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Good points all around. Background seems to make the biggest difference- I wonder if there's a happy medium where both genders are respected, and what sort of background that would require.
There is a distinct benefit if you're a guy teaching all boys, though- you can pretty easily set yourself up as the "alpha male" (as dumb as it sounds, it works) and get an efficient, energetic classroom. Ditto for lady teachers and girls- except with a nurturing environment instead of a competitive one.
Quick edit: Actually, women can teach all-boy classes effectively and vice-versa, it more depends on the demeanor of the teacher. My supervising teacher was a woman and taught all-boys classes and was much better at being the "alpha dog" than I was...
"The students only listen to you and respect you because you're a man."
No, sorry. The students listen to me because I set clear expectations followed with immediate consequences if they're broken. I also micromanage 90% of the details in my lesson, identify problems before they occur, and try and mitigate those issues. But, please, go ahead and keep making excuses for the bedlam that you call lessons.
/rant
That said, there is probably a very small advantage to being a guy, simply because at home "dad" is usually the one that gets scary when mad. However, I've seen enough male teachers that are completely disrespected by their students to believe it doesn't make a tremendous difference. I'm just tired of my effective classroom management, which is a product of hard work and planning, being written off as a product of my gender Any other educators out there relate to this?
The issue isn't the overall classroom management, it is that there exists a small but statistically significant population, usually of boys, who do not and will not respect women. For those particular students, just being a man makes it much easier to manage these students.
To the OP: I can understand where you're coming from. To me, it isn't suppose to be about gender. It's suppose to be about being organized and behaving in a respectable manner.
As for the comments about fathers ruling the household, this is the way I see it.My father was the authority figure in my home. One reason I dare not disrespect ANY teacher, male or female, was because if I did, I would have to answer to mother AND father, especially my father. I was far more disrespectful towards teachers in the 1st grade than any other grade. My problem wasn't that my teacher was a woman. It might have been that I didn't like being in a classroom, and I was a brat. After a few spankings(I was 6, I had not yet developed an angry complex yet), it kicked in that I could throw tantrums in class or do anything stupid in class.
In middle school and high school, I can remember alot of teachers I had. It was the males who were more likely to be pushovers than the female teachers. I learned to respect all of my teachers(at least in class). I would never deliberately talk bad to them or ignore them. I was the kid who was normally good, as long as you kept me away from everyone. I never had a bad thing to say about most of my teachers. I remember having 2 meltdowns, in class of all places. The first time, my father was emailed. My father gave me a stern lecture(no spanking needed), and he told me in no short form "You can't act like that as a Christian. You make us all look bad", and then told me to apologize to my teacher. I did just that. The second meltdown, I was upset one day and almost got into it with another student. My teacher basically took me out into the hallway and gave me a lecture. She would never have any issues with me after that. It was a one time thing.
Basically, this is how I look at it. The teachers that were respected were the ones who made students think the most, who did the most. It wasn't about male or female. For me, it was about "what can I get out of this class". That was my barometer of respect.
Good points all around. Background seems to make the biggest difference- I wonder if there's a happy medium where both genders are respected, and what sort of background that would require.
There is a distinct benefit if you're a guy teaching all boys, though- you can pretty easily set yourself up as the "alpha male" (as dumb as it sounds, it works) and get an efficient, energetic classroom. Ditto for lady teachers and girls- except with a nurturing environment instead of a competitive one.
Quick edit: Actually, women can teach all-boy classes effectively and vice-versa, it more depends on the demeanor of the teacher. My supervising teacher was a woman and taught all-boys classes and was much better at being the "alpha dog" than I was...
I teach at a school for kids with autism and emotional/behavioral disorders, and due to the higher incidence of all of these in males, most of my classes are completely male. I am female. It's definitely possible to teach all-boy classes effectively, as a woman (just as it is as a man) if you have effective classroom management and the support necessary to consistently follow through on your expectations and policies.
When I was a student teacher, I could not have undertaken my current role in my current classrooms, and had the same successful outcome I have now at 35. I was pretty green, lacked the confidence that comes with experience, and had a harder time being the strict, but compassionate, and at-times hardass that is necessary when dealing with male students of a particular age. At this point in life, I am comfortable with tempering my particular blend of nurturing and no-nonsense, in a way I wasn't as a fresh-out-of-school teacher. I also am much better at reading students than I was then.
The issue isn't the overall classroom management, it is that there exists a small but statistically significant population, usually of boys, who do not and will not respect women. For those particular students, just being a man makes it much easier to manage these students.
I agree and understand, but it cuts both ways. There's also a small percentage of boys who actively lash out and resist the authority of men in authority positions. Not to mention the middle-school girls who think they can get away with being "cute" if there's a male teacher
Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa
I teach at a school for kids with autism and emotional/behavioral disorders, and due to the higher incidence of all of these in males, most of my classes are completely male. I am female. It's definitely possible to teach all-boy classes effectively, as a woman (just as it is as a man) if you have effective classroom management and the support necessary to consistently follow through on your expectations and policies.
When I was a student teacher, I could not have undertaken my current role in my current classrooms, and had the same successful outcome I have now at 35. I was pretty green, lacked the confidence that comes with experience, and had a harder time being the strict, but compassionate, and at-times hardass that is necessary when dealing with male students of a particular age. At this point in life, I am comfortable with tempering my particular blend of nurturing and no-nonsense, in a way I wasn't as a fresh-out-of-school teacher. I also am much better at reading students than I was then.
I started my student teaching with little/no experience with kids in an inner-city middle school a few years ago and the experience kept me from wanting to teach in a classroom after graduating. Not to say I was a horrible teacher- my supervisor said that I was on-par with a teacher with several years' experience in terms of classroom management. I just wasn't happy and confident doing it. Now that I've had experience in situations that have been both better and far worse in both classrooms and non-traditional (field trips, school camp, etc.) settings, I know I could jump into my own classroom and be confident and effective. Experience and confidence, more than anything else, seem to be what matter in the long run.
I agree and understand, but it cuts both ways. There's also a small percentage of boys who actively lash out and resist the authority of men in authority positions. Not to mention the middle-school girls who think they can get away with being "cute" if there's a male teacher
I started my student teaching with little/no experience with kids in an inner-city middle school a few years ago and the experience kept me from wanting to teach in a classroom after graduating. Not to say I was a horrible teacher- my supervisor said that I was on-par with a teacher with several years' experience in terms of classroom management. I just wasn't happy and confident doing it. Now that I've had experience in situations that have been both better and far worse in both classrooms and non-traditional (field trips, school camp, etc.) settings, I know I could jump into my own classroom and be confident and effective. Experience and confidence, more than anything else, seem to be what matter in the long run.
I hated my student teaching experience, not because of the kids, but because I didn't like the politics of the school, the lack of support and mentoring I received, and the attitudes of the teachers at the school I did my practicum at left a bad taste in my mouth. I wasn't horrible, either, but I definitely did not find the experience to be at all enjoyable. I recoiled from traditional teaching, and went into an urban youth outreach setting, where I worked in a non-school affiliated tutoring and mentoring program, and loved that. I didn't return to teaching for a full ten years, almost, and when I did, it was in a nontraditional school with nontraditional students. The typical public school thing just isn't me. But if I went back to it now by necessity, my experience and the increase in confidence it gave me would certainly be assets and I'd be in better shape than I was at 22. I really LIKED the students back then, but I'm much BETTER with them, now. It helps to be significantly older than them, which wasn't the case in my senior creative writing class, etc., when I was student teaching.
I teach at a wonderful school near a military base. When I first started there, in 2007, 68% of our kids had deployed parents, mostly dads. Thank God we are much, much less deployed now.
Anyway, my experience was that many young men were very resentful of male teachers. With Dad away, they were "man of the house" and they were not the least bit interested in listening to some 50 year old man, telling them what to do, for 90 minutes a day, when they were "da man" most of the time.
We just had to deal with those children, and try to understand and accommodate their issues while their parents were overseas. The female teachers NEVER saw this push back, but many of the males did.
I agree and understand, but it cuts both ways. There's also a small percentage of boys who actively lash out and resist the authority of men in authority positions. Not to mention the middle-school girls who think they can get away with being "cute" if there's a male teacher
We do not allow students to "lash out" at my school. Kids with those issues usually don't get in, and when they do they don't make it past the first week or so.
I also teach high school, so the girls flirt with their classmates, not the male teachers.
Good points all around. Background seems to make the biggest difference- I wonder if there's a happy medium where both genders are respected, and what sort of background that would require.
There is a distinct benefit if you're a guy teaching all boys, though- you can pretty easily set yourself up as the "alpha male" (as dumb as it sounds, it works) and get an efficient, energetic classroom. Ditto for lady teachers and girls- except with a nurturing environment instead of a competitive one.
Quick edit: Actually, women can teach all-boy classes effectively and vice-versa, it more depends on the demeanor of the teacher. My supervising teacher was a woman and taught all-boys classes and was much better at being the "alpha dog" than I was...
When I was growing up, we respected all teachers but I can say we held male teachers in higher esteem. The background I come from is lower middle class with working parents or stay at home moms and a working dad. I think we saw women as less capable because they were either not working or working at lower level jobs so even when they had a job equal to a man, we saw them as less than a man. However, our parents would have kicked our ever loving butts into tomorrow if he school had EVER called home and said we treated ANY ADULT with disrespect. You just didn't do that.
From what I have seen where I teach, male teachers seem to get more respect from the students where there is no male or father figure in the home. This is not true of all of those students, but it is especially prevalent with female students that I have seen.
I taught part-time in an alternative school last year where there were few female students. The population was mainly teenage boys up to age 21 and most of them had some type of criminal record but were intelligent (just used it the wrong way). Many of them realized what they were missing at home, including discipline, and seemed to have more respect for male staff members.
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Any other educators out there relate to this?
