Gender or quality?

In Response to Heather Smith USQ News, September 2003

A student's intellectual, social and personal development is influenced more by the quality of teaching than by factors such as gender, age, ethnicity or religion of the teacher.

Despite the core issue remaining as the quality of teaching and the positive outcomes for students, there are many other issues that can enormously enhance or detract from the success of students. Schools are being required to compensate for an society that is at least tolerating if not encouraging dysfunctional family relationships and structures. Educational development is the major responsibility of the school, and just as schools trade off rigor and “classical” content to try to improve student “engagement”, it is perfectly logical to alter and other factors that might lead to improvement.

The argument that employment of males has any relationship to a reduction in teacher quality is a return to the arrogant chauvinism of the 1950’s and 60’s – except that it is directed against men.

We need to remember that the policy of employment through merit alone was successfully opposed by women because this merely allowed for continued of social presumptions about gender roles and consequent continuation of gross imbalance in participation.

According to virtually everyone, the education system has done a poor job in managing all of the issues associated with the dwindling supply of male teachers, particularly in terms of promoting the rewards of a teaching career to men, and ensuring that values and practices particularly attractive to men (e.g. competition, achievement, clear content and assessment measures) are encouraged and permitted within classrooms and schools.

On the local scene (Victoria), most primary schools have an imbalance of male to female teachers. There are a variety of tokenistic but sometimes sincere attempts to promote appreciation of male attributes. Nevertheless, teacher, schools and the curriculum content exude a powerful and widespread message blaming men for most of the world’s ills ranging from international economics and politics to family relations. This should not be underestimated in its effect on dissuading men from teaching.

Currently, fifteen per cent of primary school teachers in Australia are male compared to forty per cent in the 1960s. Professor Crowther says the shift is partly the result of the profession being marginalised for more than thirty years. He says teaching as a career had diminished in status, especially between the 1970s and 1990s, when teachers' work became less valued than curricula, administration and policy processes. 'By the early 1990s, teaching as a profession had been reduced in its political influence, its public image and its ascribed status. Public opinion surveys of the time recorded a sharp decline in the pubic image of teaching as a profession, and in teachers' own sense of professional esteem.'
He says reports of child abuse also discouraged males from pursuing a teaching career, particularly in primary schools.

The status of teaching is improving marginally in part due to its perception as a safe starting point for a variety of future career destinations. There is much anecdotal and probably statistical evidence that many of the best male teachers leave the classroom either for educational management or other careers.

Feminists have argued successfully over the last decades that the curriculum changes aimed at improving girls participation would benefit all students. Perhaps it is time to argue that changes that improve the proportion of men participating in primary teaching would benefit all teachers.