Shortchanging Students: Boys Need Male Teachers, Girls Need Female Teachers

Boys learn better from male teachers, and girls learn better from female teachers. That should not be surprising, given that statistically males and females use different thinking strategies to perform the same mental tasks. A male teacher can teach boys male thinking strategies better, and a female teacher can better teach girls female strategies. Eide Neurolearning blog looks at the improved performance of students when schools provide teachers of their own gender.

What to do about this? There probably will be no quick fix, as gender differences among teachers are fairly steady. It might be that the gender divide among teachers might make it more difficult for students to buck gender predictions - like girls in math and science, or boys in language arts. Parents would do well to be on the alert for this - and if appropriate, search for tutors, mentors who could help.

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Male teachers are becoming an endangered species. According to this CS Monitor story:

There seem to be fewer than ever these days. Just 21 percent of the nation's 3 million teachers are men, according to the National Education Association (NEA). Over the past two decades, the ratio of men to women in the classroom has steadily declined. Today it stands at a 40-year low.

"The teaching profession is definitely dominated by females," says Donald Washington, senior program analyst for the NEA.

The shortage of male teachers is most pronounced in elementary school, where men make up just 9 percent of teachers, but middle schools and high schools also suffer from a male-female imbalance.

Currently, in secondary schools, about 35 percent of teachers are men - the lowest level ever for the profession.

There are many ways that government schools fail students and their families, and the gender imbalance--whether from anti-male bias or no--adds significantly to the injury that society suffers from its schools. If you want a reason why the proportion of males in universities in North America is dropping, this gender disparity is one important one.