Job Discussion Forums

simon44 · Joined: 15 Mar 2013 Posts: 118

In my current job search in Asia, the high number of well-paid jobs for kinder teachers sticks out like a sore thumb. It seems to me that there is a real shortage of available teachers, (I guess the favoured option is pretty, young, female and caucasian).

The employment packages on offer are very tempting.

However, I only meet one of the supposed criteria, and pretty, young and female are all impossible for me to achieve, (well, maybe female if I grab a pair of garden shears...)

I teach primary/elementary grades, and have consciously avoided applying for kinder jobs because of my age and gender. (I did teach kinder for 1 term and enjoyed it very much). I even considered getting Montessori training.

Now I'm getting good job offers from kinder schools in China where the school is telling me that it is not an issue.

What's your take on this? Would it look weird or 'sad' to see an older male teacher teaching kinder? I suppose I could wear a t-shirt that says 'I'm a Dad and I'm not a sad old git'.

nomad soul · Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world

johnslat · Posted: Sun May 08, 2016 1:55 pm Post subject:

I taught Head Start (here in the States - 3 to 5 year olds) when I was 65 years old.

The notion of its being "sad" or "weird" never even crossed my mind - nor, as far as I could tell, anyone else's.

Toughest job I've ever had though - I caught all kinds of infections: eye, ear, nose and throat and lost 15 pounds. You have to be very active. And the kids' attention span was about minus 10 seconds.

But it was also lots of fun and very fulfilling. While the kids can drive you crazy at times, they end up stealing your heart. Very Happy

Regards,
John

Shanghai Noon · Joined: 18 Aug 2013 Posts: 589 Location: Shanghai, China

LongShiKong · Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 1082 Location: China

German government campaigns for more male kindergarten teachers

bograt · Joined: 12 Nov 2014 Posts: 331

timothypfox · Joined: 20 Feb 2008 Posts: 492

bograt is attempting to derail an otherwise constructive conversation with a joke about how the current Canadian Prime Minister imposed a 50% women affirmative action policy for members of his cabinet. It quite an exaggeration to say they were random and unqualified, and this issue is really a topic for a different forum since it does not apply to the field of teaching.

Back to the topic. I don't anything weird about a male Kindergarten teacher if they are qualified to teach. When I did teacher training in NYC (though I ultimately taught at the high school level), I trained under a veteran male Kindergarten who was excellent to study with.

bograt · Joined: 12 Nov 2014 Posts: 331

timothypfox · Joined: 20 Feb 2008 Posts: 492

In my experience in New York City (I can't speak for the rest of the USA or Canada), men who wanted to become a Kindergarten teacher probably could. I don't know if hiring practices in NYC prefer men or not or what the actual numbers are (men versus women). Again, I worked with a qualified male Kindergarten teacher mentor, and in addition, I later worked 1 summer school as a male Kindergarten teacher. Men are qualified and capable to do this work - Society perceptions may have a negative impact on hiring though. Not sure...

In Japan where I live now, unless you work as an assistant (assistant language teacher - a type of sub-teacher popular here), I haven't heard of a position for a Japanese licensed male Kindergarten teacher... I did have a male friend who worked as an assistant language teacher for a while.

This brings up another related and interesting field of work - language nannies. Now I bring this up because it does enter into the field of ESL work. It is also a field of ESL that would have teachers working with young children possibly as young or younger than Kindergarten aged children. There are some jobs I've seen advertised in Japan for female language nannies. Here no efforts are made to prevent discrimination in hiring practice based on gender preference.

But it is all semantics really because I have heard of male language tutors who pretty much do the same work specializing in working with young children in private lessons or small groups, but would never call themselves or be called a language manny.

I do think though that it would be a hard sell in just about any country to try and market yourself as a professional manny. Not impossible - just very hard to get your business started doing that. I grew up with 3 brothers, and one summer my father and step-mother were quite busy with work and couldn't find enough summer camps and such for us, so they hired a male babysitter - more like a nanny - because he spent all day with us 5 days a week because they thought we would relate better with him than a female nanny...