Being a male teacher especially in early childhood education has brought me some interesting challenges in my teaching journey.
I must firstly state that I never really felt that I was trying to be a male influence in a predominately female dominated industry like early childhood education. I also wasn’t trying to take the lead in any “Men’s Movement” or anything like that. As much as back in the 1990’s when the “Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG)” thing took off, I didn’t intentionally buy into this either. All I’ve ever wanted to be was a great role model to the young children that I taught and to be the best teaching version of myself that I could be (and still do).
I recall my first introduction to the head early childhood lecturer at the beginning of my first year of university. I will never forget the look on her face when she introduced herself. It was a mixture of fascination, interest and a hint of suspicion. And as much as I wasn’t the first male undergraduate student she had met at that time she began to advise me on how this field of teaching was heavily female dominated. She then asked me bluntly if I had a problem with that. I sternly (yet politely) informed her that I knew what I was getting into and very much looked forward to working with mostly women. And also let her know that this was partly because I had just worked the previous four or so years for a road construction company, that was mostly male dominated.
So I felt at this point in my life I was creating a good balance by working with both genders both in teaching and in the construction industry. And, yes I did continue to work every university break back with the road construction company throughout my studies which I was always most appreciative of. I was more than happy to take any work available as the “starving university student” was a term that I was very well acquainted with during this time.
In my early days of university I wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms by some of the women I studied with. Some were obviously enthusiastic about my presence there, others were indifferent and some thought of me as a pure threat to their very existence. In fact I did encounter some discrimination there based purely on my gender. This being that some of the women I was studying with seemed to think that only women should study to be early childhood teachers and that the men should be studying for degrees in fields like engineering and business instead. I recall that this wasn’t limited to the just these women either. I remember having several conversations with some of the male business majors who seemed to think that early childhood teaching was not a “real” degree. And definitely not one that any well balanced male would undertake. Of these conversations one stood out particularly in my mind.
I was in the university bar (pub) one day and this one particular business major came up to me and with a hint of sarcasm in his voice asked me whether I enjoyed doing my early childhood degree. He then asked me (even more sarcastically) if I enjoyed majoring in playdough making. He then proceeded to chuckle with his business major friends thinking that he was a real comedian.
Now, as I had been exposed to this kind of ignorance many times I usually just ignored it. But for this guy, I thought I would make a real point of bringing his ignorance to the fore. I don’t really recall where I got these words as they just seemed to roll out of my mouth with the utmost precision mixed with confidence and ease. I asked him rather bluntly if he could read. He replied rather arrogantly that he could. I then asked him if he could hold a pencil firmly and write. He again replied a little more skeptically that he could. I then asked him who was the very first person to help him develop those skills. He thought for a moment and then rather embarrassingly said that it was his kindergarten teacher who first helped him. I stood there and looked firmly into his eyes and said, “So if it wasn’t for people like me in this world, there wouldn’t be geniuses like you.”
The conversation abruptly ended right there and these business majors scurried away with a greater sense of how stupid they now looked. And the funny part is that the story didn’t end there. One of my fellow early childhood undergraduates was in the bar at that time and overheard this whole conversation take place. She then relayed this story back to our head lecturer later on who was very keen to promote early childhood education through any means possible (and especially through good stories like this).
About a year or so later I was invited to give a talk to the first year early childhood undergraduate students. As a second year student I was asked to relay information about what these students could expect in their first year of university. The head lecturer also asked me to give then a run down of how to deal with other students in that university and how to react when they were taunted or belittled about their choice of study (which unfortunately happened often). She asked me to please relay the story from the bar that day with the business majors. This story was a real hit with everybody present that day. I can still see the beaming smile on my head lecturers face as I got to the punch line.
The moral of this story is… if you can read and you can write, please thank the very first person who helped you develop the foundation skills for this. Your preschool/kindergarten teacher.
