[MenTeach was interviewed for a Newsweek article this fall and there has continued to be comments. Read one below.]
This is a prime example of the gender bias found in education today. There is no shortage in male candidate, yet there is a shortage in male teachers.
I was a candidate once but despite all my efforts, I never found a permanent position. This was not for lack of trying.
I went the traditional route to become an elementary teacher; I obtained a BA from a local university and went on to graduate school to obtain a teaching credential. While women outnumbered men im the program I went through, there was definitely no shortage to speak of.
When I finished my credential, I was under the impression that I would have little difficulty finding a job precisely because I was a man with a credential.
That could not have been more wrong.
Before giving up on my search, I applied at 16 different school districts in the Los Angeles/Orange County area, attended several job fairs, interviewed a few times, and substitute taught in 2 different school districts for nearly 2 years. But as anyone who has been out of work for a time can tell you, applying and interviewing does not pay the bills. Nor does substitute teaching.
I eventually gave up and took a County job which paid just under $10,000 a year less than a starting teacher’s salary in Southern California.
Yet, for some reason, my wife and her best friend, both of whom graduated after me, were able to find positions almost immediately.
The gender bias really became apparent to me when substitute teaching. At many of the schools I worked at, there were less than 5 men on the staff and at least one of those was the custodian. I worked at one school where the only man on campus is the custodian. Yet there were many men waiting in line at the job fairs I attended and taking classes along side me in the credential program I went through.
There are men out there, we just aren’t getting hired. The education establishment has nothing but itself to blame for this self-imposed problem.
That is my experience anyway.