New Teacher Support

» jbradley - Shortage of Male teachers

I was a inner city classroom teacher for 4 years on the elementary level and 1 year at the middle school leave. I was an high school assistant basketball coach for 2 years. At each level I was disappointed with the ability level of the students and the negative mind sets of the veteran teachers. As a married man with two children at the time it was difficult paying bills on the income I was making as a teacher. I found myself frustrated dealing with disruptive kids on a constant basis. Being the only male teacher in the build the principal and the other female teacher assumed that I was the person designated to deal with everones problem child and teach my own class. I was in a building with teachers that were grandmothers trying to teach a totally different generation that they could not educate, but insult. The class sizes were overcrowed and the building are in need of improvement. No one graduates from college expecting to work in such poor conditions. Unless the profession of education gets progressively younger, males will continue to dissappear from the profession to find better opportunites. Teachers are not teaching student, but making sure their salaries and retirements or in tact. Younger teachers look to the veteran teachers for guidence and instead they are attacked because they are not controlling the classroom in a manner that is acceptable to the veteran teacher. I will not encourage any of my children to go into the field of education. It is not a benifical career, nor is it a career you can enjoy with out dramma.

-- posted by jbradley