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"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there." - Richard Feynman

Few Male Kindergarten Teachers

Kirsten  Haugen forwarded an article from the September 19, 2004 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Male Kindergarten Teachers Are a Rare Sight in Classrooms."  In the article, author Jamal Abdul-Alim observed that just 2% of kindergarten teachers in the United States are men, according to figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.  In the entire state of Wisconsin, there are only 17 full time male kindergarten teachers.
In exploring why men shy away from teaching kindergarten, Abdul-Alim interviewed Exchange author, Bryan Nelson, director of MenTeach, a national non-profit organization that advocates increasing the number of male teachers.  The article quoted Nelson as saying, "It is a combination of factors that keep men from entering teaching and staying as a teacher." Chief among those reasons, Nelson and other experts say, are stereotypical notions that teaching young children is for women or that kindergarten is little more than baby-sitting. Nelson went on to advocate, "Children really need strong, caring men in their daily lives. If we wanted an ideal classroom for children, what would we create?  We'd want our classrooms to reflect our communities."

Later in the article, Abdul-Alim cites the discouraging National Education Association statistic that the percentage of male elementary school teachers in the US has declined by 50% in the last two decades.

The upcoming November issue of Exchange includes the article by Bryan Nelson, "Myths about Men Who Work with Young Children." For other Exchange articles on men in child  care, go to Exchange Online Articles and type in the key word "male" at http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0429

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