MenTeach E-News
September 2018
1) Scholarships for Minority Males in California
2) How Many Black Male Teachers Did You Have Growing Up?
3) Why more men should work in childcare in Australia
4) Teach for Armenia: Emerging Europe’s Young Empowerment Initiative of the Year
5) John Engel: Babysitter training: Where are the boys?
6) England: So you want to get more men into primary teaching?
7) First male special education teacher at Qatar Foundation’s Renad Academy
8) Chinese Public schools face shortage of male teachers due to chronically low pay
9) Need men working in child care for less than two years to talk with media
10) Editorial: Honoring All Who Make a Difference
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1) Scholarships for Minority Males in California – Future Minority Male Teachers of California
What is F2MTC?
The goal of the F2MTC project is to improve the pipeline for male teachers of color throughout the California State University system so that elementary age students of color will have increased numbers of males of color serving as teachers, mentors and role models, thereby helping to close the persistent achievement gap between white students and students of color. Read the article to find out about scholarships: /node/3288
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2) How Many Black Male Teachers Did You Have Growing Up?
Vincent Cobb II and Rashiid Coleman are the founders behind The Black Male Educators Convening, an organization on a mission to triple the number of highly-effective black male teachers in Philadelphia public schools to 1,000 by 2025. Through a series of programs including a yearly conference, purpose career fair, two-year paid summer program, and membership alliance for black male educators, BMEC is sending a clear message: only 2% of teachers are black and male—and it’s not enough.
On Oct. 12 – 14, the second annual BMEC conference will be held to advance and celebrate the development, recruitment, and retention of black male educators. This year’s lineup includes Marc Lamont Hill, a journalist, author, activist, and television personality; Dr. Chris Emdin, an associate professor and author of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… And the Rest of Y’all Too; Ericka Pittman, chief marketing officer at Aquahydrate Inc; Shavar Jeffries, American civil rights attorney, and more. In the midst of planning the conference, we caught up with the founders to learn more about their plans to increase the percentage of black male teachers in Philadelphia and beyond. Read the article: /node/3358
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3) Why more men should work in childcare in Australia
As a society, we’ve come a long way in the past few decades. More men and women have begun challenging traditional gender roles to pursue careers they enjoy, rather than work that has been viewed as only “for men” or “for women”.
But childcare and early childhood education is still overwhelmingly populated by women, with the latest ABS statistics showing that females account for over 95% of all childcare workers. That’s surprising, given the increasing number of stay-at-home dads (bucking decades of “women’s role” profiling), and an abundance of research proving the importance of male role models in young children’s lives.
The RiotACT decided to chat with a male childcare worker, to find out why more men should consider working in childcare, and whether there are any barriers for men who seek childcare as a profession. Read the article: /node/3362
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4) Teach for Armenia: Emerging Europe’s Young Empowerment Initiative of the Year
With education of the utmost importance, and teachers responsible for developing the minds and the emotional maturity of future generations, it is no surprise that Teach for Armenia (TFA), whose slogan is ‘Shaping Armenia’s future one classroom at a time’ won Emerging Europe’s 2018 award for Young Empowerment Initiative.
“…there is sometimes a lack of positive role models in schools, particularly for young boys. “The majority of people who apply for teacher training are women, and quite often they do so in order to simply get a degree,” Ms Hovannisian says with concern. In many of the villages where TFA places teachers, male students regularly miss school because they are out working to help their families. As such TFA has adjusted their strategy in order to recruit more male teachers to provide a positive male role model for these children. Read the article: /node/3364
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5) John Engel: Babysitter training: Where are the boys?
I recently attended a babysitter training class. The day-long course, offered by the American Red Cross – on a Saturday – met in an unassuming building located in an industrial park. Truthfully, my daughter Zoe, soon to be 12, attended the class. I sat in the lobby, at the unoccupied reception desk, working on my laptop to finish a couple of pressing work projects.
When I was 12 there was never mention of babysitting as an income earning activity, for me – or for any of the boys I knew. Rather, I mowed lawns and did other manual labor to make a few bucks and learn something about the world of work.
So, I was curious to see what might be offered in a babysitter training course aimed at 11 to 16 year-old youth. Throughout the day I chatted with the class instructors, peeked through the window of the classroom door a couple of times and checked in with Zoe during breaks and lunch. I also paged through the Babysitter’s Training handbook Zoe received.
I was especially surprised and delighted by two elements of the training. First, the topics covered in the class not only included basic care for infants and children, age appropriate activities, first aid and safety protocols, but professionalism, starting your own business, and leadership, too. In fact, the first section of the handbook is titled, A Guide to Leadership. The section includes information about how to be a leader and highlights key leadership skills, such as respecting diversity, communication, motivation and decision making. This section ends with an overview of child abuse and neglect, including definitions, examples and steps to follow when abuse is suspected. Read the article: /node/3367
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6) England: So you want to get more men into primary teaching?
Just 14 per cent of the nursery and primary teaching workforce in state-maintained schools in England is male, according to the Department for Education.
Many small primary schools have no male teachers (or even any male staff) and so from a young age many children perceive primary teaching as exclusively female. As primary schools struggle to fill teaching vacancies, now more than ever we need to seek ways to address this gender imbalance.
So why is this and how can we break the cycle? It is important to be clear that we face both a recruitment crisis and a retention crisis. Too few males apply to become primary school teachers and once they begin their teacher training, many struggle to “fit in” in their placement school, which causes them to become more prone to drop out.
Recruitment is perhaps the harder of the two issues to solve. However, if we can find a way to retain male teachers, we can begin to equalise the current gender imbalance. This, in turn, would help more men to see primary teaching as a valid career option and to address the recruitment problem. Read the article: /node/3369
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7) First male special education teacher at Qatar Foundation’s Renad Academy
The first male special education teacher at Qatar Foundation’s Renad Academy has emphasised the importance of more men taking up the profession.
Joseph Norton, lead teacher at Renad Academy, said that the required change in pattern would enable teachers to show students that male teachers can also be enthusiastic, compassionate and gentle.
In 2016, Norton joined Renad Academy, which provides educational services to students identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
“It is an interesting scenario worldwide that more males compared to females are diagnosed with autism, while most teachers are females. In order to give students with autism a better and holistic understanding of their relationship with their families and society the existing ratio of male-female-teachers has to be changed,” he told The Peninsula. Read the article: /node/3372
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8) Chinese Public schools face shortage of male teachers due to chronically low pay
As the new school semester begins in September, more and more Chinese primary and middle schools, as well as parents of students, are realizing that urban schools are increasingly facing a shortage of male teachers, and rural schools are facing an overall teacher shortage.
“My child is now in the sixth grade in primary school… From the first grade, he has never had a single male teacher except in physical education classes,” people.cn, the news website of the People’s Daily, quoted an unnamed student parent from Taiyuan, North China’s Shanxi Province as saying.
Qiao Huijun, the principal of Weihua Primary School in Taiyuan, said that “the ratio for male and female teachers in the school is about 1:8. As the country is implementing the second-child policy, more female teachers are becoming pregnant and giving birth. Read the story and see photos of a Kindergarten teacher’s first day at school: /node/3383
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9) Need men working in child care for less than two years to talk with media
MenTeach will be releasing a Press Release in the next month and will be getting requests from the media for interviews. I need diverse numbers of men who have recently started working in child care (MUST be within the last two years) from all over the US who can be interviewed.
We need your:
Full Name & City and State (not address)
Phone number
When did you start working in child care?
What do you do in child care?
Again you MUST have started less than TWO years ago & it must be in child care!
Send your information to: bgnelson(at)menteach.org
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10) Editorial: Honoring All Who Make a Difference
Summertime brings celebrations; many which pay tribute and honor to those who have gone before us. At the end of May, we celebrated Memorial Day; a day dedicated to the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. On July 4th we commemorated our freedom and on Labor Day we will honor working people. Each of us pay tribute in our own way through our celebrations of these holidays.
The word honor has multiple meanings that include; regard with great respect, a privilege, and fulfilling an obligation. After spending a few days in my daughter’s first-grade classroom last spring, I began to see how some teachers fulfill obligations to children, their families, and the school community. This was enlightening for me because when observing college pre-service students in classrooms, I only notice portions of the classroom routine. Becoming an active participant in Erica’s classroom and engaging in the day-to-day happenings resulted in a deeper respect and honor for teachers. Below are some key aspects that impact the teaching profession today and give reason to honor teachers. Read the editorial: /node/3365
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