Tuesday 4 October 2011

Do women make better teachers than men?

(To my fellow lady teachers, please don't get offended by the point of view in this article. It was a case of provoking the students to be brave enough to think different.)
Women make better teachers. Well, given the motherly nature that God had gifted them, teaching, and the myriads of clerical tasks that need them to be meticulous, they should be better teachers, but I beg to differ in opinion, as I’ve had the experience of being taught by great man-teachers. It is not the gender that decides who is better in this noble profession, but the approach, method, knowledge, and the personality of the individuals. Under certain circumstances, however, men  have proven themselves to be the better teachers.  The nature of certain aspects of the job needs the touch of the more physical and less emotion men.

In a normal peaceful situation of the teaching and learning process, the positive side of emotion helps, an advantage to the female teachers. When things become  more complicated, however, where  disciplinary problems arise, emotion is the last thing that you need. The more cool and calm men would handle the situation better, especially if the unwanted behaviours become physical and robust.  Most high-profile disciplinary cases like bullying, gangsterism, fightings, and playing truants need the credibility of man-teachers. Hence, the dominating  population of women in the profession  could be the reason of the fall in the  quality of discipline among school students of late. Would you still say that women make better teachers? 

Sports and outdoor activities are compulsory as part of the school co-curricular syllabus, that, besides training the students to be more disciplined, confident and balanced all-rounders, makes up 10% of the requirement of entry to public higher education institutions. Since it is a commonly known fact that very few woman-teachers knows about sports and indulge themselves in outdoor activities, their man-counterparts play better roles here. Except for the few female games, we need the men who know the techniques and rules of all athletic events and games to train these students, besides  becoming referees and umpires. To train and handle flying-fox, wall-climbing, and abseiling activities, obviously the men are more qualified. So I believe that men make better teachers.

The great responsibilities of women-teachers as mothers and wives is another reason why they don’t make better teachers. Having to go through 90-day maternal confinement, taking leaves in cases of the children getting sick, and attending to doctor’s appointment, these teachers would be away from the students for quite some time in a year, risking incompletion of the syllabus of subjects. Schools have to replace teachers on maternal leaves, thus involving finance, not to mention the quality of the replacement teachers. In the end, it is the students who suffer, as they might not perform well in examinations. Men would definitely be better teachers.

To conclude, despite being good teachers, circumstances hinder them from giving the best  in the profession. Men, however, has no reasons not to be the better teachers.

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