The thinking seems to be that a variety is preferable for both boys and girls... But who knows as there are so few male teachers to test the theory :shrug:.

Something needs to be done to make teaching in general more attractive as a career to be fair. My wife's cousin spent years getting his qualification... Lasted 2 years as a high school teacher and was so miserable with it that he just walked out. He's now an emergency dispatcher and finds it much LESS stressful... Which surely shouldn't be the case!

In his words, he loved actual teaching as much as he always thought he would... but the rest of it was a nightmare. All targets, pressure and paperwork and not really an attractive salary either.

..a little while ago, there was a small discussion at a cluster meeting..(so it's only a comparatively small experience of schools, I know....)...and generalising obviously...of how in our school and other local ones and with after school activities, girls tend to expand out more...it's quite an even boy/girl thing with activities chosen in things like football/rugby, which would be deemed more male...?..but a high percentage of girls show interest as well...but with what would be deemed more female things like any cooking related thing/crochet/knitting etc or sports like netball, dance..?.../there are very few boys who do these things....so not expanding so much..and maybe that's partly a peer pressure thing...anyways, I don't know how relative but just interesting and something that's been discussed....

...interesting as well that we're told that girls tend to be the higher achievers, academically...and yet we're also told that they're the lower earners/disadvantaged there, in the work place...so despite being lower achievers, then...boys still excel more in the work place..?..or are recognised more..?...


..I think that in general, people aren't choosing the teaching profession so much because it's just not so much about teaching and time in the classroom, which is why it's always been chosen as a vocation but there are probably more male primary school teachers now as there has ever been....males though, don't tend to choose primary school teaching because it hasn't got the potential of career, that schools for older children have...it's also a completely different structure because it doesn't (mostly) have subject teachers, but just class teachers....and males tend to prefer to teach in their own specialist subject, rather than more 'bite sizes' of every subject...

Every single factor is against boys

the number of male teachers at junior and primary ages has fallen consistently for 3 decades.
3 years ago a survey was done showing 80,000 more women than men applied for uni, law appplications were 70% women 30% men
approx 50% of boys grow up fatherless and no male teachers at all....where are their male rold models? these boys havent got a hope in hell and these useless spineless politicians have created this situation
anyone who questions it is shouted down as sexist and we get the meaningless line the patriarchy doesnt work ...just look at the state of men in this country ? seriously there are tens of millions of workless broken young men doped upto their eyeballs on drugs, male suicides are the highest theyve ever been and the spiral downwards just goes on and on

In 2013 Of the 558,898 candidates who applied to university by the January deadline this year, 319,752, or 57.2 per cent, were women. Some 239,146, or 42.8 per cent, were men.

87% of primary teachers in the uk are female, this figure is 80% across the developed world


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...ged-group.html

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.TCHR.FE.ZS

One in four primary schools in England still has no male registered teacher, which has led to questions about positive male role models.

The General Teaching Council for England statistics show that as of March 31 this year only 26,208 men were working as primary school teachers, compared to 185,023 women...only 8% of primary teachers in scotland are men

No doubt the endless threat of being labelled a pervert hangs over every man...as once any accusation is made their lives and reputation are instantly destroyed forever regardless of innocence...in the uk now a man accused of anything is never innocent till proven guilty, he is instantly guilty by gossip regardless of the facts or the truth

Women get infinitely more support than men in every section fo society, whether its the nhs spending, charity, refuges, support workers, social care, benefit system, schools, motherhood, education. the list goes on and on

Vast swathes of the uk industrial areas were destroyed by thatcher and nothing has been done to regenarate those areas and find work for these young men. that allied to the bias within the system towards women has especially mothers over fathers in the law courts has lead to this pitiful sorry state of affairs. the entire culture is out of balance. the gender war was based mostly on completely phoney assumptions too. The real war should be with the elite 1% and the corporate takeover of planet earth. not between men and women and girls and boys.

im delighted to see girls and women do well , my beef is simply that the system now disadvantages boys and men to an absurd degree and the double standards are simply staggering

I also feel the endless feminist politics has taken the spotlight and funding away from far more disadvantaged groups , the sick, the disabled, the elderly , the diseased etc etc and created a frnakly insane politically correct environment obsessed with serving radical feminism at the expense of others

We had no male teachers at primary school. We had none in secondary school, though we had a male headteacher. In senior school there were more male than female teachers. I think my school was odd as I always hear of the lack of male teachers but there was an endless supply to our school...there were like 5 female teachers and about 20 male. Male headteacher too

Bunker, what bunker?!

As the mother of a son and someone who has worked in education and children's literature, I believe that part of the problem is that boys are not encouraged to read enough which is an activity girls seem to enjoy. Reading broadens horizon and widens vocabulary. Good reading skills open the doors to all other educational subjects. I know people say that gender is something created more by nurture and society than nature but whether it's nature or nurture on the whole little boys in my experience are more active than little girls. Little boys are doers and want to run, jump, tumble and get their hands dirty and generally can't sit still more than little girls who seem more able to sit still and more inclined to sedate sort of play. In a nursery you are more likely to see a girl interested in games and puzzles where the boys all want to be outside on the slides and trikes. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions or that girls don't like outside play but generally little boys are more hectic than little girls.

I found through asking questions that very few primary age father's read to their sons or listened to them read. The male role model in many families does seem to leave this job to the woman in the family. Primary school is predominantly a female environment. Boys do need some male role models to encourage them with reading.

My own sons' father would rather play computer games with him than listen to him read. Computer games can play a part in education. But the male in the family needs to step up more and read with his children, boys and girls alike. My son was a good reader and spelled well but was reluctant and I worked hard to get him interested. Finding the right books was important and also found audio books while he was going to sleep were very valuable in encouraging his interest. I remember my son enjoying the audio book for the first book in the His Dark Materials series so much that he read the rest of the series rather than waiting for the next audio to come out because he wanted to know what happened next.

I do think that a big thing that has changed in society is that boys have less male role models when it comes to learning and non sport related activities. There are a lot more single parent families these days than in the past which means some boys have a father they rarely see at all if ever.

What I'd like to see is an initiative where people like male sporting stars and Olympians go into schools and read to and with children. I think something like that would give a tremendous boost to boys in education.

Underground
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No Nuke can get in.

great post I agree with every word, bravo:wavey:
ps if Id written it some posters would have called me sexist because a man isnt allowed to say these things in this PC basket case of a culture

I think that there is a real difficulty for boys on education and in reading and it desperately needs to be addressed. And I think fathers have to look at what they silently say to their son in households where dad never picks up a book either to and for himself or for his sons.

Boys often idolise dad and that influence could be used to encourage in education.

Yes Arista, me and Ammi are going to come and live in it when the first bomb falls. It'll be just like "10 Cloverfield Lane".