Boys Are Struggling. Male Kindergarten Teachers Are Here to Help.
Boys Are Struggling. Male Kindergarten Teachers Are Here to Help.
Only around 3 percent of kindergarten teachers are men. We interviewed a dozen of them about the joys of the job and the challenges boys face today.
You're viewing a single thread.
In my experience, the number one reason you see very very few male primary school teachers, and even less kindergarten or prek, is the social assumption by parents AND admin that men both do not know how to care for/teach children of that age, and that they MUST be up to something nefarious.
There's also the assumption that men with younger children are automatically preditors. It's why dads taking their daughters outside without a mom get looks
Not just looks. I was a stay at home dad when my kids were little. There's way more shit that goes on than stares.
Im sysadmin for a private school. I stare at the top of the walls when I move through hallways, one word from a parent or student and I'm fired.
They’d have to pay me seven figures to put up with that.
Twenty years ago I used to work at one of Canada's largest kids camps running their health centers. After my stay at home experiences ten years ago or so I probably wouldn't take that job now.
I think this might depend on where you live. In Germany male kindergarten teachers etc. are in rather high demand.
About 8% in 2022, under 30yold 12.6%, under 20yold 17.9%, over 60yold 2%.
There doesn't seem to be an official quota, at least I couldn't find anything concrete. Should be state law and that's generally easy to find. OTOH there's a literal fuckton of organisations involved running Kindergarten, many are independent associations, others are run by churches or municipalities, all of those may have their official or unofficial guidelines.
(For the Americans: Kindergarten is not part of the school system over here y'all are misusing the term. Kindergarten is where you develop motor skills (and other things) through play, school is where you then learn to write. Definitely no home-work. Generally not mandatory though some states have introduced mandatory developmental tests so that kids who lag behind in some areas can get that fixed by professionals (minimum 3 years education) before school starts so they don't start their school career at a disadvantage)
The push seems to come largely from academia and professional organisations. Here's a nice, long interview in a professional publication from 2013, I recommend reading the whole thing but this strikes me:
In our representative study [...] 40% of parents, 43% of daycare centre managers and 48% of intendants stated that they - more or less intensively - had thought about the risk of abuse by an educator.
Remarkably, however, these survey groups also showed a very high level of approval towards men in daycare centres. In our study, around 90% of parents, daycare centre managers and intendants consider it important that children are cared for by male professionals.90% is rather significant, I'd be interested in numbers from other countries. It's more than enough so that you don't need advocacy to get things started because practically everyone already acknowledges that it's an issue that needs solving, all that was apparently necessary is for someone to sit down and develop ready-made strategies regarding getting men into the profession, allaying fears, making sure that organisational structures make it harder, not easier, for abusers, etc. That seems to be mostly "have them be democratic and not hierarchical", which is of course a good idea in general.
I had an experience in Germany that really stuck with me. It highlighted to me the difference in how men are treated around children. As a north American, it's assumed that older men around children is an unsafe situation and that left me feeling doubt and uneasiness whenever I was around children.
I had the opportunity to work and travel in Germany for a year and picked up a job as a home cleaner. Think Uber but for private property cleaners.
I was scheduled to clean a home I've never been to before and the owner told me that their son would be there to let me in. When I arrived, I called the home owner and she let her son know to let me in. He was probably about 10 years old and I was completely shocked that this person was trusting a complete stranger with her son who was home alone. I did my job and let him stay in his room and didn't bother to clean his room when he refused after I asked.
I did get a chance to meet the parents on later visits to clean but that really put it into perspective to me just different men can be treated in different parts of the world.
The main reason men drop out of becomming an elementary teacher, is because they have to work parttime at a kindergarten for 6 months. Most of them want to teach, not care for walking shit/vomit fountains.
Huh? Where is this happening
Netherlands. The curriculum that educates teaching at schools demands students to work a number of hours at a daycare. Which leads male students to drop out.
Interesting. The process here requires full semesters of observation, then more hands on lesson planning, then "student teaching" which is essentially unpaid internship, 5 days a week all day for a whole semester
Damn. That's criminal. Unpaid internships I mean.