MenTeach E-News
October 2016
1) Wanted: Cosla wants more men to work in nurseries across Scotland to solve staffing crisis
2) Classrooms need more male teachers, charity says
3) Ireland has far more female teachers than male in all sectors
4) Male teachers in elementaries
5) Gender stereotypes breaking down in career choices
6) Want black male role models in our schools? Hire them as teachers.
7) African-American boys less likely to be suspended if teacher is black, research reports
8) An Interview with David Brody: The role of men in teaching
9) Maryland declares a shortage of men teacher
10) Editorial: What Teacher Dispositions Engage Children in Learning?
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1) Wanted: Cosla wants more men to work in nurseries across Scotland to solve staffing crisis
More men have been urged to work in nurseries to help address a chronic shortfall in the number of childcare staff across Scotland.
An extra 18,000 new workers will be required by 2020 to meet a Scottish Government commitment to expand free childcare places, but not enough new members of staff are being trained to fill the vacancies.
Currently some 95 per cent of all students who train in childcare services at Scottish colleges are female.
Stephanie Primrose, education spokeswoman for council umbrella body Cosla, called for a shake up to make a career in childcare more appealing to men as well as other groups such as older women with grown up children.
Speaking at a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s education committee she said: “We need to have a serious look at how we present this as a career and we need to make people realise childcare is a very worthwhile and important profession.
“We need to have an approach to this so we are not just looking at young girls of 16 or 17 going to college. We need to take in people who have had their own families and want to come back in. Read the article: /node/2985
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2) Classrooms need more male teachers, charity says
England’s classrooms need more male teachers, an education charity says, as government figures show a continued gender gap in the profession.
Department for Education statistics show 26% of teachers in England are men – accounting for 38% of secondary and 15% of primary school teachers.
To mark World Teachers’ Day, the charity Teach First is urging more men to consider a career in the sector.
It says the profession should reflect the make-up of the classroom.
Teach First, which recruits and places top graduates in schools serving low-income communities, to tackle inequality, says the lack of men entering the profession has resulted in an untapped resource. Read the article: /node/2988
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3) Ireland has far more female teachers than male in all sectors
This is despite only 50% of women acting as principals in primary schools
Ireland continues to have more female teachers than male, according to new statistics released by the EU.
The figures, released in support of World Teachers’ Day, show that 87 per cent of primary school teachers here are female while 71 per cent of positions in secondary schools were held by women.
Despite this large majority, a little over 50 per cent of women act as principals within primary schools.
Lithuania leads in the EU within the primary sector, with 97 per cent of teaching positions filled by women. Latvia, with 83 per cent, has the most female teachers within secondary schools.
Ruth Deasy of the EU Commission says the teaching profession in Ireland is dominated by women. Read the article: /node/2990
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4) Male teachers in elementaries
They can have a positive effect in the classroom, research shows.
Men make up only 10 percent of the elementary school teachers in Butler County, a trend seen nationally and one that concerns education experts.
The Middletown Journal analyzed staff lists in 10 Butler County districts, and of the 1,603.8 full-time equivalent teachers in elementary schools, 164 — or 10.2 percent — are men, according to 2010-11 data from the Ohio Department of Education.
The percentage of male teachers in Butler County increases dramatically in the higher grades: 26 percent (143.8 of 544.4) of teachers in the middle schools are men, and 42 percent (379.3 of 897.1) of high school teachers are men.
Nationally, men make up 18.3 percent of elementary and middle school teachers and 42 percent of high school teachers, according to the 2011 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read the article: /node/2991
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5) Gender stereotypes breaking down in career choices
A typical work day for East Alabama Medical Center nurse Charles Smith can consist of extreme emergencies, the stabilization of patients, collaborating with co-workers, educating families about medical conditions and anything that has to do with saving a life.
On some days at the intensive care unit, he might even be referred to as “doc.”
“I’ve been mistakenly identified as a doctor more than once,” he said. “Sometimes I go into a room with a female nurse, and a patient says ‘hey doc.’ The way it appears, you tend to see more men in the emergency room settings. In ICU we have a pretty good mix of men and women. About a third of the staff is men.”
As a nurse, Smith is among the men in Alabama and Lee County who have careers that have traditionally been dominated by women.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey estimated 33.3 percent of Alabama men worked in education, legal, community service, arts and media occupations. Women in those fields made up 66.7 percent of those occupations. About 23 percent of men in the state worked in healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, while women covered 77 percent of the fields. In sales and office occupations, 34.2 percent of jobs were occupied by men, and 65.8 percent by women. Read the article: /node/2994
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6) Want black male role models in our schools? Hire them as teachers.
The Seattle Public Schools has a well documented “achievement gap.” That’s the striking difference in academic achievement between black male students (and other students of color) compared with their white counterparts.
As of last year, SPS also has a five-year strategic plan to address the gap.
But one crucial, and strikingly simple solution is not explicitly mentioned in the plan: more intentionality and effort behind recruiting black male teachers.
Why do we need more black teachers?
The teacher population in Seattle Public Schools is vastly white: 80 percent of teachers are white, compared to 47 percent of students. And only five percent of teachers are black, compared to 16 percent of students.
The teacher data on the Washington State Report Card is curiously reticent about gender, so we don’t know how many of those 155 black teachers are men, but nationally female teachers far outnumber men. Seattle Public Schools was also apologetically reticent responding to questions about teacher demographics and programs to increase teacher diversity.
But shouldn’t our school teachers mirror the rest of our city, as a melting pot of diversity? Read the article: /node/2997
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7) African-American boys less likely to be suspended if teacher is black, research reports
African-American boys in elementary school are less likely to be suspended or expelled if they have a teacher who is black, a study released Tuesday suggests.
If black male students have black teachers, their rate of removal from school for behavioral issues is reduced by 2 or 3 percent, a small but statistically significant drop, according to a peer-reviewed study in Education Next, a journal published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
The findings are based on a study of elementary school students in North Carolina. Read the research: /node/3000
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8) An Interview with David Brody: The role of men in teaching
This is an interview of David Brody in New Zealand. David has spent most of his career focusing on early childhood education, teacher training and academic research. He recently sat down with The Jerusalem Post to discuss the role of men in early childhood education and his research in the field of gender balance, which he began some five years ago. Watch the video: /node/3001
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9) Maryland declares a shortage of men teacher
A new report from the Maryland State Department of Education shows seven of every eight teachers hired last year were women.
The shortage is especially egregious in special education, early childhood education and languages.
“Our undergraduate programs are not creating enough people who are interested in education,” said Dana Davison, Montgomery County Public Schools Human Resources and Development. “It’s our job as a school system to say we need you.”
The state school board recommended formally declaring a shortage of men in public school classrooms. By making a formal declaration, state officials change some of the rules in public schools. In some districts, retired teachers will be allowed to be rehired and rejoin the workforce. Some college students who choose teaching will qualify for extra financial incentives and loan assistance.
10) Editorial: What Teacher Dispositions Engage Children in Learning?
Last November, Joe and Brandon, two of the male early childhood students attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference and participated in every presentation given by a male educator. These two men were affirmed in their decision to become early childhood teachers because they continually heard how important it is for children to have a male teacher. Joe and Brandon realized that boys and girls need to have a positive male role model but they questioned what male teachers had, or did, that supported the statement that more male teachers of young children are needed. Read the editorial: /node/2998
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