As a male teacher, I hate it when other teachers tell me...

[High_Plains_Retired]

AbqTeacher. Many years ago I found that I did not have the courage to be a teacher and, although I thoroughly enjoyed teaching as a graduate student, I ran from the profession as a career as fast as I could. There are several people in these education threads who appear to be very good educators and reading your comments I suspect you are one. I'm hoping your name means you teach in the Albuquerque area which is where my grandchildren now attend school.

[aspentree]

Originally Posted by AbqTeacher

"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?

I'm not a teacher...I could see how that would be frustrating.

OTOH, my son has come in contact with very few male educators at this point in his education. I know that as he gets older, in the later grades there are many more male teachers. I'd have to imagine that for some boys this makes for a positive change.