Tuesday, October 30, 2007
In response to prompt 9
I am a male teacher who teaches in the elementary grades and I guess that I just got used to the fact that I am always a minority in my workplace. I have asked some of my female coworkers over the years, some questions similar to this prompt. "Why did you become a teacher"? "Why did you become an elementary teacher instead of a high school teacher"? Most of them said similar things. I like children, I like watching them succeed, I wanted summers and holidays off to be with my kids. If you watch tv and movies, FBI field agents are men, CEO's and bank Presidents are men. Men might love their children, but STILL feel like they can be more useful making the money of the house... You don't find that in teaching. Men look at their dads and uncles in the business world, when it comes time to choose a path (at 18 yrs old) they choose corporate over nurturing. AS to why there are less women in math and science, I can't speak for the math but at the school I last worked at, there were 11 women out of 18 science jobs in the middle and high school. My wife has worked for SUNY for 15 years and has worked for female science professors and with female phds in the field of science. I guess my point is that more women appear to be teaching high school science now than ever before which is great, unfortunatly, we will probably continue to see few men in elementary. Partly because of the salary and partly from listening to my guy friends say "my own Kids are hard enough to raise, now why would I want to raise someone elses"
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2 comments:
Joe,
I totally understand what you are saying. It's definitely clear that there are many more females in elementary school than males. Also, when there are males in elementary, they are usually in intermediate grades.
I often wonder, if I were a male, would I still want to be a teacher, or was I positioned to want to be a teacher because I am a female.
It's really interesting to think about all of the stereotypes surrounding gender. That brings me to my next point. I often worry that I am being perceived as a "bitch" when I am being assertive, but when men are assertive, they are considered to be authoritative. I wonder why it is that women (in general) care so much about being "the bitch"...
Thoughts?
Jamie,
I think you bring up a great point because I have heard this before, more so with people discussing it from the business field stand point. I think women are more likely to be given a title such as that because when we act that way, it's due to our "emotions". Even though males can also be emotional, we still get the bad rap. I think this is also a big reason for why fewer women hold ranks as managers and high positions in the work force. Businesses are concerned that women might not be stable enough to handle the stress. It's a funny thing to think about-nice question.
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