Men are turned off teaching because of the feminisation of our classrooms and the curriculum
Men are staying away from teaching because of the feminisation of our classrooms and the curriculum, what happens in the classroom and how schools operate, writes Dr Kevin Donnelly, and education experts agree.
Opinion
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The man drought in primary and secondary schools where numbers are only getting worse is an urgent problem that must be addressed.
And the reality is it’s been coming for years, as highlighted by the 2002 Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry investigating the role and place of boys’ education in schools titled Boys: Getting it Right.
After undertaking a national investigation, the inquiry noted there was “a great deal of public and media interest in the decline in the number of male teachers in both primary and secondary schools” and that more needed to be done to attract men to the profession.
The reasons why teaching has become a profession dominated by women and why it is no longer attractive to men are many.
Firstly, when politicians like previous NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli and the acting leader of the federal opposition Tanya Plibersek argue only dummies go into teaching it shouldn’t surprise that it’s not popular.
Only this week Plibersek argued teaching had been “dumbed down” and that it was a choice for losers when she said: “What we don’t want is people who just don’t know what else to do with their lives thinking it might be a good fall back”.
The second problem, as uncovered by the federal government’s review of boys’ education when Brendan Nelson was the education minister, is the feminisation of the curriculum, what happens in the classroom and how schools operate.
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Teacher education, according to the NSW academic Peter West, also undervalues masculinity and what it means to be male. West argues: “Because of the profound influence of feminism on the social sciences, teachers are being greatly influenced by feminism. Unfortunately, there is almost no teaching of men’s issues — unless masculinity is seen as a problem to be fought against”.
There’s no doubt what is taught, how classrooms are managed and how students interact have been feminised.
More explicit teaching, what is known as direct instruction, and where teachers actually teach instead of being facilitators and guides by the side better suit male teachers but are rarely, if ever, recommended.
There is also no doubt that the radical gender and sexuality program Safe Schools and the Respectful Relationships family violence program also have a negative impact. In both, men are stereotyped as sexist, violent and misogynist and teachers are told to teach that masculinity is a social construct without any positive or worthwhile qualities.
Imagine being a male teacher and trying to survive in a staffroom or school where such a negative picture prevailed. Add the fact that fears about paedophilia are widespread and it’s understandable why there would always be the suspicion that male teachers choose the profession for the wrong reason.
In subjects like mathematics, where boys used to excel, instead of focusing on numbers, equations and algorithms in order to positively discriminate in favour of girls the focus is now on reading and written work — areas that better suit girls compared to boys.
Whereas the focus on English teaching was once about grammar, punctuation, spelling, clear thinking, parsing a sentence and writing a sound essay the emphasis is now on feelings and emotions, creative writing and boys are expected to be in touch with their feminine side.
The problem, as argued by the American educator Michael Gurian, is that boys learn differently to girls.
Boys prefer a more ordered and disciplined classroom environment where they have clear instructions and where they are told whether they have passed or failed and what they need to do to improve.
If teachers were more highly paid more men might be attracted to the profession but there is no guarantee that such would be the case. A better solution would be to reduce the number of teachers on short-term contracts and ensure that teaching as a career offers better job security and chances of promotion.
The department’s response to having too few male teachers involves “establishing a male teacher employee network to advise on motivations for teaching, experiences, barriers and challenges” but don’t hold your breath for solutions.
A better and more effective strategy is to rebalance what is happening in schools, the classroom and the curriculum to ensure the needs of boys and men are treated as important as those of girls and women.
Instead of a deficit view of what it means to be male dominating schools and the curriculum we need to assert a stronger, more positive view of masculinity. As argued in a research paper titled Making it OK to be Male it’s time to “promote in boys and men a positive sense of self” and to “create a culture which does not run away from the darker side of men but which validates and honours men”.
Dr Kevin Donnelly is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University and author of How Political Correctness Is Destroying Education (Wilkinson Publishing).