Thread: Research Project

You'll probably get more responses if you just ask them here.

1. Why did you want to become an elementary school teacher?

2. How do you feel about male elementary school teachers?

3. How did you feel about entering a profession dominated by women? (men)

4. Why do you think elementary school teachers are predominantly women?

1. Why did you want to become an elementary school teacher?

I worked as an aide, and then as a library tech, for a number of years and felt that I had something to offer.

2. How do you feel about male elementary school teachers?

The same as I do about female elementary school teachers. I have worked with many great male teachers.

3. How did you feel about entering a profession dominated by women? (men)

I am a woman.

4. Why do you think elementary school teachers are predominantly women?

The nurturing aspect of dealing with young children tends to fall into gender roles. While those gender barriers have definitely blurred in the last generation, they are still there. As gender roles continue to evolve in our society, we may begin to see more male elementary school teachers. They would certainly be welcome; our students who have no male role models in the home need them.

Originally Posted by J611

1. Why did you want to become an elementary school teacher?

It felt like a very natural career choice. I like working with kids, and think that I'll really enjoy devising lessons to teach (I'm still in school to become a teacher). I think it's a job that allows for a lot of creativity, and one that won't get boring. I also like the thought of playing a role in the development of the future. I really want to teach kids how to think for themselves and critically analyze everything.

2. How do you feel about male elementary school teachers?

Very positively-- it's too bad that there aren't more. As Kelley said, there are so many children without positive male role models in the home, and it's very important for children to have that. My fiancee is also in school to become a teacher, but he's focusing on upper elementary and middle school grades.

3. How did you feel about entering a profession dominated by women? (men)

I'm a girl, but my fiancee has mentioned that he sometimes feels out of place in a class full of girls studying to be teachers.

4. Why do you think elementary school teachers are predominantly women?

Gender stereotyping. Males aren't expected to be good at working with young children. It reminds me of the Arnold Schwarzenegger (sp?) movie Kindergarten Cop-- "A male kindergarten teacher? He must be gay." I think that that rationale keeps a lot of men who could be great at working with young children out of the profession.

Just my two cents.

Originally Posted by J611

1. Why did you want to become an elementary school teacher?

I started out to become an intermediate teacher (grades 4-7) but my first student teaching placement was in grade 1. I realized that the lower grades are where I am meant to be. I like the creativity, the aha moments, the age of the kids.

Originally Posted by J611

2. How do you feel about male elementary school teachers?

I wish there were more especially in the lower grades.

Originally Posted by J611

3. How did you feel about entering a profession dominated by women? (men)

N/A

Originally Posted by J611

4. Why do you think elementary school teachers are predominantly women?

Many people seem to think that teaching hte lower grades is like baby-sitting or like being Mommy. Like Dawn said, it's gender stereo-typing. Currently, there is a man working in my class as a Special Ed aide and he's wonderful with the kids--very nurturing, far more than I (and, no, he's not gay).

I think it also may be an historic thing because it used to be that the lower the grade, the lower the pay and the only ones to take the lower pay were women. I could, of course, be wrong with this but it's somewhere in the recesses of my memory. Before you quote me, look it up.

Men tend not to go into this profession because it's perceived to be a low paying job (and it IS a low paying job, the perception is real). A colleague went to a meeting to meet his student teacher and in the room full of student teachers for K-12, there were 3 men and 35 women. I don't know what can be done to make the teaching profession more desirable. Well, yes, I do, make it a higher paying job but other than that, I don't know.

thank you all for the help I really appreciate you guys are giving me some good stuff. If there are any male teachers interested I would like your responses thanks again.

These are my fiancee's responses to the questions.

Originally Posted by J611

1. Why did you want to become an elementary school teacher?

I was originally going to go into engineering and spent a couple years here at UW-Madison on the track to become a computer/electrical engineer. After spending several semesters on this track and actually realizing what this job was going to become (me sitting at a computer manipulating circuits), I knew this was not what i actually wanted to do with my life. My mother was a teacher and my girlfriend is studying to become a teacher. Honestly that had a significant impact on my decision that this is something I wanted to do with my life. It may sound corny, but the "I want to make a difference in childrens lives" line applies to me to some degree.

2. How do you feel about male elementary school teachers?

I never had a male elementary school teacher, so my experience is somewhat limited. I think it is great that young students would have a positive male role model in these very important years. From my limited experience, I remember a feeling of connectedness that I sometimes experienced when I was working with adult males in school related activities. Oh wait... I take it back... my gym teacher was male. Honestly I don't think that made much of a difference as I was too busy trying to not get hit in the head with dodgeballs to notice too much who my teacher was. I kind of feel like I missed out by not having the one male teacher I remember at my elementary school though.

3. How did you feel about entering a profession dominated by women? (men)

I don't have a problem with entering this field. Knowing at least some of the historical background of the field I can see why it has been and continues to be a female dominated field. For some of the reasons in the previos questions, I do think it is very important to get some male influence in students lives, especially for those students who may not have positive role models in their lives outside of schools. On a more personal note, it has been a refreshing change to come from engineering/physics which was roughly 95% nerdy males to a field where is seems ~80% of my classmates are female.

4. Why do you think elementary school teachers are predominantly women?

Historical factors are probably the major reason along with the idea of the female as the "caregiver". I'm not sure what level you want for this question... I guess I could go back to evolutionary tendencies that the female of mammal species is often associated with the care of offspring up to more modern reasons where even though the field is open to males and females, it is still dominated by females due to inequalities in the workforce for pay and respect of the different sexes