The fate of boys “is a defining issue of our time”, according to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, as she calls for more men to become teachers to combat “toxic” behaviours.
since 2010 the number of teachers in our schools has increased by 28,000 – but just 533 of those are men
Do you think this is an issue? Decades ago, boys would have been taught by male teachers, so today’s female teachers are a change from the past.
I just sent this to a friend who is one of the small proportion of male teachers in a primary school, turns out he just resigned because of the trust.
Thinking back many many years, I can’t think of any male teachers in primary and an awful lot of the male teachers at my secondary school were either bastards, wankers or weirdos. There were some decent ones but I have no uplifting stories of them being inspirational (ex pupils of my Mum’s say she definitely was), although I should have listened to Mr Benson about going to Oxford to do Geography. Asking teachers to be good role models to combat “toxic masculinity” seems like another example of what my Dad called “the elastic curriculum” - some politician would get it in there head that something nerds doing and punt it onto the schools as if they have all the time and resources in the world.
My key male role models growing up were my Dad and my ex-uncle Norm. If the good examples aren’t set at home then the schools have no chance.
I had some good male teachers. The ones who weren’t so good were easily angered and lashed out at the class. The ones who I much preferred knew how to lay down rules and get the respect of the class.
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