EDUCATION MYTH #2:
THERE IS A MAJOR SHORTAGE OF MALES WANTING TO BECOME TEACHERS, ESPECIALLY AT THE LOWER GRADE LEVELS!
THE TRUTH:
While there is definitely a dwindling presence of males in the teaching profession, particularly at the lower grade levels, it is much lower than can be accounted for simply by a lower percentage of males than females in teachers colleges. I have discovered that, across Ontario, there are innumerable schools with NOT A SINGLE MALE STAFF MEMBER (unless you count janitors!) Is this the result
of a lack of males in teacher training?
OF COURSE NOT!
And the real cause of the lack of males in teaching positions . . . at the last of
my interviews the principal told me:
". . . as a male seeking a teaching position in the lower grades, some principals [who usually do the interviewing and hiring] may be concerned that you would be 'harsher' with the students!"
All of my previous suspicions were confirmed by that foolish act of honesty, the admission that male applicants are being discriminated against simply because
they were male! To hell with our knowledge and teaching ability - we are not women! This is one of the Great Dirty Secrets of the education system - the systematic exclusion of males from the teaching field! Is this just an act of the principals or do these school boards have ongoing policies regarding not hiring male teachers? And at the same time they deliberately exclude males, these same people then have the unmitigated gall to publicly whine and lament about a lack
of male teachers, the potential harm it causes, and to insist on initiatives for attracting more men to the field! WHY? SO THEY CAN BE EXCLUDED TOO?
I assume that this is based on the fact that a male cannot teach as well as a female, and further, that males really offer no significant contribution to the family or to society at large!
I was interviewed for a position and, after being told that the position had been filled, I discovered the school was advertising for the exact same position again!
These principals and administrators are charged with the responsibility of running our schools to help prepare young minds for the future. But how can they accomplish this if their own minds are firmly mired in the Dark Ages? Is it any wonder that the education system is disintegrating and failing when its leaders display such degenerate, sexist attitudes? That the education system is failing is beyond question - with the high school dropout rate in Ontario soaring back up to about 30% and Statscan's recent announcement that as much as 42% of adults in Canada are functionally illiterate! How could this happen if not as a result of the failure of the education system and the people running it? What else could one expect when people who do not have the faintest idea what they are doing are put in charge? At some time in the future the public may finally realize where the blame lies and the administrators and politicians may be held accountable and taken to task for their enormous contributions to the mess that is public
education!
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