who wants to be a male teacher? NOT ME

Parents want more men to be school teachers, survey shows
By Laura Clark

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1123133/Parents-want-men-school-teachers-survey-shows.html

Parents are calling for more men to become teachers because they fear their children lack male role models, research showed yesterday.
Demand is even stronger among single mothers, who told the survey their children had little contact with men in caring roles. The study found one in six children living with a single mother spends less than two hours a week with a male role model, such as a father figure, relative or teacher.

One in three of these children has such contact for under six hours a week. The dearth of male teachers in British schools has parents worried their children are growing up without male role models (photo posed by model)

Over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic decline in the number of men working in schools and nurseries and a growing trend for children never to be taught by a man. The slump in male recruitment has been blamed on a perception among men that teaching, especially of young children, is 'women's work' and that they risk false allegations of child abuse.

But 55 per cent of parents in yesterday's poll said they wanted to see male staff working with the youngest children.
This rose to 66 per cent among single mothers. More than a third of all those polled agreed that male teachers give boys someone to look up to and set a good example. A quarter believe boys behave better if taught by a man. A majority of parents told the survey that men and women have different skills to offer young children and that nurseries should better reflect the real world's gender mix. But despite the demand for male staff, almost two-thirds of the 1,000 parents polled said the childcare they use has no male worker.

The Children's Workforce Development Council, which commissioned the survey, said it wanted to encourage more men to see childcare and nursery work as a viable career.

Campaigns are already underway to encourage more men into primary and secondary teaching. Thom Crabbe, the council's national development manager for early years education, said: 'Parents are right to want to see more men working in early years. 'It is important that during the crucial first five years of a child's life they have quality contact with both male and female role models.' However, there are signs that the economic downturn may change the make-up of the teaching profession. The Teaching and Development Agency has seen the number of potential applicants shoot up 50 per cent on this time last year.

In the past two and a half months, 424,802 people made inquiries through their website - up from 283,641 during the same period a year earlier.
There is no gender breakdown but the increase is thought to be linked to rising redundancies in areas such as banking, manufacturing and transport, which have mostly male workforces.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

the comments are the interesting ones

One possible reason is the media have fueled paranoia about (male) sex offenders. Even I receive odd, suspicious looks when I walk down the street holding my 5 year old sons hand. I even had a woman in the supermarket ask my son "if he felt safe" when he became upset when I didn't give in to his demands for junk food. lachness, NSW, Australia, 20/1/2009 2:23

The statement that men view teaching as "womens work" is a classic denial of reality.

I ( am many many guys I know) would have loved to become a teacher, but the sheer terror that the majority of men feel when they are around children, no matter their age, because of the fear of being labled a child molester, simply because they are male, is not worth the trade off.

All of my friends and many other guys I know will leave the room, exit a pool or simply walk away, if a child is left alone with us or enters our space.

Men are viewed as perverts and criminals, without reason or logic, by the large majority of society if they are "unattended" around children.

You all know this is true, it is just not politically correct.

Nothing can be done about this, this is the result of the society we live in, you have made your bed, now you have to sleep in
Chris, Perth, Australia,

Perhaps if these caring parents actually instilled some discipline in their offspring, we'd get more men entering the profession.
- Mark R, Coventry UK

Some single mothers obviously have contact with a male (father figure) who does not stay long. For many it is their own fault. they often decline to name the fathers. Benefits!
How about single girls avoiding pregnacy until they have a seitable male role model.
John Vivatrex, Fort Erie. Canada,

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

It is not the responsibility of public education to compensate for the choices of single moms. What rubbish.

Wait let me get this straight. If I become a teacher I could:

1. Spend 8+ hours a day surrounded by other people's spoiled brats whom I'm not permitted to discipline in any effective manner.
2. Be automatically and constantly classified as a likely child predator (beyond the normal amount I get for owning testicles.)
3. Get paid in what amounts to an enveloped someone shat in for my efforts.

Precisely why is it that people wonder why there aren't more male teachers?

The only place I'd consider teaching would be at the college level, and even then you run the serious risk of claims of sexual harassment.

I took a class back in 1991 at the local community college. It was a psychology class and I enjoyed it. One young man was studying to work with pre-schoolers. He was a very nice young man and did enjoy children. Most of his teen jobs were babysitting kids. A single mom in the class claimed she would never trust her children with a male teacher especially if the kids were small. However, the woman DID say how she was single and looking for dates and boyfriends. How is looking to bring men home any different? At least with a teacher, that person is certified and to be held responsible for the care of the kids. A boyfriend, whom the single mom brings home, is far more likely to molest a child than a male teacher. I was appalled by this woman's comment in class and let her know it.

I agree 100% about the fear that all men are secretly "child molesters." Mothers are too insanely overprotective, and children are too easily coerced to say things happened that didn't actually happen -- consciously or unconsciously -- that will not just hurt a man's career, but ruin his entire life.

There are instances of child molestation accusations that -- even when they were proven false, and the accuser admitted that they'd made it all up -- the man was still vilified and demonized, REGARDLESS of the fact that he was completely innocent. You don't just up and recover from an accusation like that. To be accused is to be found instantly guilty, and if I were a man I would stay as far away as possible from even the chance of that occurring. The instant a man says he's interested in working with children, he's a suspect -- it doesn't matter how genuine his feelings are.

Worse than that, women are ultimately the ones who suffer. Girls who are denied male affection as children can develop serious self-esteem issues, and become more promiscuous, and driven to seen out negative male attention, if they're made to feel excluded or pushed away by male figures, as they approach puberty.

It's a horrible cycle that's only bound to repeat itself.

Shit, female teachers can probably get accused of sexual abuse for hugging a child these days. And even if people are concerned about sexual abuse, they act a if women are incapable of being child molesters.

I would not want to be a teacher ever...not when kids are such little bastards that I'd have to worry about being put on the sex offender registry because Bratleigh was mad he didn't get an A for doing nothing and decided to claim I touched him inappropriately to learn me a lesson. No fucking thanks.

Although I am not a teacher, my school Scrabble volunteer work does put me in the classroom with kids. When I made my first visit to one school back in November, a few of the returning boys (ages 12 or 13) from the previous school year were so glad to see me they gave me hugs. [Remember, I am male.] Even though I liked it that I so missed, and I did not mind the hugs per se, I felt a little uncomfortable because of the perception others might read from this. And I found that unfortunate in this day and age. I should add that this school is a private (Hebrew) school, not a public school, so the "rules" here may be different than in public schools.

Then there were some 13-year-old girls who were in the classroom before our Scrabble group took over. They hear the PA announcements and see me come into the room as they are leaving so they start screaming my name like I was some rock star LOL! At least I am learning some of their (unusual) names so I can say "hi" back to them as they are leaving (after I gave them an unsuccessful Scrabble pitch to join the club!). No hugs there, of course. Now if only I had 13-year-old girls fawning over me when I was 13, huh?

I would not want to be a teacher, period. Heck no.

---

lab mom

Three words: 'inappropriate conduct' accusations. Female teachers can screw their students and pretty much get excused ("boys will be boys")...but if a man does the naughty with one of HIS students, there's a media explosion to rival Hiroshima.

I wouldn't even consider teaching unless I was being recorded on video (with audio) for every second of every day. Even then I'd want liability insurance out the wazoo. And last but not least a preresearched plan for escaping the country.

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WaterLily
I would not want to be a teacher, period. Heck no.

Exactly! Who, male or female, would want to be a teacher?

I go out of my way to avoid unattended children in public simply because I do not trust breeders. People who have children, who they then let run around unattended, seem to also be the types of people who are more than happy to make anyone's life hell.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

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married with rabbits

When my nephew graduated kindergarten, a teacher got all teary eyed about him and hugged him on stage when she presented him with an award. (no i did not witness this) My mom said they aren't supposed to do stuff like that these days.

Hugging my teachers was a rite of passage at the end of every school year starting in middle school through the day I graduated high school.

You are right about that. Education majors today are told flat out never to touch the children (even hugs) for liability reasons. It's a shame, really. Elementary students love to hug their teachers. It's really just another thing moos have ruined "for the children."

And the thing about male teachers? I know a guy who is an elementary school teacher (words bolded for importance). He told me last month that he won't take his 2 year old daughter to see Santa Claus because any man who wants to dress up and have little kids sit on his lap all day must be a child molester in disguise. :crz

_____________________________________________________________________________________________
"Not every ejaculation deserves a name" - George Carlin

My father-in-law was an elementary special education teacher up until last year. He finally retired. He is a kind, patient man who was probably perfect at his job, but it got to the point where he was afraid to shut the door of his classroom. Any type of contact is viewed as inappropriate now, and if you're man, forget it. It's sad. Like others have said, I remember getting a lot of hugs from elementary teachers whenever I did something good or there was a special day like elementary graduation. Nowadays you have to stand five feet away and not look them in the eye, otherwise something must be wrong with you.

When I worked in the schools last year, I occasionally had a legitimately sick or upset child on my hands. My first instinct was to put my arm around them to see if I could calm them down. It took me a few weeks to drill that out of my head, but I had to, because I did not want anyone, from Moomie or a teacher or Bratney herself who's been taught to see any touch as bad touch, calling CPS on me.

people dont realise being a santa is a job, its good money, especially at xmas. they keep asking me to be santa. i keep refusing.

for the last 7 years they keep asking me. just for a week and since its such a short time tax is far less, you can easily walk away with a couple of hundred pounds, for a single weeks work, and its sitting down, and listening..

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

It is a very fine line that teachers and school staff walk regarding kids (I am a female former high school teacher.) Yes, they told us all in college that hugging kids was a definite no-no, but when a student crumples in front of you in a puddle of sorrowful tears because their beloved grandma just died, I did what any reasonable, empathetic human being would do--I hugged her. I've caught kids in my arms because they fainted right in front of me, sat on the floor comforting a student who was in the midst of an epileptic seizure, and in those cases, never thought twice about anyone accusing me of having inappropriate contact with a student. I've hugged and been hugged at graduation ceremonies, high school musicals, and at the end of the school year, but this was always in full public view.

Of course, whenever I had to keep a student after class to reprimand them, it was either in the hallway or in my classroom with the door open, and both of us in full view of the doorway. In parent conferences that I was concerned might become contentious, I always had another person in the room with me, either the department chair or a guidance counselor.

These situations can be extremely difficult to navigate, and occasionally can go horribly wrong, especially for younger teachers that want to be viewed as "cool" by the students. I personally know of two situations involving male teachers and teenage crushes that had the potential to be career-wrecking, but in both cases, the girls admitted they had invented the whole thing.

This is not to say that there aren't spiteful teens out there waiting to throw an "inappropriate touching" label on a teacher that yelled at them or gave them a deserved failing grade, but I was fortunate enough to never have run across one.

Some men with education degrees or some university classes in the major, who had intended to become public school teachers, have commented in other forums that they were made to feel distinctly unwelcome in their university classes—almost as if their instructors and fellow female students viewed them as wannabe molesters. Several said that they changed majors as a result of such shabby treatment. It doesn't help that many education colleges have become hotbeds of leftism, including extreme feminism and male-bashing. What incentive would a man have to become a teacher facing this even before receiving an education degree?

I see this everywhere, not just in an educational setting, and I've always found it extremely upsetting. Watch pretty much any commercial on television: the woman is always smart, with-it, sharp as a tack, has everything neatly under control. The man is a bumbling, delusional idiot who can barely get his pants on in the morning or get a complete sentence out without fucking it up.

So. Extremely. Upsetting.

My husband laughs because I will outright yell at the television. But I love and respect my husband -- I love and respect MEN -- and to see them categorically cast as something that they clearly, clearly are not, really bothers me.

I think it's natural for life to imitate art; if you get that "commercial" mentality jammed down your throat for long enough, you start to believe that it's the way things really are.

That's a big part of the reason I'm happy to isolate myself from society to the degree which I do:

I grew tired of feeling I needed to apologize for having testicles, and am similarly tired of being viewed as misogynistic when I don't.

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Without Issue
I love and respect MEN -- and to see them categorically cast as something that they clearly, clearly are not, really bothers me.

Hear hear! I HATE this trendy thing of smart-as-a-whip smug bitches (who all do that snakey-neck mm-mm-mm thing) with whole arsenals of killer putdowns for men, whilst the men are made to limp around like lobotimised chimps wanking into the wind. I ALSO HATE it that every single brat has to be a smart-ass, wise-cracking, finger-snapping prankster who run rings around adults. Pure hubris. What, is the media trying to make it up to all females for the pathetic and shitty depictions we've been given since the invention of the printing press? I'd rather they didn't, thanks. This kind of thing makes even women hate their own sex.

/offtopic

Ok so. My good friend (female) is a history teacher in an American high school. We were e-talking this week about the fact that, thanks to asshole parents encouraging their children to believe that they are their children's best friends, kids today have no compunction about stepping right over personal boundaries with teachers. She was saying it's amazing how students today think they ought to be privvy to all sorts of personal information about teachers -- their first names, their homes, their lives, and their own families. They come right out and ask. They actually think they're on a freakin par with adults. Twats.

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"The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway"
- Cyril Connolly

hysterical mothers to be partly blamed.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1126409/How-hysterical-mothers-driven-men-teaching.html

As endangered species go, this one is especially alarming: so rare has the male primary school teacher become that one in ten schools has none at all, while across the country they account for barely 15 per cent of those who teach under-11s.

At a time when unprecedented numbers of children live with single mothers, this means that more and more of them have little or no contact with any male role model at all.

So parents have decided, as a survey this week shows, that they aren't happy about it.

They think, correctly, that it is good for children to have a man to look up to; that many pupils, especially boys, behave better with a man in charge. They think that their children are being shortchanged by the imbalance.

I agree. But I also think that too many of these 'concerned parents' have only themselves to blame.

There are two reasons given to explain the slump in male teacher recruitment. The first is that men tend to view the profession as 'women's work'. But if that were true, then why are nearly half of all secondary school teachers men?

Nor does it explain why, given the far more rigidly sex-divided jobs of my youth, most of my primary school teachers were men.

So let's hazard a guess at what has changed since then. My old teachers were free to enjoy their jobs because they were exempt from the second, and more truthful, of the reasons given by the Children's Workforce Development Council (which commissioned the survey) for the decline in numbers.

It is that these days, men are scared of teaching young children because they are scared of false allegations of child abuse.

And if you want to know who is largely responsible for creating an atmosphere in which such a fear is all too horribly realistic, look no further than the twittering bunch of over-protective, over-excitable mothers clustered around our school gates

These are the people who have bought, wholesale, into the myth of the sexually predatory bogeyman on every corner; the people who have, in a single generation, swept us from the sensible 'don't take sweets from strangers' to the absurd 'all men are paedophiles'.

These are the people who breathe the fire of the name-and-shame campaigns of the scurrilous end of the Press; the people who have propelled sensational memoir after memoir of child sex abuse to the top of the bestseller charts.

These are the people who declare such abuse to be appalling, but who slavishly follow the titillating thrill of 'kiddie-fiddler' storylines in soaps or films - the same soaps and films that their children also watch.

And that, of course, is the point: observant, clever and calculating as most children can be, they note the drama that thrills Mummy so very much and, sometimes, they spot their chance of a leading role in it.

Robbed as they have been of their innocence, familiar with concepts and even words that most of us would not have known at their age, they join in.

This is not mere speculation on my part. I have personally known a false allegation to have happened and seen the desperately unfair consequences of it.

Let us call him Roger, this committed and dedicated teacher at an inner-city school. He was impeccably behaved and adored by pupils, staff and the head, who is a close friend of mine.

So she was utterly taken aback when an eight-year-old, known already to be disturbed, complained that Roger had touched him 'inappropriately'.

But no matter the head's disbelief, rules are rules and, no doubt, rightly so. So Roger was suspended and sent home with his future hanging in the balance until the necessary inquiry could be arranged.

In the event, there was not only a lack of proof of his guilt, there was incontrovertible proof of his innocence, as he had never been alone with the child in question.
Back at school, however, this was not enough for the twitterers at the gates. There was much over-excitable chit-chat concerning 'no smoke without fire' - chit-chat picked up by the children until, just a few months later, it happened to him again.

Another allegation, another suspension, another inquiry, another total exoneration. But this time, with Roger and his wife racing each other towards mental breakdown, he left teaching: everyone, but everyone, was a loser.

There was an 'abuse counsellor' whom I once interviewed whose immovable principle was that children never lie about such things. That is rot. They do lie. And the question is not why they do, but why shouldn't they?

It's a he-said/she-said game. They think they stand a chance of winning it, they get to be the centre of attention, wielding a power unusual (and unhealthy) for a child, and fully aware that if they get caught out in the lie they won't even be punished for it.

They know what rattles Mummy's cage so, not surprisingly, they rattle it.

If Mummy really wanted to do her child a favour, she would forego the thrills and spills of paedophile hysteria, complete with its marches, banners, petitions and idiots, and opt for a more rational assessment of the relationship between children and male adults.

First, she might look closer to home. When the NSPCC reported this week that the police estimate some 50 allegations a day of sexual abuse against children, they meant, overwhelmingly, abuse at the hands of family or of parents' friends.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

But you see....Moo's don't actually care about who is a greater risk of being a molester. It's easier for them to fear strangers because they have no use to Moos, except as a fear tactic. Strangers do not provide child care.

They can't fear the very helpful family members, or the interested priest/scout leader/teen center director/teacher/coach/etc., because those are the very people who will give her freedom from the children for a couple hours. So Moo can't question "Why is Father Chester so interested in MY kid?", because then Moo'll either alienate Father Chester, or Moo'll have to admit something is fishy. Either way, it means Moo ends up having to deal with the kid for that time, instead of Father Chester. Sure, they probably hope the kid doesn't get molested, but they care much more about having that few hours of freedom.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

Men who deal with children in almost ANY capacity are automatically a suspect if the child shows "signs" of having been/being molested, disappears, is found murderered, or just about for any reason. Moocows are aware of this and they are also TOO WELL aware of who can be easily (and wrongfully) accused when her boyfriend is clearly the culprit, even when they are consciously aware of it. That's because they do not want to accept any responsibility for their own actions, don't want to be told who they can voluntarily bring around their kyds,(even a prior offender) or whose care they are under, as long as THEY don't have to deal with the kyd. Their actions (and inactions) show that they couldn't care less about the well being of their kyds as long as they are getting something out of it, which is all too obvious with the "live in " revolving doors of boyfriends. They are basically trading sex and the safety of their kyds for some spending money or a rent payment, which of course makes them a whore. They CLAIM that the freak next door is "just being nice" to baybee sit for free. that they thought it was "sweet" that step duddy slept with her 10 y/o girl at night so she wouldn't have bad dreams (even though he probably caused them), etc.......They have GOT to know.


While there may be (although I doubt it) some circumstances where moomie was unaware that the kyd was being molested, if it was ongoing for any length of time, then there is NO WAY that they didn't know it for sure or at least suspect it, NO WAY. When I see these crocodile tears and mooing and lowing when they claim that they had "no idea", I think to myself that YES they did know, but now they are trying to save face with the community, look innocent in the eyes of their kyd and their famblee, and quite possibly they are trying to avoid prosecution. Kyds' demeanor, actions, words, and the very look in their eyes change when they are troubled about something. They have yet to have become mature enough to have learned to mask feelings that they don't want to show. There is NO WAY that a moomie can't know that the child is withdrawn, scared to keep the bathroom door open while bathing anymore, won't hardly eat, and it ONLY happens every fucking time he comes back from Vacation Bible School camp, and after church on Sundays. He also wouldn't start crying when they drove up to the church, or WAILING when nice "Mr Pedo" reaches out for him from the church nursery. I am describing a particular case that happened at a church near where I grew up and ALL of this "came out" at trial.


What I found amusing is that moomie testified to all of this in order to get "Mr Pedo" indicted (which he deserved) but all it did was make the grand jury say, "Hey, wait a mnute. Where's the charge for HER part in this bullshit?". So, the whore ended up pleading to a lesser, which was more than she deserved. So, they DO know, they just don't care, for whatever reason. That's a PRETTY high price to pay for a baybee sitter, IMO. What do I know though, I can't POSSIBLY understand because I don't have any chyldren "of my own". That is one jury I would LOVE to serve on. I would already have GUILTY written on a piece of paper and a bunch of copies made in advance, just so it would save time when they passed the hat.