Education: February 2016 Archives
I've got all daughters, but I think they'd benefit from some male teachers also.
China's approach is wise and much needed, both in Asia and the West. Many female teachers are doing a wonderful job, but schoolboys are in desperate need of male teachers. Boys are by nature more rambunctious, distracted, hyperactive, and physical than girls. This is obvious to anyone with rudimentary observation skills and access to a playground, but I saw it firsthand a few years ago when I was a teacher. Bluntly put, sometimes it takes a male teacher to handle male students.Experts can conduct all the studies they want to and the government can hand out blue-ribbon panel guidelines on equality in schools, but all a person has to do to be faced with the difference between girls and boys in school is to simply spend a couple weeks--or even a day--as a teacher.
It's no mystery why men are reluctant to become teachers: a false accusation of misconduct with a child will ruin your life. The vast majority of men, just like women, want nothing but the best for children; it's a shame that our sensationalist culture has made teaching so unappealing and risky for men.
