I am an early childhood teacher in New Zealand, and being a male I have heard just about all the stereotypes possible - ‘isn't that a woman's job?’ is the most common. This has lead me to believe the education system is failing, as it focuses on gender stereotypes and limits people's dreams and aspirations. I am lucky I have a strong personality and can ignore people who think that my choice of career is strange - I think being a male teacher in early childhood is great and I am proud of my career.
My philosophy for teaching is that we as educators should be challenging these gender stereotypes in children from a young age. There is a lot of inequality in the world - the majority of CEOS are men while the majority of teachers and nurses are woman. Why is it that the majority of teachers are woman (Male early childhood teachers in New Zealand only male up 2% of the workforce!!) but the principal is often male? What message does this send to woman - that they can't be leaders? Although we are seeing an increase in females in leaderships roles we still have a long way to go.
As a early childhood teacher I take my role very seriously and I believe the first few years of a child's life are vital for forming their views on the world. I always encourage children to be whatever they want to be - girls can be police and boys can wear pink! I often reinforced this by not giving into these stereotypes myself - wearing pink and jewelry and inviting and encouraging girls to take part in typical boy activities such as contact sports or playing with trucks. The language we use around children reinforce these stereotypes so we need to be selective and careful - boys can be called ‘beautiful’ and ‘pretty’ while girls can be called ‘smart’ and ‘strong’. These changes in language might seem trivial but as media and other outlets already have strong gender stereotypes. This means it is up to educators who have an opportunity to encourage and teach diversity.
Males provide a balance in teaching - some children live with their mother and then go to day care where there is only female teachers. Males have a different approach to teaching especially to their perception of children taking risks.
With work and awareness from educators I hope we can see a shift in people's thinking which will lead us to live in a more diverse world where anyone can be anything they want to be. I would love to hear your thoughts.
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My thought is virtue signalling. I tend to agree with you on the fact that anyone can be who they want but trying to force the other shoe so to speak on the kids creates a problem for me. As much as equality is warranted this idea of men and women not being different is laughable to me.
I am coming from the perspective of a post secondary educator training in a hyper masculine career path. I think its very important that we include women in our industry but the fact of the matter is that not all women are cut out for it.
I ask you is it fair that i should be compensated the same as the women who can only do half of the field work I can? of course thats not all women and not to single out women because there is certainly men who are not cut out for this type of career as well.
Essentially what i see here is a Cultural Marxism at its finest saying that words and language specifically are responsible for ones oppression. Change the ways the words and language are used and boom we have equality.
I disagree.
Only when we learn to accept the fact that people are different and we learn to accept and appreciate the differences strengths and weakness of others and the fact that those differences in people can help us through our own short comings.
This idea of one cookie cutter for equality bothers me and i think only when we can admit we are different can we truly obtain those goals set out by misguided SJW's otherwise you are falling prey to conditioning set out by over reaching governments trying desperately to consolidate more power and pull more money out of your pocket and the media narratives these governments and corporate counter parts are using to push an agenda.
I love everyone and I love women because everyone else (women included) brings something to the table I dont.
I hear what you are saying and agree that not all woman (and men) are 'cut out' for certain career paths. What im trying to highlight to children is that they can give anything a go no matter their gender - their gender shouldnt define who they want to be.
I agree that women do bring something different to the table but as I said in New Zealand the rate of females is 98%. This means that alot of these children grow up with only female role models and dont get a males perspective