Articles
Obama’s win could have effects within classroom
Like so many people throughout Atlanta, I was awed by the celebration over Barack Obama‘s victory in the presidential election. I witnessed another poignant victory the next day, when I visited a high school history class in the southwest part of the city. The teacher played portions of Obama’s acceptance speech and asked students for their […]
Read MoreHunt is on for more men to lead classrooms
If it didn’t run afoul of employment laws, principal Thomas DeVito would consider taking out the following newspaper advertisement: “Wanted: Male teachers.” At his Ferryway School, where boys slightly outnumber girls, male teachers are a rare species, presiding over only four of the 35 classrooms. “The district has a job fair every year, but […]
Read MoreEvery Head Start required to indicate male involvement
Every Head Start program will now need to pay attention to including books and posters of men as nurturers as they design their classroom environments. We will now be represented as posters and books in over 50,000 classrooms. The first team of monitors goes out on 10/26/08. The citation (1304.21 [a][3][i][E] is a Congressionally mandated […]
Read MoreProgram staff should represent communities served
Women are the majority of the early care and education workforce. Recent Massachusetts workforce development policy recommendations for the early childhood field suggest that program staff reflect the diverse composition of communities served, yet men comprise less than 6% of that workforce. (Such data is not currently tracked in the Commonwealth, but nationally they constitute […]
Read MoreNumber of Male Teachers Shrinking Fast
At 6 feet 5 inches tall and nearly 300 pounds, Jonathan Maiden of Lexington, Ky., is hardly the image that comes to mind of a typical preschool teacher. But ever since his childhood spent on Chicago’s South Side, working with young children has been a calling for this father of two. “My mom was a […]
Read MoreIt’s not who, but how, boys are taught
A worried school principal stopped me in the hallway after I had given a talk on how boys were falling behind in school. The principal wanted to know the answer to a practical question. The search committee at her school had to make a choice between hiring a male teacher or a female teacher. The […]
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