state colleges.

Ulysses Gilbert, state program director, said he saw the gaps the program could fill in Florida. The state provided $300,000 when the program began, but recently lost out on further funding to another program during the Race to the Top process.

"It still exists, but we are in desperate need of funding," he said. "We have approached state legislators; they've turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the cause."

Kinsey said he was one of the lucky ones. He managed to finish his Santa Fe degree and soon will start work on his bachelor's degree at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

Others weren't so fortunate.

Three students weren't able to continue their education without the tuition assistance, so they left to get jobs elsewhere in the state, Gilbert said.

"I did my best to try to keep them together, but they need money," Gilbert said.

The disparities include gender as well as race. About 20 percent of teachers in Alachua County are male compared with nearly 51 percent of students. The highest percentage of male teachers comes at the high school level, with 37 percent of teachers, compared with just less than 10 percent of elementary school teachers.

School districts around the state have employed new programs to attract male minority teachers like Kinsey.

"If I teach in Duval County, they have a partnership with the Lastinger Center to fully fund my master's degree," Kinsey said. "If I come to Gainesville, they don't have a program for that. If I want to become a master teacher, I have to do it on my own."

Polk County recently announced its PRIDE program, or Planning and Rewarding Diversity in Education. PRIDE will recruit at least 42 aspiring teachers over the next three years to attend the University of South Florida Polytechnic in Lakeland.

It was Project PRIDE that beat out Call Me MISTER for $4.1 million in grant funding, Gilbert said. PRIDE's grant proposal was selected as the state's component to increase diversity in the teaching workforce.

"I'm producing MISTERs for the state of Florida, not just Polk County," Gilbert said.

For each year of tuition assistance through PRIDE, the students pledge to work for a year in a low-income Polk school.

Programs like PRIDE attract students like Kinsey.

"It says, ‘We know we need you guys,' " Kinsey said.

Alachua County needs them too, Lyons said. The district is exploring creating a mentoring group for minority teachers.

"Mentoring is not just good for students," he said. "It's good for teachers as well."

Lyons said he spent the first five years of his career trying to move back to his hometown of Nashville, Tenn.

"I just didn't have the support I needed to live the lifestyle I wanted," he said, but "I still had the passion. That hasn't changed much."

An official network could help new teachers learn not only professionally but tap into the rich social and academic ties of the area — ties that might bind them to the community and the district, Lyons said.

"We're just going to have to do a better job at looking at those high-quality minority teachers we have and focus on meeting their needs immediately," he said. "Sometimes they get lost in the shuffle, and we lose them."

January 5, 2012

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