To the two or possibly three readers who are reading these pixels that I typed on the screen; Thank you. I promise I will try to provide my insight or opinions on any opinions that come up regarding Education, Travelling or anything that may be remotely interesting. Maybe a bi-weekly thing that I could possibly turn into videos.
Before you read this giant wall of text that I’m very apologetic for, this is what I got up to during my 4 weeks of Professional Experience at a Primary School recently.
What comes into your head when you think of a teacher?
Maybe an old English teacher lady? Maybe that super hot Physical Education teacher you had in High School?
Well typing teacher into Google Images gives us this result;
You might say there’s a lot of caucasian looking females in the results and you wouldn’t be wrong with Macquarie University research finding that “Male teachers heading towards extinction in Australia”, with lots of media outlets, newspapers etc covering this topic.
Hell, even Channel 7 gave the topic some time on the Prime Time morning show; “Sunrise” which does raise a few good topics.
However, this is not a recent topic, with many videos and news articles being from a few years ago. Going back to the article however, whilst it doesn’t provide any reasoning as to why or what can be done, the “extinction” of Male teachers is only being based off a ‘current trend’ of which we obviously can’t predict reliably. Looking at the article itself; Figure 1 shows that the biggest drop has been quite recently and whether this will continue for the next 10 years, let alone 50 is obviously unknown.
Even in the article itself, there isn’t a single table that shows the trend extending beyond 2026, so to imagine that ‘all” male teachers will be extinct is definitely more of a click-bait rather than fact, but the fact that the discussion is being had as a good thing.
So now what?
Personally, as with most other teachers probably believe that hiring of teachers should be based off merit like with most other jobs, as there’s nothing to say that just being a teacher is a Male that they will automatically be better or bring more benefits than a Female teacher.
Is it the money?
Comparatively to most other career choices, it would not be an overstatement to say that Teaching in itself is a career that doesn’t bring the most income nor does it have the most career advancement in comparison to other occupations such as business related ones, IT, Engineering etc. Because of this, the gap between the average Male Teacher and Male non-teacher income is almost 10% deficit in comparison to 2% for a female.
Although the statistics from the article may be from 2001, it can be assumed that due to inflation etc that the numbers are probably the same in present day, although almost half of “school leaders” in Primary School are Male most likely Principals and executive staff, compared to the 20% that actually become school teachers.
So, what now; do you just pay Males more to make up for the difference? Or maybe you could increase the salaries in general.
If teaching was a more heavily paid profession, naturally it would become more competitive with more people wanting to study it and work in it which would result in higher standards, more competent graduates, more research which would lead to a better education for students. However, with already a large amounts of graduates leaving the profession or not being able to find stable permanent or full-time jobs, throwing money at the problem would probably exacerbate that problem.
Although you do hear a lot more males choosing to study X because of the $ so who knows.
Gender Stereotypes
I’m not too sure about other Male teachers/or students, but me personally I haven’t felt as if people have said “That’s a girly job” or stereotypical gender things along those lines, with anything gender related being said these days becoming a topic of controversy.
However, from my experience and I’m sure many others, a common response when people find out that you’re studying to be a Primary School teacher is one of “Oh, you must love kids, they’re so cute etc” along those lines. Whilst this isn’t gender specific, it is possible to assume that going off these comments that it would be the common reasoning which is one that probably be more commonly held by females rather than males.
Looking more in-depth into this however, if the motivation is actually to be with children rather than be a quality educator then there might be an issue, as “being with kids” and “being a quality educator/teacher” are totally different things, and realistically one would be more focused on improving their own pedagogy, teaching strategy and the student’s education. The fact that the first line of reasoning one that is more common, probably means that these Gender Stereotypes play a more subtle role, alongside negative perceptions of Adult Males being around children.
Negative Perceptions?
From my experience being in a Year 1 classroom for 4 weeks on my practicum, having students constantly crying and all that kind of jazz, it is only natural and probably your role as even just an adult to be able to comfort the child, give them a hug, hold their hand.
Naturally then, unless something an incident regarding a parent or fellow teacher commenting or disliking a teacher’s behaviour has happened then it really does remain as a perception or a thought that shouldn’t really effect you as long as you feel what you’re doing is right. Speaking to one of my teacher’s from the same school about the same article/topic, he pretty much said the same thing.
I mean it’s unrealistic to say that these perceptions haven’t come from prior incidents, a paranoia of pedophilia or whatever but advancements in technology and social media doesn’t really help in creating these perceptions, so I’ll just leave this topic at this.
Lack of Role Models or Growth
To get people to become teachers, you need to give them a reason. When people study business, they want to become the next CEO, or work in the Big Four, become the next Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, or just make a crapload of money. Granted, these may seem difficult or unrealistic but us as humans, we need drive, ambition and a goal to work towards whether it is accomplishable or not. I mean, you see articles or the Instagram of the CEO of Qantas, or your favourite body-builder or Youtuber making x amount of money and wearing nice clothes and driving a nice car, you think “damn I want to do that”.
I mean, you won’t see teachers posting pics of their Honda Civic on Instagram or flying Business Class (hell, even the Profession has its own damn airline class), but one thing that would promote the profession more is social media. Like it’s the 21st century, people.
Does the name Eddie Woo sound familiar?
This guy is probably one the most famous and probably the first famous teacher in this era of Social Media, and for good reason too. He has millions of views of Youtube, is highly acclaimed and has popped up on Television, news articles etc every now and then as well.
Personally, I kind of see him as a role model in the way that Education is actually being seen in a good light because of not only him and the fact that he records his lessons, but also because of his teaching pedagogies and teaching Philosophies.
With the power to reach out to so many students and teachers, someone like him could truly influence thousands if not millions of people around the world to not only become teachers, but to become better teachers themselves (leave that topic for later). 
Even on social media, we find that the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook is using her Instagram to promote leadership for women in a Male dominant field of IT.
Imagine if suddenly, all of these teachers were active on social media and were promoting the profession through avenues such as videos, blogs and video blogs, amazing photos and Instagram posts across the internet to not only promote the industry but teaching practices and ideas. (Teachers and their fear of technology is another issue but let’s deal with that later too).
So is there one simple solution?
Definite no, but with time, a few more Eddie Woos and a bit of open-mindedness from fellow teachers, the general public as well as maybe politicians or those in power, maybe some of my classmates and I won’t be extinct in 40 years from now.
There are bigger issues to deal with in Education than gender ratios, and I really hope this is the last time I have to write about something like this 🙂
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