How many male teachers did you have throughout your K-12 education?  If you had more than a few, you are quite lucky.  Finding a male teacher in an elementary school is like finding the golden ticket inside of a Wonka bar.  Males in the teaching profession remains an odd situation where many of the stereotypes and gender biases are flipped and directed toward men rather than women, which is the historic norm. The lack of quality male teachers hinders students’ ability to receive a well-rounded education because male teachers bring a different style to the classroom when they are teaching America’s youth.

 

Male teachers can open up new doors for students and provide a means of support that female teachers may not be able to supply.  Many students do not live with their biological father.  Thus, having a male father figure is a great influence on a number of students.  A male teacher does not replace the missing father, but it can help to give students a positive male role model and a metaphorical shoulder to lean on.  Male teachers are great to have on a school site because of the positive impact that they make on students which adds to the wonderful job female teachers have traditionally done. The only problem is that current trends do not reflect this need for male teachers.

 

According to the National Education Association (NEA), out of the 3 million educators, only 21 percent of teachers are male. Therefore, only some 630,000 teachers are men.  The statistics are even more surprising as one looks at the elementary school level, where only 9 percent of all elementary school teachers are men.  It is interesting to see this female dominance in the numbers, but this imbalance is not unfounded.  There are many barriers that males face when trying to enter or sustain a career as an educator.

 

When men try to become or remain educators, social and economic issues challenge their positions.  For many, there still remains a social stigma that males cannot be as nurturing to students as females.  Yet, men have more issues to contend with when it comes to the perception of what constitutes inappropriate behavior with students.  Males also have to contend with the stereotype of being less masculine if they become a teacher.  Men are expected to enter high-paying professions; therefore, the educational field is frowned upon. Another barrier is that many men still have a need to be the provider for their family, even though in many cases both parents work.  These are just some of the few common barriers that males face when entering the profession of teaching.  The catch-22 is that when males do enter the profession, they are typecast as being strong, tough, disciplinary types, that do all of the typical masculine tasks like coaching sports and helping female teachers lift and move items around.

 

Therefore, males are few and fading in the profession of teaching.  Males have just as much right and potential to become awesome teachers across all grade levels, but the barriers and challenges that they must overcome need to be addressed and eliminated. As a male student trying to enter the elementary school setting, I understand many of these obstacles.  I am put into a situation where I enjoy teaching the primary grades, but there are many “toes” and issues not to be stepped upon which makes it quite difficult. Thus, the unbalanced ratio must be overturned because female teachers are not the only type of educators.  Lastly, I encourage all of the male members of SCTA to achieve your goals and become educators because this is the way to make a change.