Male Role-Models

Today I was in the second grade classroom and we were honored by the U.S. Navy Band, who played Christmas songs for the school. It was a great performance and the kids and faculty seemed to really enjoy it...especially the music teacher...go figure. As I was watching the band I scanned the room to look at all the teachers and I noticed that in the school there is not one male teacher who works there.

If that's not women in the workforce I don't know what is.

I asked the teacher I was working with what the deal was with that ans she said yeah, within the entire school there isn't one male teacher; and she went on to tell me within the district there are only about 3 or 4 male teachers. That was unbelievable to me.

Now I understand men are less likely to teach elementary school just because that is usually covered by the women, mainly because we have more patience. However, I do see some problems with not having any men around. Not because they are nice to look at but if an elementary school only has women teachers...who are the boys supposed to look up to? Boys that might not have fathers in the home need a male role model and if they are not present in early ages of development then a gap is created. If the boy finally gets a male teacher in middle school all is not lost but it makes it difficult to take direction from a male.

I am all for women being in the workforce I think it's great, it really shows men whose boss...just a little humor. But I also think it appropriate to say that men need to man up and get in the elementary schools...the kids need you!

Holiday Vacations

I think being a teacher is great. Not only do you get to enrich the lives of students but you get vacations off while doing so. Many people think being a teacher is easy, and many think that anyone can be a teacher...this is highly false. Being a teacher takes years of patience and practice to do it right. A great teacher can teach you more than just what's in the text book or what's on the test. A great teacher teaches you about life and the unfair things that happen during it. And for that difficult job I think teachers deserve everyday off they get, which just so happens to include Christmas and Thanksgiving break. Those breaks are also well deserved considering that most of the time during the year is spent worry about teaching and worrying about lesson plans and school, that families tend to get the bad end of the stick in this deal.

Many teachers like my own mother get saw caught up in their jobs that families tend to be second on the list. This means that those breaks that teachers get off can be spent with their families catching up on details in each others lives. I think teachers deserve their breaks and I don't think anyone has the right to say that teachers have it easy and that they don't deserve their breaks. They "babysit" your kids so that you can go out and do your job....and babysitting kids is not easy.