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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kristin and I'm Carolyn, And today we're looking at one

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Speaker 1: area of employment that is so widely dominated by women,

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Speaker 1: and that is teaching. That's right. Teaching is sort of

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Speaker 1: like totally the opposite trend of STEM fields. Yeah, stem

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Speaker 1: fields being male dominated, trying to recruit more women into them,

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Speaker 1: get more women interested in young girls. Teaching is super

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Speaker 1: female dominated and a lot of people are curious as

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Speaker 1: to why. I was curious as to why, because it's

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Speaker 1: not like it's always been that way exactly. There is

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Speaker 1: a distinct feminization of the teaching profession that we will

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Speaker 1: get into. But first of all, as we like to

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Speaker 1: do on the podcast, let's throw some stats your way.

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Speaker 1: This is coming from the National Center for educa Asian Information.

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Speaker 1: As a fall two thousand twelve, there were an estimated

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Speaker 1: three point seven million full time teachers and secondary and

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Speaker 1: elementary schools, three point three million of which are public

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Speaker 1: school teachers. And the average salary not too shabby. Actually,

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Speaker 1: the average salary for public school teachers is just under

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Speaker 1: fifty seven thousand dollars. But when you look at being

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Speaker 1: adjusted for inflation and all that stuff, the average teacher

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Speaker 1: salary from twelve and that year was only about one

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Speaker 1: percent higher than it was in nineteen, So not a

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Speaker 1: lot of like raises going on. And also, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: for all the teachers who are listening to this podcast

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Speaker 1: right now, I just want to acknowledge how many hours

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Speaker 1: you do work. I mean, you deserve having summers off, right, Um.

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Speaker 1: But the workforce also is trending younger, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting to see. The proportion of teachers under thirty

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Speaker 1: was dramatically from two thousand five to two thousand eleven,

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Speaker 1: and now more than one in five teachers surveyed are

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Speaker 1: under thirty, compared to just eleven percent in two thousand five. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: The proportion of teachers who are fifteen older dropped from

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Speaker 1: forty two percent in two thousand five to thirty one

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Speaker 1: percent in twenty eleven. And this equates to fewer years experience.

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Speaker 1: Not saying that it's you know, a teacher who's twenty

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Speaker 1: nine years old is going to be not good. It

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Speaker 1: simply means that we have less experience. Um. The proportion

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Speaker 1: of public school teachers with five or fewer years of

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Speaker 1: teaching experience increased from eighteen percent in two thousand five

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Speaker 1: to twenty six percent in eleven. And when you look

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Speaker 1: at the demographics, it is still an overwhelmingly white profession,

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Speaker 1: with a four percent of public school teachers being white.

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Speaker 1: And Hispanics are the fastest growing non white group entering

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Speaker 1: the profession. And we should note to that, as with

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Speaker 1: a lot of podcasts, a lot of these statistics and

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Speaker 1: what we're going to talk talk about is very US centric,

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Speaker 1: but these kinds of trends you will also see in

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Speaker 1: other countries as well. So looking at gender in the US,

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Speaker 1: eighty four percent of American public school teachers are women,

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Speaker 1: and that's actually up from sixty nine percent in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six. Right, and the u N looked at a

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Speaker 1: bunch of different regions and countries and for the US,

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Speaker 1: they broke down, um, how many women are in different

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Speaker 1: levels of education, you know, like high school versus kindergarten

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Speaker 1: or whatever. They found that pre primary education has the

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Speaker 1: most women teachers at ninety four point one percent. That's

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Speaker 1: followed by primary education at eighty seven percent, secondary education

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Speaker 1: at sixty two. In tertiary, which would be like college

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Speaker 1: at forty seven point seven percent women. And speaking of men,

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Speaker 1: this is kind of interesting. They're more likely than women

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Speaker 1: to enter teaching through altern of routes. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: you see a lot of women who start college saying

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Speaker 1: I want to become a teacher. I will pursue an

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Speaker 1: education degree, whereas men are more likely to graduate from

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Speaker 1: college and be like, hey, you know, what's a good

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Speaker 1: idea of teaching? Right? Like, I have a friend who

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Speaker 1: was a biology major in college. He actually majored in

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Speaker 1: food science, and so he was all on track to

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Speaker 1: make boku debucks working in the food science industry until

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Speaker 1: he realized that would involve just like working in a

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Speaker 1: bunch of slaughter houses for for years and years, and

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Speaker 1: he was like, I'm not going to do that. So

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Speaker 1: he ended up going back to school, getting his master's,

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Speaker 1: getting his you know, teaching certificates and all that stuff,

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Speaker 1: and now he is a biology teacher and he loves it. Ps.

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Speaker 1: But that is just one example of an alternate route

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Speaker 1: of like majoring in something completely different than setting out

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Speaker 1: from the get go to be a teacher. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: that gender gap of teaching being an overwhelmingly female dominated

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Speaker 1: career in the United States is not just specific to

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Speaker 1: the US. The u N looked around the world and

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Speaker 1: it is common to find more female teachers, particularly when

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Speaker 1: you're looking at primary school education. Like go all around

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Speaker 1: the world except for Sub Saharan Africa, and you usually

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Speaker 1: have women in the front of the classroom. So there

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Speaker 1: seems to be this global pattern of teaching being dominated

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Speaker 1: by women. But like we said, it was not always

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Speaker 1: the case. And if you just look at the feminization

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Speaker 1: of the teaching profession in the United States, it takes

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Speaker 1: some unexpected twists and turns. Right. We we read a

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Speaker 1: lot about the history of teaching and this so this

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Speaker 1: is coming from sources including PBS, the Department of ED,

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Speaker 1: and writer Dana Goldstein Um who all looked at sort

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Speaker 1: of how the the industry has and the profession have

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Speaker 1: changed over centuries. If we look back in America to

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Speaker 1: colonial times up through the eighteenth century, most teachers were

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Speaker 1: meant they were They were dudes, but they they weren't

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Speaker 1: set out to be teachers. They were probably on their

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Speaker 1: way more likely to becoming lawyers, doctors, or ministers, and

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Speaker 1: so the professional connections they made by heading up a

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Speaker 1: classroom and teaching kids in a community was a great

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Speaker 1: way to make connections in that community. Yeah, and you

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Speaker 1: also have to realize too that prior to the early

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, education itself was pretty spotty. I mean, just

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Speaker 1: looking at the US in the late seventeen hundreds, there

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Speaker 1: were very high illiteracy rates among girls that around fifty percent.

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Speaker 1: Most kids were taught reading, specifically so that they could

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Speaker 1: read the Bible. I mean, you might have wealthy girls

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Speaker 1: who would be who would be taught by governesses, and

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Speaker 1: some kids might be taught more in the form of apprenticeships,

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Speaker 1: but education being something that you know, mandatory schooling for

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Speaker 1: kids was certainly not the norm back then, right, That

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Speaker 1: was that was still far off at this point. And

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Speaker 1: if women were going to be teaching, typically they were

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Speaker 1: quote unquote teaching in these things called dame schools, which

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Speaker 1: is funny, um, just the name, not the not the institution. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They served really more as babysitters than actual teachers. These

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Speaker 1: were usually poor women who would take in a ton

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Speaker 1: of kids and teach them basic things for a few

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Speaker 1: pennies a day, like the alphabet and sewing. It's I

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Speaker 1: mean to me, dame schools just sound like the old

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Speaker 1: school equivalent of sort of in home daycare centers today

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Speaker 1: with probably lower levels of quality of care. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was just families who had were not rich by

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Speaker 1: any means, but who had enough extra cash on hand

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Speaker 1: to be able to send their kids to learn to

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Speaker 1: learn some basics, getting kind of a basic foundation. So

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Speaker 1: we get to eighteen hundred and in the US, nine

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Speaker 1: of school teachers are men. And if you wanted to

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Speaker 1: become a teacher back then, you kind of just needed

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Speaker 1: to breathe. Basically, uh you. All you had to do

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Speaker 1: really was persuade a local school board that you were

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Speaker 1: of good moral character and maybe possibly pass a test

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Speaker 1: of general knowledge. It's not even until eighteen thirty four

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Speaker 1: that Pennsylvania becomes the first state to require future teachers

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Speaker 1: to pass a test of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Before then,

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Speaker 1: it was just like are you a good guy? Yes,

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Speaker 1: sir I am? And do you know things? Do you

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Speaker 1: have a small chalkboard? You can take it all right? Godspeed?

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Speaker 1: And as far as education developments go, um in the

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Speaker 1: twenties and thirties is when we see the rise of

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Speaker 1: the common school era, and these common schools are the

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Speaker 1: precursor to public schools. You have reformers like politician Horace

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Speaker 1: Man and intellectual Catherine Beecher arguing that there needed to

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Speaker 1: be both more schools and more teachers, And a lot

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Speaker 1: of people were getting on the bandwagon that the government

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Speaker 1: should be providing free basic education to all kids, that

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Speaker 1: it shouldn't just be a privilege for rich kids in

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Speaker 1: wealthy homes. Yeah. Dana Goldstein writes about how, particularly as

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Speaker 1: you're approaching the eighteen thirties, quote, American political, business and

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Speaker 1: intellectual elite begin to come to a consensus that state

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Speaker 1: government should guarantee children a free and basic education. And

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Speaker 1: Horace Man and Katherine Beecher and also John Dewey are

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Speaker 1: all about that. So they're like, Okay, let's open all

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Speaker 1: these schools. This would be great. Who's going to teach

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Speaker 1: all these kids? Right? Yeah. The whole thing is that

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Speaker 1: opening these schools is going to be expensive. Where would

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Speaker 1: all of these teachers come from. How are we going

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Speaker 1: to be able to afford it? Well, obviously we're going

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Speaker 1: to look at the other half of the population, the

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Speaker 1: people who you know, we don't have to pay that

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Speaker 1: much to women. Women. Yeah, because one thing that's happening

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Speaker 1: at the same time too, because you might be thinking, well,

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Speaker 1: if they're opening all these schools, guys were teach years

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Speaker 1: in eight hundred, why don't you just have you know,

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Speaker 1: more jobs for that guys. That's great, but we also

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Speaker 1: have the industrial revolution opening up all these new and

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Speaker 1: better paying fields that men are being attracted away from

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Speaker 1: teaching to go pursue, especially in larger urban areas, and

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Speaker 1: so it makes sense that okay, maybe we can have

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Speaker 1: particularly younger, unmarried women common fill these roles, because also

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Speaker 1: we should know that literacy rates among women are now

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Speaker 1: also starting to catch up to men. Right. But along

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Speaker 1: with this this whole like, yeah, let's just shove all

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Speaker 1: this cheap labor into our classrooms, you also have the

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Speaker 1: whole societal hurdle of women working, women working outside the home.

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Speaker 1: That's indecent. And so people like Horace Mann and Katherine

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Speaker 1: Beecher had to figure out a way to sell it

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Speaker 1: to people that yes, you want to be a teacher,

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Speaker 1: and hey, parents, you want your daughter to be a

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Speaker 1: teacher before she's married off. And so in the forties

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Speaker 1: you start to see this is when you start to

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Speaker 1: see the real, like legit feminization of the teaching profession.

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Speaker 1: Because people like Man and Beech are emphasized to serve

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Speaker 1: a purpose women's moral superiority. Man, for instance, wrote, as

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Speaker 1: a school teacher, a woman would be like an angel,

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Speaker 1: quote her head encircled with a halo of heavenly light,

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Speaker 1: her feet sweetening the earth on which she treads, blah

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Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, going on and on about the

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Speaker 1: beauty of her virtue. That just because of the fact

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Speaker 1: that she was born with a uterus, she's clearly moral

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Speaker 1: superior to men, and she would serve your children. Well,

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Speaker 1: he was. He wasn't heavy handed at all. And I

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Speaker 1: also liked though, how Beecher took the approach of just

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Speaker 1: throwing men under the bus. She said, yeah, obviously we

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Speaker 1: want women in the classroom because they're super moral, and

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Speaker 1: also male teachers are quote low vull are obscene and

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Speaker 1: temperate and utterly incompetent to which, okay, also a little

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Speaker 1: heavy handed Katherine Beecher. But you gotta remember too that

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Speaker 1: in the context of the time we have this, you know,

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Speaker 1: the reign of the cult of true womanhood during this

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Speaker 1: Victorian era, So this ties totally in with that, with

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Speaker 1: the idea of you know, women's you know, on the

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Speaker 1: domestic front, that being the rightful place for women because

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Speaker 1: you want them around the children to set the moral example.

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Speaker 1: Because this is when you have this idea of really

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Speaker 1: emerging and taking shape of women being again the moral

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Speaker 1: superiors to men, so naturally they should be in charge

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Speaker 1: of not only their moral education, but also the intellectual education.

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Speaker 1: And hey, better yet, we're a bargain. Yeah, um, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's that's great that you're telling us

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Speaker 1: that we are so superior by virtue of the fact

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Speaker 1: that we have ovaries. But really, I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: just covering up for the fact that they are trying

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties and sixties, women are just flocking to

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Speaker 1: teaching because not because they all grew up wanting to

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Speaker 1: be teachers, because probably when they were growing up that

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Speaker 1: wasn't even an option yet. But they would have a salary,

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Speaker 1: they had a degree of independence, a sense of purpose,

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Speaker 1: they were leading children. I mean that that is a

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Speaker 1: noble cause no matter what generation you're growing up in.

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Speaker 1: And perhaps the sense of adventure as well, because in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen forties, the National Board of Popular Education sent

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Speaker 1: six hundred female teachers to frontier towns, go west, young woman,

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Speaker 1: teach our teach our kids. And I mean this this

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Speaker 1: is tying into to our past episodes on secretarial work,

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Speaker 1: the feminization of clerical and secretarial work sort of in

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Speaker 1: a similar way, how it became more female dominated again

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Speaker 1: because they could pay us half what they would pay men,

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Speaker 1: and there weren't many options, so we flooded that and

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Speaker 1: also our Madam's podcasts where hey, the going West was

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Speaker 1: also very appealing. So you have all these different factors

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Speaker 1: starting to swirl around, and with all these women flocking

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Speaker 1: to the classroom, you have the rise of what are

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Speaker 1: called normal schools to train this new teaching workforce. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting, is that. Like, so as teaching is becoming

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Speaker 1: quote unquote feminized and more, the percentage of women over

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Speaker 1: men as teachers is increasing, there's this sort of uneasiness

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Speaker 1: that settles over everybody where they start to look at

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Speaker 1: each other and they're like, oh, wait, We've got all

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Speaker 1: these women because we told them they were more morally

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Speaker 1: superior to men, but we don't actually think women are

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Speaker 1: smarter than men. What are we gonna do to make

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Speaker 1: sure that the quality of education is maintained and so

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of political reformers, mainly men around

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Speaker 1: this time, who were saying, look, women just aren't cutting it,

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Speaker 1: and they sought to attract a quote higher class professional.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to make the class u room more standardized,

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Speaker 1: you know, just across cities, across regions, and make it

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Speaker 1: into a test measured practice. And so that's when you

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Speaker 1: get those normal schools established to basically teach the teachers

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Speaker 1: um but as teaching as we go along and teaching

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Speaker 1: becomes more professionalized, those classes move out of the normal

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Speaker 1: schools and into regular universities. And so as a result

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Speaker 1: of this professionalization of the teaching industry, you kind of

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Speaker 1: have a giant wedge between the actual teachers in the classroom,

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Speaker 1: the boots on the ground. They end up at the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the hierarchy. Hierarchy and the leadership and administration.

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Speaker 1: These leaders who wanted education to be recognized the same

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Speaker 1: way that law and medicine were as a white collar,

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Speaker 1: upstanding profession and the bulk of those people were men. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you just look at principles, you typically

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Speaker 1: would have a male principle installed in schools. They would

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Speaker 1: say to handle disciplinary problems basically have a guy around

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Speaker 1: to make sure that if these young teachers, and we're

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Speaker 1: talking very young, some of these teachers would still be

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Speaker 1: teenagers teaching teenage boys sometimes who might match them or

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Speaker 1: be larger than them physically. So they said, well, we

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Speaker 1: need you know, we've been around to make sure that

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Speaker 1: we can keep everybody in the line um. But then

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Speaker 1: also the whole issue of the professionalization compounds that as well,

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Speaker 1: So overwhelmingly you have women in the classroom, but men

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Speaker 1: overseeing the administration. Right. So, moving into the eighteen nineties

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Speaker 1: and nineteen tens, women are still and now the majority

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Speaker 1: of teachers, making up only a small minority of administrators

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Speaker 1: and above um. And because of this, they really end

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Speaker 1: up with little say over their classrooms. They didn't have

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Speaker 1: as many resources as they would have liked, They've made

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Speaker 1: far less money than they would have liked. But as

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Speaker 1: human beings in the United States, they couldn't vote. What

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Speaker 1: are you gonna do? So you see a lot of

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Speaker 1: women organizing into first teachers associations and then unions, women

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Speaker 1: like educators Margaret Haley and Catherine Goggin, who were angry

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Speaker 1: enough at the state of teaching that they formed the

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Speaker 1: first teachers only union, the Chicago Teachers Federation, and they

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Speaker 1: rallied for improved pay, retirement benefits, and tenure. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: Gold Team talks about how essentially the strategy behind this

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Speaker 1: was since they could not vote, they would align themselves

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Speaker 1: with unions to kind of get the men in the

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Speaker 1: unions to flex their muscles at the ballot boxes on

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Speaker 1: their behalf. Um, and just thinking though about the lack

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Speaker 1: of resources. I mean, teachers have a lack of resources today,

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Speaker 1: let's face it. But even back then, imagine having even

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Speaker 1: fewer resources than you would today in front of a

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Speaker 1: classroom of sixty kids. That wasn't uncommon it And you

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Speaker 1: also have this massive influx of immigrants, and so you're

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Speaker 1: not even guaranteed that all your kids can even understand

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Speaker 1: you or communicate in English with you. Yeah. You start

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Speaker 1: to see around this time, especially um from Margaret Haley,

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Speaker 1: we start hearing like teachers should be able to teach

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Speaker 1: how they want to teach, and how they recognize that

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Speaker 1: they know they need to teach. Because if half of

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Speaker 1: your class can't even speak English, you're gonna need to

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Speaker 1: switch up your teaching style just a little bit. And so,

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Speaker 1: but that's something you still here today, Like, not wanting

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Speaker 1: to teach to the common core, not wanting to teach

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Speaker 1: according to No Child Left Behind, wanting to have kind

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Speaker 1: of a democratization of the classroom under the teacher. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the very fact that Haley was organizing women and

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Speaker 1: aligning themselves with unions that also was a major no no.

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Speaker 1: Like the the elite businessmen of the time were scandalized

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Speaker 1: at the idea of women getting involved in unions. I mean,

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Speaker 1: because again, remember we couldn't even vote back then, right.

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Speaker 1: Hayley ended up being called a nasty, unladylike woman after

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Speaker 1: one episode where she uh ended up suing corporations who

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Speaker 1: weren't paying taxes on land that they were leasing from

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Speaker 1: Chicago public schools, and then allied her Chicago Teachers Federation

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Speaker 1: with the Chicago Federation of Labor, establishing teachers unions as

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Speaker 1: a powerful force. So she was at the forefront of

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Speaker 1: all this stuff. And as a result, I mean, she

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Speaker 1: must have been doing some right to be called nasty

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Speaker 1: and unladylike exactly. It's kind of a compliment in contemporary terms. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the historical note, in November nine two, we have

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Speaker 1: the very first teacher strike in the US in Chicago

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Speaker 1: due to this union organization that was happening, and it

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Speaker 1: was led off by a woman named Janice mckeann who

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Speaker 1: kicked a kid out of class for using profanity against

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Speaker 1: these these probably these issues are still happening today, pretty

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Speaker 1: much all of them that we touch on. The principle

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Speaker 1: then sends the kid back to class, but McKean's like, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: you can't come back. So she was then though, suspended

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Speaker 1: for thirty days without pay, and a week later, four

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Speaker 1: hundred students, parents and teachers protested in support of her. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's pretty incredible that, you know, you

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Speaker 1: can say all this about feminization of the industry. But still,

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Speaker 1: feminization isn't necessarily a nice term when you think about

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Speaker 1: what people associate with traditional femininity. But the fact that

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Speaker 1: all these people during this era were coming out in

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Speaker 1: support of this woman and her ruling that no profane

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Speaker 1: student you shall not red into the classroom, that's pretty impressive. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: feminization should certainly not be interpreted as weakening of the profession,

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Speaker 1: right right exactly. Um So, moving into the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen tents to the nineteen thirties, just as

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Speaker 1: it had earlier, women's women teachers increased cloud and power

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Speaker 1: in education started to make men uneasy. And this is

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Speaker 1: where we start to see the rise of worries about

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Speaker 1: women's emasculating effects on their male students, because if you

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Speaker 1: look at nineteen five, for instance, male teachers make up

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Speaker 1: only a quarter of the workforce, and so it's just

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Speaker 1: it's funny to see how women dominating anything, even if

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Speaker 1: they were originally invited to it by being told that

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Speaker 1: they're morally superior. Everybody's still a little nervous and biting

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Speaker 1: their nails over it. Well, even the fact that in

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Speaker 1: men were making up a quarter of the teaching force,

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Speaker 1: that actually represented some a little bit of ground that

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Speaker 1: they had gained back, because uh, once more of those

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Speaker 1: you know, secretarial and office jobs started opening up to women,

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Speaker 1: kind of in the same way that the Industrial Revolution

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Speaker 1: drew men away from teaching, some women were being drawn

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Speaker 1: away from teaching, you know, at the prospect of a

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Speaker 1: secretarial job, and so you have a few more men

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Speaker 1: coming into it, but still you have I mean, how

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Speaker 1: long did it take what sixty years for the feminization

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Speaker 1: process to be firmly cemented for all of time, all time.

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Speaker 1: In fact, from nineteen fifty, this feminization process was so

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Speaker 1: firmly entrenched that school districts generously started dropping their practices

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Speaker 1: of banning married women from teaching. This is very uncommon. Basically,

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Speaker 1: teaching was a socially acceptable stepping stone in between living

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Speaker 1: with your parents essentially being a teenager and becoming a mother.

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Speaker 1: And once you got married, you would probably become a

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Speaker 1: mother soon thereafter, and no, ma'am, you would stay in

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Speaker 1: the home. That's right. I wonder if that's where we

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Speaker 1: get like our stereotype of like old spinster stern teachers from.

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Speaker 1: It might the fact that they weren't married women were

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Speaker 1: not welcome in the professional Oh yeah, that's very true.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point. Although you know what we don't

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Speaker 1: have information on either though, is why we give teachers

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Speaker 1: apples interesting brain food. I don't know, I don't cheap

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Speaker 1: cheap gifts, bribery. Well, speaking of apples, actually, not speaking

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Speaker 1: of apples at all. We're going to take a quick

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Speaker 1: break and get right back into this conversation on women

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Speaker 1: and teaching, and now back to the show. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: we mentioned before the break we touched on the fact

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Speaker 1: that while teaching is a majority woman lad uh profession

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Speaker 1: and that it's very feminized, so to speak, there is

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Speaker 1: a divide between the actual teachers in the classroom and

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Speaker 1: then the individuals who are leading the schools in the

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Speaker 1: school district. And it's talked about as a glass ceiling

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Speaker 1: and education that um, basically women just aren't entering those

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Speaker 1: higher level professions and education and the foundation for this

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Speaker 1: was laid in the mid eighteen hundreds when you see

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Speaker 1: that professional professionalization that needs your reaction to all of

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Speaker 1: these women in the classroom and men getting really concerned

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Speaker 1: and so taking over almost instinctively those top tier positions.

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Speaker 1: And that's something we even still see today because there

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Speaker 1: are all of these When we look at the modern

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Speaker 1: teaching profession, you do see a lot more intensive efforts

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Speaker 1: to recruit more male teachers. But at the same time,

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Speaker 1: there's this general view of teaching as a lower rung profession,

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Speaker 1: even though it is so integral to our societal functioning

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Speaker 1: and you know, global competitiveness, and even though teaching is

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Speaker 1: still sort of sold to women as a quote unquote

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Speaker 1: woman friendly profession, it doesn't necessarily mean that education is

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Speaker 1: allowing a lot of opportunities for advancement beyond just teaching

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Speaker 1: kindergarten or whatever it might be. Right, Yeah, you look

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Speaker 1: at I mean, I absolutely I'm not. I never have

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Speaker 1: been in the teaching profession, but even I recognize that

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Speaker 1: stereotype of teaching being sold as a woman friendly professional.

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Speaker 1: Oh you know, you get off work at three, you're

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Speaker 1: off all summer. It's great. No, no, that's not how

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Speaker 1: it works. My friend who is a elementary or preschool teacher,

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Speaker 1: I mean she works all the time. She has two

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Speaker 1: very young kids. I mean, this girl does not leave

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Speaker 1: work at three. She works many hours, and she works

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Speaker 1: practically all summer. I mean I would think she takes

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Speaker 1: off maybe two weeks during the summer, but she's got

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Speaker 1: to work on lesson plans, she has to plan all

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Speaker 1: sorts of stuff. Being a teacher is not like an

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Speaker 1: easy walk in the park. Yeah. I mean it's because

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Speaker 1: some would say that there's never really been um and

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Speaker 1: maybe because it's impossible a standardization of the profession the

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Speaker 1: same way as you would see with something like law

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Speaker 1: or medicine. Okay, so so yeah, so like we were

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Speaker 1: talking about, I mean, it's considered a woman only job,

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Speaker 1: but is it because women aren't exactly taking advantage of

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Speaker 1: those opportunities for advancement. So anyway, the study in two

430
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: thousand seven that was in the journal Gender and Education

431
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: looked at three main gender imbalances generally identified with teaching.

432
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: So the first one is across education phases. So women

433
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: are concentrated in the nursery and primary sectors, which maybe

434
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: cause correlation, I don't know, are less valued and less rewarded.

435
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: There's also an imbalance across subjects taught, so there's a

436
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: lower proportion of women in math and science compared with

437
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 1: other subjects like reading or English. And there's an imbalance

438
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: across positions themselves, so women are underrepresented, like we're saying,

439
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,879
Speaker 1: and promoted posts across all education phases. But when you

440
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: talk to teachers, the fact that statistically there are so

441
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: many women in the classroom, it creates this perception that

442
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: there are no professional barriers to advancement because they would

443
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: look around them and say, we aren't being you know,

444
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: prevented from doing anything. How that would be impossible. There

445
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: are so many of us here, and yeah, I mean

446
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: if you look over in the UK, for instance, and

447
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: the statistic is a little bit old, this is coming

448
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: from two thousand five, but at least at that time,

449
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: men were three point one times more likely to become

450
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: head teachers than women. And that's in nursery and primary schools.

451
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: And then if you move into secondary schools there two

452
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: points six times likely or to become head teachers compared

453
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: to women. Right, and if you move over to the US,

454
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 1: this is coming from rand Um. In public schools in

455
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: two thousand, in that school year, forty percent of all

456
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: principles were women, up from thirty five percent in nine

457
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: and up from twenty five percent in nineteen eighty eight. Um,

458
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 1: in nine and two thousand women made up fifty five

459
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: percent of public elementary school principles but just twenty one

460
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: percent of public high school insciples, which is where the

461
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: money is. So you can see that as the kids

462
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: are aging up as like you know, I guess the

463
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: difficulty level of course is moving up. Um, we see

464
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: fewer women. And then if you look at superintendents, no

465
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: big surprise, the number drops off even more. This is

466
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: coming from two thousand, which again a little bit dated,

467
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: but women comprise only thirteen percent of superintendence, which actually

468
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: represented double the proportion from n SO ground was being made.

469
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: But when you think about again the fact that today

470
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: eight six percent of teachers in the US are women,

471
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: those numbers of you know that, the fact that we're only, say,

472
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: thirteen percent of superintendence, that's not really a reflection of

473
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: how many of us are in sort of the feet

474
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: on the ground workforce. Now, what's interesting is that in

475
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: charter schools, among among the principles of charter schools, women

476
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: make up more than half of those principles thousand, but

477
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: men still made up a majority of the secondary school

478
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 1: principles in both the public and the private sector. And

479
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: looking at private schools, women made up the majority of

480
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: all elementary and combined school principles, and we're thirty eight

481
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: percent of high school principles. So it is notable that

482
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: when you move out of the public school system into

483
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: private and charter you do start to see some differences.

484
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: There was also and I don't have the statistics right

485
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: in front of me, but you also see a similar

486
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: pattern too. I want to say when it comes to

487
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: racial diversity an administration, where when you move into private

488
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: and charter schools, it does tend to get more diverse

489
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: at the top, at least I'm thinking about because I

490
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: grew up. Um I started, I started in public schools,

491
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: moved to a private school, and you know, I literally

492
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: didn't think about it until right this second. But my

493
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: public elementary school principle was a woman, My private elementary

494
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: school principle was a woman, My private middle school principle

495
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: was a woman. It wasn't until I got to high

496
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: school that the principle was a man. So that's interesting.

497
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, good, yeah, women leading the pack, but

498
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: oh wait, until you actually get to the upper grades.

499
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 1: Exact same pattern for me, explained though by the fact

500
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 1: that my mom was my principal bearing home school. So

501
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if that counts, um. But then that

502
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: leads to questions, as with any conversation about women and professions,

503
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: and why are there more of us at the top?

504
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: Are we simply not to use a phrase that causes

505
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: some people to cringe? Are we not leaning in? Is

506
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: it because of the motherhood off ramp thatts it's sometimes

507
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: called that is preventing more women from taking on more

508
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: administrative duties because we're already bogged down enough. I'm saying

509
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: we as though I'm also teaching America's youth. But teachers

510
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: are already bogged down enough as it is, just with

511
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: all of a testing that has to be done, then

512
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: if you want to advance, you gotta take on even

513
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: more responsibility. Right. This is coming from that two thousand

514
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: seven Gender and Education study over in the UK where

515
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: a lot of the teachers they interviewed UM cited work life,

516
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: family balance, all of that stuff as a reason why

517
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: they themselves personally and maybe why they can see other

518
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: women were not pursuing those higher level positions because you know,

519
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: you have those things like career breaks after childbirth UM

520
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: or just returning part time after you have a baby

521
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: that are identified as major factors in women's under representation

522
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: at management level UM. A lot of women also told

523
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: the researchers about moving to support a husband's career because

524
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: it was viewed as more important rather than staying put

525
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: for a woman's teaching career, because teaching is seen as

526
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: a more portable position, even though, as we talked about

527
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: in our Military Spouses episode, if you're moving all the time,

528
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: it's not like you can move up the ranks as fast.

529
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: And the Guardian looked at barriers and pointed out that

530
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: a lot of recruiters themselves have prejudices, you know, based

531
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: on your appearance. You know, women are supposed to look

532
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: a certain way, act a certain way, and so if

533
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: they're perceived as too confident or too aggressive, then oh,

534
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: I don't know, you might not fit that that spot

535
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: very well. Versus like a confident man who walks in

536
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: the room. It's like, I got this. He's viewed as

537
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: more competent than a woman who acts the same but

538
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:31,479
Speaker 1: is just viewed as aggressive. Yeah, I mean, there are

539
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: clearly so many variables going on. I mean, it's not

540
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: just an issue of something like institutional sexism that is

541
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: barring more women from you know, climbing the ladder in

542
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: the teaching profession. But another question along with that is

543
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: sort of in the reverse of Okay, maybe we need

544
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: more women at the top, sure to balance things out

545
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: a bit, But what about having more men in the classroom,

546
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: because it does raise some red flags for people who

547
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: study education or or or more um education critics if

548
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: you will, that teaching is so overwhelmingly female dominated because

549
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 1: perhaps who is in front of the classroom the gender

550
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: influences how girls and particularly boys learn, right, Yeah, um,

551
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 1: I would I would say that the bulk of the

552
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: studies that Kristen and I read on this issue as

553
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: far as like does the teacher's gender affect the students

554
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: and how they learned? I would say the bulk of

555
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: them were either murky or they said no, it doesn't

556
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: really have an effect, where where one study did show

557
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 1: that it had it did correlate to students success. Is

558
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: an international study by the u N, so this global

559
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: perspective is important, but it's also worth pointing out that

560
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily looking at more developed countries. They're looking

561
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: at countries where maybee girls education is not priority has

562
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: as highly as boys and so in this study, the

563
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: u N found that the percentage of female teachers in

564
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: primary education roughly correlates with girls gross enrollment ratios or

565
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: g e r s in secondary education. They found that

566
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: in versely, countries with the lowest g e r s

567
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: for girls in secondary education typically have the lowest shares

568
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,399
Speaker 1: of female teachers in primary education. And the significance of this,

569
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: they point out in this international study, is that, hey,

570
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: you know, this is a big deal when you consider

571
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: that six of the people worldwide who can't read are women. Yeah,

572
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: but things break down differently. The Chips fall a little

573
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: bit differently when you're looking at countries like the US,

574
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: the U k UM. While some researchers have said yeah,

575
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,840
Speaker 1: absolutely affects, you know, how boys and girls learn to

576
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: read or how they learn to do math, I would

577
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:00,440
Speaker 1: say that in my totally expert opinion, I would say

578
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: that it seems like more studies are showing it's really

579
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:06,919
Speaker 1: more the teacher's expertise and the teacher's confidence and their

580
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: familiarity with the material and their ability to clearly convey

581
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: that to the students that has a whole lot more

582
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,840
Speaker 1: to do with it than what's in their pants. Yes,

583
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: over and over again, you see, particularly for if you

584
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,479
Speaker 1: look at STEM courses, the science, tech, engineering, and math.

585
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: Let's talk about a female math teacher. Studies find that

586
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: that woman will have positive outcomes for female students who

587
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: we would think of as lagging behind boys in math traditionally.

588
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: But if she is taught by a female teacher who

589
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: is excellent and confident at math, then she will succeed.

590
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all these kind of no brainer findings

591
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:58,839
Speaker 1: and in my again uh lay opinion reading the study findings,

592
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 1: but I mean there there was massively controversial study finding

593
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: not too long ago, uh, led by the Stanford professor

594
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: Thomas d who was looking at survey data among thousands

595
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: of eighth graders, and he acknowledged that, I know, seventeen

596
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: ninety is a little bit data dated, but this data

597
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 1: is really rich, and he found a very solid gender

598
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: based interaction. Basically, boys do that better with male teachers,

599
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:31,439
Speaker 1: girls do better with female teachers, to which people said, well,

600
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 1: are you arguing for same sex classrooms. That's a controversial idea.

601
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:39,479
Speaker 1: He said no, because once you start breaking down those

602
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: very general findings, yet again, you just start digging into

603
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,200
Speaker 1: all of these classroom variables of well, how well is

604
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 1: the teacher trained in a subject matter? What is the

605
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: classroom like? Where are these schools that you're looking at,

606
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: Because you also have to look at the schools that

607
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: are being examined, whether or not they are in a

608
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 1: lower socio economic area that might not be receiving as

609
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: many rich learning resources as other, say, charter schools and

610
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: wealthier areas. Right, and you also have to look at

611
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: one thing that we've talked about on the podcast before

612
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: and in different contexts, but but that is the fact

613
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: that both men and women respond often better to male students,

614
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,280
Speaker 1: and so, you know, there's a whole lot of moving

615
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: parts with this, but um an study in the Journal

616
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: European Sociological Review, for instance, points to They basically found that, okay,

617
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: there's no correlation between you know, gender and the students success.

618
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:46,399
Speaker 1: And the significance of that, they said, is that the

619
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: popular call to have more male teachers in primary schools

620
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: is not the key to tackling the growing disadvantage of boys.

621
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:56,839
Speaker 1: Because we see, there's all these trend stories lately about

622
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: you know, girls are surpassing boys at every level of

623
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: a education. More young women than young men are going

624
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: to college and and going on to get their masters

625
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: and PhD, on and on and on, and they're saying

626
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: that it's not because there weren't enough male teachers in

627
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: their younger years. There's just probably so many factors at play. Yeah,

628
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: the effort take for instance, now this is moving into China,

629
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: so let's toss another variable onto the pile. But there

630
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: was the study looking at Chinese primary school students in

631
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, and it found no support for the

632
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: idea that boys learned better from men. Rather, they found

633
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 1: that both boys and girls learned better from women. But Again,

634
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do, as Caroline said, with what

635
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:46,919
Speaker 1: is in their pants or skirt or kulats. Rather, they

636
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: found that the kids simply preferred learning from a woman

637
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,240
Speaker 1: because the women tended to have a more patient teaching style,

638
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: whereas the men in these classrooms tended to have a

639
00:38:56,440 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: more authoritarian style. Again, you can't extrapolate that to every

640
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: individual teacher. But that's just, you know, a clear example

641
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: of how you really making these broadbrush generalizations of women

642
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: are better for girls, men are better for boys. Is

643
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:18,359
Speaker 1: that's really hard to back up once you start unraveling

644
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: all of the different influencers in how classroom learning actually

645
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: takes place. Right, Because when I'm thinking back over my

646
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: own personal experience and I talked about my principles, you know, um,

647
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: my favorite some of my favorite teachers were men, and

648
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: they were teaching me in English and language arts. Um,

649
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: and I didn't feel like I was not able to

650
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,239
Speaker 1: speak up. I didn't feel like I was being made to,

651
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, feel dumb or anything like that. I felt

652
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 1: just as engaged as when I had a brilliant woman

653
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: for an English teacher in high school. Um, I think

654
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 1: it all depends, all depends. I don't know. I think

655
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: a lot of it depends on teaching style. Does the

656
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: child respond to that teacher. Is the teacher, you know,

657
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: taking the extra time to make sure that the students

658
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: get it, whether they're male or female, however, they do

659
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: engage the students. Yeah, in high school, the teachers that

660
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: I most responded to, and pretty evenly split between men

661
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:24,719
Speaker 1: and women, were the ones who I felt were the

662
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: most invested in my learning, who respected me as a student,

663
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: and who I had two English teachers, actually female English

664
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: teachers in high school who I just on a personal level,

665
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: just did not like me. They would make comments to me,

666
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: they would call me out, they would I was a

667
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: very good student, but they just didn't like me, and

668
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,800
Speaker 1: it was always a terror being in that classroom, whereas

669
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: I had, you know, a male English teacher for instance,

670
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: who was very nurturing and would ask me questions, ends,

671
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: and the same with all your kids in the classroom,

672
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 1: you know. But again that's just going to depend to

673
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: on where you're sitting. I mean, what kind of resources

674
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: do you have, how large how many kids are you

675
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: having to oversee? Are you dealing with kids who might

676
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 1: have learning disabilities in the class as well, what kind

677
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: of classroom management do you have to deal with? So

678
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: many factors and the fact that what's unfortunate about the

679
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,959
Speaker 1: feminization of teaching is that it's almost like and Dana

680
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,240
Speaker 1: Goldstein talks about this, how that's sort of been manipulated

681
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: to underscore the vital importance and and seriousness and professionalization

682
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,760
Speaker 1: of that job, whereas it's like, oh, how sweet girls

683
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: just want to become kindergarten teachers. Give him an apple.

684
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: That's really precious. But the job itself is a lot tougher,

685
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: I think than than people have historically given it credit for.

686
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: Oh sure, I mean, like, do you have teacher friends?

687
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 1: My mom is a teacher. Oh yeah, course of course.

688
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: I mean there's so much work, like it blows me away,

689
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: like I'll have a stressful day, and it does not

690
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: even equate to my my friends. Who's the who's a

691
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: teacher her stressful day, because I mean, we just get

692
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,239
Speaker 1: to go to work and just do our jobs and

693
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: talk with people over the water cooler, and it's fine.

694
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: She has to go to work and deal with grown ups,

695
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: but also deal with a million children with running noses

696
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: and making sure they get it and they comprehend the

697
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: material and Johnny's not running out the door. And you know,

698
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: in college, I tutored kids in middle school and elementary

699
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: school for the crc T test, and Caroline, it was

700
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: a daily test of my patients. Granted I didn't go

701
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: to school for teaching, but it gave me a holly

702
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: new found respect for the people who do that day

703
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,720
Speaker 1: in and day out, because even working in small groups

704
00:42:55,160 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: with kids is no small task. It's not. It is not,

705
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 1: and and that's why, you know, some of the stereos,

706
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: some of the lingering stereotypes really kind of bong on

707
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: my mind. But there is I mean, there's so much

708
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 1: spinning though when you look at all of the studies

709
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: on education and all these professionals really trying to find

710
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: out what works and what doesn't. And we've been through

711
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: we haven't even gotten into conversation on all of the

712
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: different teaching fads of you know, back in the day

713
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: when teachers were discouraged from reading out loud to kids

714
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: because they thought it was bad for children's comprehension, that

715
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: they should learn to just read silently to themselves, which

716
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: is also important. I digress, But there's it's like that

717
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: we've never really figured it out for some reason, and

718
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 1: maybe it's just because our clients, the children continue changing

719
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 1: and their environments. So we could go on and on

720
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: and on, but I want to hear from teachers out there,

721
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: or any of you listening with this. I hope informative

722
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: and not even more exhausting van your day job. Let

723
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: us know what you think though about all of this

724
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: mom stuff at Discovery dot com. Male teachers want to

725
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,720
Speaker 1: hear from you as well, And are there any teachers

726
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: out there who have tried climbing up the ladder? Have

727
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: you encountered challenges to that? And let us know what

728
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: it's like to be a teacher today. Mom Stuff at

729
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com again is our email address. You can

730
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or send us

731
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: a message on Facebook. And we've got a couple of

732
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 1: messages to share with you right now about video games.

733
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: Libby is writing to us from New Zealand, and she

734
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: said she wanted to share her experience as a girl gamer.

735
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 1: Libby says, I'm in my late twenties and I started

736
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: gaming when I was very young because I lived with

737
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: male cousins who gamed extensively, and I eagerly joined in.

738
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 1: I was also very lucky to have my mom who

739
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: loved consoles and was enamored with tomb writers, so it's

740
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 1: been a normal part of my life for almost as

741
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: long as I can remember. I don't really enter myself

742
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: a girl gamer, but simply a gamer. Sometimes I might

743
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: refer to myself as a lady gamer, and I have

744
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: a few female friends who I game with and we

745
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: sometimes call this time we satisfied the game with each

746
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: other as lady gaming. I was surprised to hear the

747
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: definition of hardcore on the podcast because I never really

748
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: thought of myself as falling into this category, but I

749
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: very much do. I easily play a couple of hours

750
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: each night and then several hours on the weekend. Fortunately,

751
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,720
Speaker 1: my husband is a gamer too, and we enjoy playing

752
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,680
Speaker 1: games and spending time together in this way. How I

753
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: managed to fit all the other life things in is

754
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: a mystery. I can absolutely relate to having a resume

755
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: or a catalog of games in the back of my

756
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: mind ready to go should someone question my gamer cred,

757
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: the ones I've played, the ones I've liked and dislike,

758
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 1: and what's happening currently in the gaming world. I'm even

759
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: tempted to start listing them here as if I need

760
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: to prove myself as a gamer, but I'll spare you.

761
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,919
Speaker 1: Often people are surprised that I play games at all,

762
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: but they're even more surprised when they realize I play

763
00:45:56,719 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: first person shooters among other genres. Once they have settled

764
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 1: into this idea, I've found that it does mean I

765
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: often have something in common with men as well as

766
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: a few women, and we form a friendship around this

767
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 1: shared interest with online or m m O games. I

768
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: try not to reveal my gender to strangers, and I've

769
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: not really had too many negative experiences. I've had the

770
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: occasional comment like that's hot or you're really good. Mostly,

771
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: I feel like I want my gaming to be judged

772
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 1: on its own merits, and if I reveal my gender,

773
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: I will automatically have something extra attached to my abilities,

774
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: like oh, you sweet little girly thing, you've done so well.

775
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:31,879
Speaker 1: Even though this can be kind of annoying, I feel

776
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: very lucky that this is the worst I've had. I've

777
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: not had too many people doubt my gamer cred and

778
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: I've generally been accepted into gamer circles in real life. Well,

779
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 1: so that's awesome, Livy, thanks for sharing your story. Well,

780
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: and I've got an email here from John and it's

781
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: a pretty long email, so I can't read the whole thing,

782
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: but just wanted to pull out some of the stuff

783
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: that he talked about. So he writes, the portrayal of

784
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,840
Speaker 1: all characters and video games isn't great, not just women.

785
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: Men in most games are trade as being an impossible

786
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: shape for example. None of these are representations of normal people.

787
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 1: If anything, the women are more realistic than the men.

788
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: As far as for women being fully fleshed out characters,

789
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 1: bring it on for male characters as well. For most

790
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: of gaming history, all characters and video games have been

791
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: one dimensional. If even that, games are not originally made

792
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 1: to tell stories. They were built on a game mechanic

793
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: with goals to accomplish. The Two Paddles and Pong were

794
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,280
Speaker 1: not given complex backstories, and neither were Mario or Princess Peach.

795
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: There are calculators now that are more powerful than the

796
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,799
Speaker 1: system that Mario originally appeared on, and Mario is only

797
00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: slightly more advanced technologically than one of those paddles in Pong.

798
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 1: The hardware didn't really exist back then to tell complex stories.

799
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 1: Plus the people making the games were not good writers.

800
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: It's only been very recently that the video games industry

801
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,000
Speaker 1: has been attracting good writers, and most writers initially went

802
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 1: into games if their career as a novelist or screenwriter

803
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 1: didn't take off. It's also taken a long time to

804
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: figure out how to tell a story through the medium

805
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: of a game, except for the genre of point and

806
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: click adventure games, which lent itself to storytelling much more. However,

807
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,560
Speaker 1: games have slowly been getting better, with games such as

808
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: Walking Dead, which is an excellent story and good female characters,

809
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 1: both strong and flawed. Movies started out in a similar way.

810
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: They were initially just a gimmick showing something like a

811
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 1: train moving with no plot, and then developed into its

812
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 1: own art form over time as technology progressed, and he

813
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: goes on to say, I think that what makes mail

814
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: gamers irritated, myself included, is that criticism of video games

815
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: seems to be coming from people who don't know that

816
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: much about video games or their history. I've been waiting

817
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,720
Speaker 1: my whole life or something like the Citizen Kane of gaming,

818
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: as have most other passionate gamers. The outrage and demands

819
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: for fully developed female characters, especially when referring to old

820
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: games like Mario, seems silly misrepresents the gaming community and industry.

821
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 1: Video games is still a very young medium, and the

822
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: ability to tell good stories with good plot development is

823
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: only a recent thing. I just like that that although

824
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 1: I've been using terms like gamer and gaming community, they

825
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,960
Speaker 1: mean as much as movie goer or movie watching community.

826
00:48:58,160 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 1: It can make it seem like there's one big block

827
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: cup gamers with a hive mind. And I'm sure someone

828
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: would have told me by now if that existed. I

829
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: hope you get a chance to read my email. I've

830
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 1: been a regular listener for a couple of years, and

831
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,439
Speaker 1: this is the first time I've written in. It would

832
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 1: be great if you could address these points. Somehow, I

833
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:14,879
Speaker 1: realized that, although I've tried to keep this as short

834
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: as possible, it's too long to be read out on

835
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: the show, which, surprise, surprise, John, we're reading your letter,

836
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: and something that we addressed heavily in our two episodes

837
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 1: that was not addressed in the part that you read,

838
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: Kristen is just the culture, the gaming culture at large.

839
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: You know. It's like the conversation is so much bigger

840
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: than just like who's on the screen, it's also who's

841
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: holding the controller and just sort of Yeah, Anita Sarkisian

842
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,920
Speaker 1: isn't demanding a backstory for Princess Peach. It's more using

843
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,879
Speaker 1: Princess Peach as an example of how maybe we should

844
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: think a little bit bigger and instead of just using

845
00:49:54,320 --> 00:50:00,479
Speaker 1: women as props and a male protagonists hero arc, why

846
00:50:00,480 --> 00:50:02,799
Speaker 1: not get more women in there who you don't have

847
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 1: to brutally murder and get out of the way. I

848
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: know that there's a lot of mail and mail violence

849
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: in video games too. I just I honestly, I don't

850
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: understand the outrage at this radical notion that maybe women

851
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,480
Speaker 1: could be portrayed a little bit better in video games

852
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: or could be the heroes protagonists. Yeah, but I appreciate, though,

853
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: your thoughtful response, And because this is a conversation, I'm

854
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,439
Speaker 1: sure that is not going to go away anytime soon.

855
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: So if you have thoughts you want to share with

856
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: us again, our email address is mom Stuff at Discovery

857
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find all of our podcast,

858
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,359
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