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Superintendent John White said Louisiana must recruit more men into the teaching profession and do more to ensure women have opportunities to advance.

The comments came at the opening session of the 2018 Teacher Leader Summit in New Orleans.

Did you know teaching is one of the oldest and most powerful careers in the world?
Did you know you can help transform the world by using teaching to have a positive impact on your community?
The F2MTC Program currently has 14 scholarships for up to $5000.00 for male students interested in becoming teachers.

Each year, South Main Street Elementary School gathers its students for a special assembly celebrating both poetry and the male members of its teaching staff.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most turbulent and transformative years in American history. While 2018 may seem chaotic, those old enough to remember know that 1968 found us a nation divided on many fronts. As the war in Vietnam raged on, protests at home reached a fever pitch, and the powder keg of America’s urban centers — long ignored or forgotten — ignited following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Dexter Hannibal is a first-year teacher at Brooklyn Democracy Academy, a high school in Brownsville for students who've fallen behind. Sixty percent are boys of color.

"It's important for them to be able to see someone who looks like them and maybe has some of the shared life experiences they've had," Hannibal said. "For most of my students, they are immigrants and come from immigrant backgrounds. I'm also an immigrant, so I had to learn the history the way they are learning the history."

My day started like any other. I got up early and had breakfast. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, drove me to work.

It was a beautiful, sunny day at the daycare centre where I worked, and the children were running around outside burning off energy after weeks of terrible weather. Sunny days in winter are an early childhood educator's holy grail.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as I dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt and prepared to attend my first day of orientation as a pre-K teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds. I walked through the school doors for the first time, taken aback by the miniature size of the furniture I saw as I peeked into an empty classroom. I wasn’t the only one in for a surprise.

It’s elementary, my dear

Gene Hanson was the new kindergarten teacher at Onamia Elementary, circa 1977.

There’s a new kindergarten teacher at Onamia Elementary. His name is Gene Hanson, and he’s very enthused about his new job.

It’s only the second month of school and Ernesto has already cussed me out several times. He learned to protect himself in the school of hard knocks, where daily lessons involve neglect, abuse, and distrust from the adults in his life. His father left him when he was young, and his mother worked multiple jobs to support him and his younger brother. Underneath the tough exterior, however, I know there is a great 12-year-old kid.

This month’s episode of Education Talk Radio spotlighted AACTE’s national Black & Hispanic/Latino Male Teachers Initiative Networked Improvement Community (NIC) and other efforts to increase men of color in the teaching workforce.

For 35 years, Len Saunders has been teaching physical education to elementary school children in Montville, N.J. Personally, he knows how important a strong male role model can be and hopes he is that for his students. His own father died just months before he was born, so he depended on uncles, coaches and other men to guide him in certain  areas of his physical and mental development.

Men and women tend to choose different career paths, and researchers have identified this as the biggest reason men make more money. So if men and women were equally represented across all occupations, would it close that gender pay gap?

Training for the profession of teaching, even in 1971, was not the easiest major to enter at Michigan State. When I transferred from Central Michigan as a junior, I was headed into secondary education, as I mentioned in my initial blog entry. After the first term, I decided to switch my major to elementary after several conversations with my oldest brother and his wife, both of whom were teachers.

Travis Bristol is an assistant professor in English education at the Boston University School of Education who researches district- and school-based practices that support teachers of color; national, state and local education policies that enable and constrain the workplace experiences and retention for teachers of color; the intersection of race and gender in schools.

A passion for teaching and learning is what drew Archie Moss to a career in education. But the Memphis principal recalls how he almost left the profession when he found himself increasingly tasked as a disciplinarian.