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Bringing Men into the Early Education Field

by Paul Belz
November/December 2013
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/bringing-men-into-the-early-education-field/5021478/

Teachers, parents, and administrators all over the world are working hard to encourage men who want to work with young children to join the field of early childhood education. Let me introduce you to a couple of these professionals.

Lee Wagner, cover director featured in Exchange, March/April 2004), retired after 12 years as the director of Nia House in Berkeley, California, a low-cost Montessori preschool. Lee tells me that Nia House works hard to overcome the stigma that preschool was ‘pre-learning.’ He says, “This is not just a nursery school where kids sleep and get their diapers changed.” This school offers a perfect opportunity to men who want to lend their creative talents to children and families. Still, men’s time with Nia House tends to be short; the man who worked there longest stayed for only a year and a half.

Tae Ha directs the nature-based Garden School in Oakland, California. She agrees with Lee that men’s careers in early childhood ­education tend to be brief. Of course, data on turnover in our field also reflect women’s brief stays. A 2004 study by the National Association for Early Childhood Education showed a 30% annual turnover in the field. This can be traced ...

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