Study: Teacher’s gender affects learning

[Fountain79]

WASHINGTON - For all the differences between the sexes, here’s one that might stir up debate in the teacher’s lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women.

That’s the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University. His study was to appear Monday in Education Next, a quarterly journal published by the Hoover Institution.

I think there are a lot of factors to determine how students respond to male/female teachers. I have taught female student that come from single parent homes who responded to me and were unruly in many female colleuges' classrooms, but then I've had female students who didn't work well with male teachers but well with female teachers.

Some male students seem to respond better to male teachers but can also respond well to female teachers. I think it has more to do with an individual teaching style than gender.

[Solo_in_MD]

1. Dupe of this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1993560

[Fountain79]

2. Reading this article...

I do think it has become important to encourage more men to enter the field of teaching.

[TygrBright]

3. Won't work... not enough men will put up with...

...the horsepucky dished out by administrators, union officials, parents, and everybody else second-guessing them. Nor will men who have the skills and qualities needed for teaching find the laughably chintzy pay scales attractive enough to go through the tortuous professional education, certification, re-certification, re-re-certification, etc., required.

But it is a nice idea.

ironically,
Bright

[Yupster]

4. This man taught ten years before quitting

It wasn't the money which wasn't that bad. The benefits were tremendous.

For me it was a new principal that got me burned out in just one year.

I do agree we need more male teachers, especially in elementary schools.

[sandnsea]

8. Good principals are the key

Having gone through at least 10 schools with my 4 kids, I really believe it's all about the principal. They can make or break a school. In fact, a school can survive if a bad principal is at least smart enough to put the teachers out front, but neither teachers nor parents can overcome the damage of a bad principal if they don't know how bad they are. There ought to be some sort of method of holding a bad principal to account in all this NCLB stuff too.

[Bucky]

11. I think that's the most underreported cause of teacher burn out

I had an experience with a bad principal, too. He ended up running off 2/3 of the staff at our small charter school in two years. A real shit who screams at teachers in front of students and plays vendetta with annual performance reviews, he drove at least two good teachers out of the profession.

[jerry611]

5. Anyone who wants to teach must be insane

With the way society is today, I don't know who in their right mind would want to be a teacher.
-There is no respect for the profession anymore.
-Kids bring weapons to school, have horrific attitudes, and make up lies.
-The fry guy working at McDonalds makes more money than most teachers these days.
-Parenting just completely sucks.

And now we hear from the right wing that teachers need to be "held to higher standards." The right wing blames the teachers for all the problems in the schools.

[Alacrat]

6. Teachers should be held to high standards

They also should be compensated for their professionalism and their higher standards. I had teachers in high school, who used terrible grammar, were tardy to classes, and held their students to very low standards, passing many of them who should have failed. These teachers were not doing these kids a favor, they were doing them a disservice. I had teachers who cared, and demanded the best of all their students, they are priceless. I also feel principles, school boards, and parents should listen to, and support their teachers. Teachers are special people, some of societies best, we all need too push for them to be paid and treated as such. That is, the ones who reach and maintain the higher standards,and also hold their students to those standards. Teachers aren't parents and shouldn't have to parent students while in the classroom. I believe to many parents these days expect our teachers to parent their kids, when the parenting should be done at home. Gender should have little to do with it, teachers aren't your mommys and daddys, like some would want them to be.

[Bucky]

12. As a teacher, I like the idea of more pay. But what'll work better is

more teachers at the same pay. If you brought class sizes down and increased the resources teachers have to work with, you'll get better results than you will from just paying us more.

[LWolf]

14. I agree.

I'd still like more pay; when teachers can't find affordable housing within a reasonable commute to work they are not being paid enough, imo.

Still, I'd put class-size reduction first.

[Yupster]

16. But twenty or thirty years ago

class sizes were much larger than they are today and there weren't as many problems in the classroom. Are there any studies showing reducing class size improves learning?

There's an argument to be made that it doesn't at all.

If you have 100 kids and four classes and you have six teachers applying for the four teaching slots, you may have one exceptional teacher, one better than average teacher, one average teacher, one below average teacher, one barely acceptable teacher and one unacceptable teacher.

So you hire the four best so the kids ...

25 kids have an exceptional teacher
25 kids have a better than average teacher
25 kids have an average teacher
25 kids have a below average teacher

Now you reduce the class sizes to 20 kids and you must hire a new teacher. You hire the best teacher that you didn't hire last time. Now you have...

20 kids have an exceptional teacher
20 kids have an above average teacher
20 kids have an average teacher
20 kids have a below average teacher
20 kids have a barely acceptable teacher

Have you made things better? I'd say no. In fact, as a parent if I was in this situation I'd rather my kid was in the exceptional teacher's class even if it meant squeezing 33 kids into the classroom rather than being one of twenty in a below average teacher's class.

Each time you reduce class sizes you reduce the percentage of kids taught by your best teachers, and in any school, most everyone knows who those best teachers are.

Of course when I taught I would have loved lower class sizes. Less papers to grade, spread the kids desks out to reduce chatter. All that. Of course I would also have loved higher pay and better benefits too. Who wouldn't? But those things wouldn't have improved my teaching. I was already doing the best I could which was pretty good if I may say so.

[LWolf]

22. That's a well-recycled argument.

It doesn't fly with me. 20-30 years ago there weren't as many problems in the classroom. Why?

Here are some possible reasons:

- 2 or 3 decades of changes in labor and economic conditions; more work, less supervision of kids
- social/cultural/technological changes
- More information, more "skills," more tests, more everything expected at younger ages and faster paces
- The demand that college-prep become the norm for all; I graduated in '77 and there certainly wasn't an expectation that we would all graduate, let alone all go to college or get technical training of some sort.

I don't know if we really have "more problems," or if it's just that the parameters have changed.

Some studies on class size reduction that show positive effects on learning:

Tennessee’s STAR Project: A longitudinal study with experimental controls compared small classes (13-17 pupils) with regular classes (22-25 pupils) in grades K-3. Students in small classes uniformly outperformed those in larger classes; minority students, pupils in inner-city schools, and pupils in small classes for three to four years from kindergarten or grade 1, benefited most. More minority students took college admission tests. Black-white achievement gaps fell. Teacher morale, time spent on active teaching, and student engagement all rose; time spent on classroom management, disruption and discipline problems, and retentions in grade all fell. Full-time aides in lieu of reducing class size produced no achievement advantage.

Wisconsin’s SAGE Project: A phased-in, statewide reduction in K-3 class size to 15 pupils per teacher, targeting schools with students living in poverty. Evaluations have consistently found improved achievement, especially for minority students. Data from questionnaires, observation, and interviews have shown how to best implement small classes.

Burke County, North Carolina: Smaller classes (17:1) in grades 1-3 significantly outperformed regular classes in math and reading; advantages persisted when pupils returned to regular classes from grades 4 through 7. Careful allocation of resources allowed administrators to implement small classes at no additional per-pupil cost.

California: A statewide reduction in class sizes to 20 pupils or fewer in K-3 classrooms produced small achievement gains, but was hampered by too-hasty implementation that required hiring teachers lacking full credentials.

http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPRU%202002-101/Summary-02.Finn.htm

[Bucky]

24. bookmarking

thanks for this

[Lindacooks]

7. It's definitely a calling.

My dh just went back to school to get his teaching license, and starts his first job tomorrow. After years in the corporate world, he's thrilled to finally be working in a field he loves. And I hope that when the repukes get kicked out of office, we'll do some serious re-evaluating and start giving education in this country the time, money, attention, and respect it deserves.

[renate]

9. sincere congratulations and best wishes to your husband!

My kids have been blessed with a few OUTSTANDING teachers, and they will FOREVER have a place in my kids' hearts and in mine. A teacher who loves his or her job is a very, very special person indeed.

Your husband's students are very lucky. All the teachers for whom it is a calling are lucky, too, because the rewards, though fewer and farther between than they ought to be, are tremendous. What a gift, what a legacy, to affect a child's life... things can happen for a child with a good teacher that wouldn't happen otherwise.

:applause: and :yourock:, Lindacooks' husband!

(And good for you, too, because the difference in his salary affects you as well, so you have also made a sacrifice for your husband and for his future students. :hug: .)

[Lindacooks]

18. Thanks so much!!

Yep, the kids adore him - when he finished his student teaching they actually threw him a party! And when that class (AP 12 English) graduated, he got invites to 30 graduation parties.

[NJCher]

15. is that ever true

With the way society is today, I don't know who in their right mind would want to be a teacher.
-There is no respect for the profession anymore.

I'm a university teacher who took a six-week stint in teaching high school students in an experimental program this summer. The first thing I noticed was the lack of respect. It was a huge contrast to what we are accorded in higher education.

It demeans the work experience dramatically. Who could enjoy working under those conditions?

In our state, teachers are paid very well and the benefits are very, very good. I know, for example, that my CPA's wife, who is a retired teacher from this system, gets 42k a year from retirement. That is matched by her own retirement investments, so she's doing better in retirement than when she was working. My CPA encourages me to go into that system but I simply could never do it for the reasons you and Tyger cite above.




Cher

[Alcibiades]

20. And yet supposedly the family

is all important. Strange, isn't is, how a family can have six big-screen TVs and no books at all (except maybe TV Guide) and yet it's the teacher's fault when Johnny can't read.

I think educators should get this inconvenient truth out there: if your children can't learn, the most important place to examine is the home environment!

[JI7]

10. it could be about just relating and feeling more comfortable asking

questions when it comes to someone of the same sex. including questions that may not be directly related to the subject being taught.

and it could be the opposite also. the female teachers are able to understand the girls more based on their own experiences growing up. the same with male teachers.

[yasmina27]

13. Based on my experience, I have to disagree

I teach 7th and 8th grade French.

Due to a scheduling snafu, one of my best classes was a group of 12 boys. I was a bit concerned at first (afterall, how could I teach feminine adjectives?!), but it turned out to be the best class I ever taught. We had so much fun, and the boys really learned French that year.

On the other hand, I had a class of all girls (except for one boy). They were all the alpha girls in the school. I never saw such a snarly, nasty group of kids in my life. They were so mean - as a group. Individually, most of the girls were really nice. The boy was very shy, and was totally intimidated by the girls, in spite of my efforts to make it work.

[AngryAmish]

17. This is anecdotal

Please, your personal experience does not mean anything. This is not a put down. But science does not work based upon personal experience. (I do not know how well the study was done but if it was done well and is replicated then it argues in favor of single sex learning with the same gendered teacher.)

[kiahzero]

19. Given that there are already concerns over methodology

I'd say that the odds of it being replicated with similar results are pretty low.

[yasmina27]

21. You're absolutely right

I stated in the subject line of my post that it was BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE. I could go on with other PERSONAL examples (not enough for a scholarly study) that could prove/disprove this study.

[Jamastiene]

23. Some teachers have a teaching style that just

clicks with some students. A few fellow classmates of mine were discussing that the other day. One guy really loved a certain class that the rest of us hated. There was one math teacher that I adored but the rest seemed to not really like her. One of these two teachers was male and the other was female. Then there is a male teacher that most of the female students feel more comfortable with in the school, but at least one female student didn't like him at all. I don't think I want to believe this study, to be honest. I think personality affects teacher/student compatibility more than anything.

Opposites attract and likes repel. That seems to be my experience anyhow. I learn more from teachers who I consider opposites because they teach in such a way that I learn a new way to look at something. Teachers who have personalities more like my own tend to clash with me even though I am normally an A student with no discipline problems. There was one teacher that gave me hell more than any of her other students. Oddly enough, we were too much alike to really get along. Although most students thought we got along great, in reality we clashed at every step along the way. I tried and failed miserably to please that teacher more than any other that I can remember. We just never clicked.