Job Discussion Forums

[fat_chris]

Wolf wrote:

"Is this a "girls are bad at math but good at being nurses and teachers' thing? Bases on my life experience, I doubt that girls are bad at math and boys are bad at foreign language teaching or learning."

In China it most certainly is. Man, that would drive me crazy, hearing that women are better learners of languages (even though I could come up with several examples to counter this). This penchant for the mass generalization. Everything is either black or white, not grey.

[chinasyndrome]

[quote="shmooj"]

[Gordon]

[shmooj]

[Capergirl]

[dyak]

Interesting, this thread of yours, chinasyndrome�

Just had a thought - maybe it�s because our first �teachers� are our mothers (for the majority of people) and that�s why students (of both sexes) seem to prefer female teachers.

The best teachers I had (by a long way) were all women, but then they just happen to be teaching languages, which I loved.

[Wolf]

[denise]

This thread in a way reminds me of the "women bosses in Europe" one--although this one is considerably more polite!

I think the similarity I see is in my feeling that I can't base quality teaching on sex (meaning man/woman, of course!). I've had excellent male teachers, excellent female teachers, crappy male teachers, and crappy female teachers.

I think the factor that distinguished the excellent from the crap was their interest in teaching vs. what I saw as their desire to keep the class on task. Some of my worst teachers have in fact been language teachers (native Spanish speakers, going back to the whole native/non-native issue). They were grad students teaching undergrad language classes, and one of them really seemed to view her job as just a form of financial aid--she put no effort, no heart, nothing at all into her teaching. Our class every day was something like this: correct homework, learn new grammar structure from book, practice new grammar structure in book, get new homework assigned. At the time I had no idea that I would end up teaching a language myself, but even back then I got all sorts of ideas about what not to do as a teacher.

d

[woza17]

Have you thought about how one sex communicates with another on all levels, a male teacher may be more protective to the females and the female more caring to the male. I see my own dynamic when I am teaching I expect the girls to be clever and I don't protect them On the other hand with the males I cajole them. Just a thought
Cheers Carol

[Tong Dawei]

Is it possible the society plays an important part in determining who the best teachers are at any point in time? Capergirl said that "women are smarter". I believe that because a group of scientists told me so. Someone said that men, i believe, go for the psycho bucks. Capergirl also added that gender roles are in flux. I believe that the male teachers that i was exposed to way back when were more effective becuase they were more able to communicate to the students due to the fact that back then it was the males that were the ones telling everyone what to do. Well, Bush and Rumsfeld, wolfowitz, Bolton, Cheney, Pearle and that undersec of defense guy are still busy telling everyone what to do, But, more and more women are doing the speaking (i.e., H. horses asz Clinton). I think it comes down to who is in the position to communicate to the kids. If EVERYTHING was equal societally then i think women would be the best cause there is more of a natural connection between women and underlings. Lemme know what you think, okay?

p.s. I did cringed back in that "female bosses" thread when some one blamed bad female bosses on trying to emulate men.... I'll see you over there for that one.

[Dr.J]

There are some classroom 'atmospheres' and one to one relationships that male teachers can create that female teachers find harder to create, and vice versa.

Whether these lead to better teaching depends mainly on the student. Some students find that a teacher of their own sex can understand them better and thus teach them better, others find it more uhm...stimulating to be taught by a teacher of the opposite sex.

People are more ready to accept women teachers as it is a socially acceptable role for women, especially at primary school, as it relates to the 'mother' role, and primary school teachers have to be part parent anyway.

I didn't notice any particular difference in effectiveness between the male and female teachers at my high school; if there was a gender-barrier the good teachers did their job, and their personality overcame it.

[Corey]