Why men are not going into primary school teaching

Jun 20 2010 by Zoe Chamberlain, Sunday Mercury

A RETIRED primary school teacher has told how he fears more men are being put off entering the profession because of potential sex abuse smears.

Steve Devrell taught in Birmingham and Solihull primary schools for 36 years, but eventually fell out of love with the profession as it became more female dominated and bureaucratic.

In fact, by the end of his career he claims his role often left him feeling ‘de-motivated and embarrassed’.

Just 13 per cent of current primary school teachers are male, and a quarter of the schools have no male teachers at all.

It is an issue that is being tackled by the Government, which is on a recruitment drive in a bid to create better role models for young boys.

Yet Steve, 59, says men are primarily being put off because of the sex abuse fears.

He said: “Without doubt the greatest disincentive is the stigma attached to men working with young children.

“I’ve sensed a much greater awareness of this and even a suspicion from parents of any man who has to work in close proximity to primary-aged children.

“We could blame the media, the Catholic church or even over anxious parents for this increased awareness of paedophilia. But there is no evidence to suggest that incidents have increased in recent years.

“Most male teachers in primary schools are, or at least should be, acutely aware of the fundamental rules regarding proximity with children.

“The teacher who feels it is OK to be in a room alone with a child, check the toilets unaccompanied, or attempt to comfort a distressed child risks being a victim of a slur that could ruin or even end his career.

“But not having men in primary schools does have an effect on the classroom. But that seems to be the way in this country – we create a problem then try to sort it out, rather than stopping it in the first place.

Embarrassed

“Sadly, men are being scared off by what could happen to them.”

Steve spoke candidly of his primary school career as part of our Your Child, Your Future series, supported by Wonderkids and Legal and General.

“It was a job that made me feel de-skilled, de-motivated and above all, embarrassed,” admitted the father-of-two who is married to Anne, a former headteacher.

“Working in primary schools has become an occupation that is so ‘in touch’ with the feminine side, that many men feel uneasy about doing it.

“There is nothing politically incorrect about highlighting jobs that are better suited to a particular sex. I would not make a good midwife or pole dancer, for instance, and I wouldn’t be the least offended if someone were to tell me that.

“In the same way, I don’t think I was quite cut out for teaching in a primary school.

‘‘So why did I choose the job in the first place and stick with it for so long?

“Well, the truth is the job changed a great deal over the years but not rapidly enough for me to wake up one morning and say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

“One of the changes has been the gradual reluctance of men to enter this branch of the profession.

“Again this is not a sexist comment, but the reluctance of men to become primary teachers has feminised this area of education.

“In my first school in a working class area of Birmingham, men were equally represented on the staff.

“Two of my colleagues were actually a former Moseley rugby player and a Second World War fighter pilot.

“In my last school, I was the only male member of staff.

“There are many reasons for this and the old chestnut of poor pay is not one of them. Teaching can provide a comfortable income and, on average, just 195 working days a year.”

According to Steve, primary schools have become far too female dominated.

He says: “The problem with teaching in primary school is that it has lost whatever masculine image it may have had.

“It very much relies upon feminine and maternal instincts and skills.

“The traditional image of the male teacher in a primary school as the man who took the football team and supervised the drilling, hammering and sawing of plywood has largely disappeared in a deluge of needless bureaucracy and health and safety neurosis.

“The new skills required in primary education include an attention to detail, a flair for display and the talent to work in a largely prescribed environment.

“These are skills that many men find difficult to adopt.

“They are far better at performing the less structured parts of school life, those intangibles that children often remember about their childhood experiences.

Memorable

“It is my experience that when children recall their memorable school experiences, be they good or bad, they tend to remember the male teachers. They may not have been the best teachers just, for any number of reasons, the most memorable.”

Another modern-day problem facing all teachers is pupils writing about them on social networking sites.

Steve says: “I knew a gay teacher who worked in a primary school and the kids wrote stuff about his sexuality on websites.

“They made unfounded accusations in a giggly way, but it eventually led to him packing it in.

“Social networking is the enemy of the modern teacher.”

Yet Steve did once love being a teacher, especially when he started out in the 1970s.

He says: “In the early period of my life in education I loved it and found it very rewarding.

“Teaching used to be a less prescriptive job.

“Now there is more emphasis on display work and tick-boxes and less scope to use your imagination and be spontaneous.

“Now you’re told what to do every day and you teach under a microscope.”

And Steve is not convinced that the current recruitment drive to encourage men into primary education will be successful.

He says: “At present only 13 per cent of primary school teachers are male and 25 per cent of all primary schools have no male teachers at all.

“The main argument for the recruitment drive is that children – boys in particular – who come from single-parent families have no real male model to relate to.

“Even if this were true, I don’t see why a male teacher has put himself in a job that is unsuitable for his skills and perilous to his reputation just to repair society’s problems.

“Perhaps more time should be spent tackling the causes, rather than addressing the consequences.”