He could be 2e. Did you ever have him reevaluated? Research shows that exercise helps with ADHD symptoms and cognitive function.
Doubt it. I think he was just a hyperactive kid. Heās not hyper anymore, heās 17, and has zero issues with attention span.
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@Izzy74 - I could have written your post. Very similar experience.
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My sonās friend starting in elementary school was similar. He was disliked by teachers in school, and athletic coaches because he wouldnāt pay attention or follow directions. Everyone recommended to the parents he get put on ADHD medication.
The father refused. His son also happened to be one of the very strongest math kids in the country, and his father didnāt want any drugs that could affect his brain.
In this case, the fatherās judgment was right. By the time his son went to high school, he developed the maturity to sit still and follow directions well enough to thrive. He ended up going to MIT and doing well there.
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S1 was diagnosed as a junior in college. I willnever forgive myself for listening to people who said he was just immature, or distracted, or lazy. No, he wasnāt. He has a terrible lack of executive function and having a diagnosis gave him the assurance of knowing no matter how hard he tried, or how good his intentions, getting from point A to point B would take new skills.
His teacher once remarked āhe could teach the class but canāt pass a testā and never once suggested he be evaluated. It was a family friend, also dx as a adult, who said he had all the classic signs. He took limited amounts of Adderall to complete school but he didnt like the side effects. What really helped the most was a support group of peers, counseling, a better understanding of himself, and kindness instead of skepticism.
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Another The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett podcast (Iām not a regular listener, but have listened to three of his podcasts since I learned about it from @88jm19 introducing it in the other thread) that I listened to while doing yard work yesterday. Like the podcast title in post #1 of this thread, the title does not do full justice to the content. I struggle with compassion for people that have gone down self-destructive paths as I believe youāre responsible for the consequences of your own actions. (Indeed, I was actually thinking a lot about my MIL as I was listening.) But this podcast reminded me to be less rigid in my views, and try to employ more empathy.
Episode #271 March 7, 2024: " Dr K: āThere Is A Crisis Going On With Men!ā, āWeāve Produced Millions of Lonely, Addicted Males!ā
ETA: I forwarded a link to the podcast to my H and he had only listened to the first 20 minutes of it on his way home, but it really hit a nerve with him.
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This article seems to state that is the lack of the same encouragement of boys that has caused the difference in college enrollment between boys & girls.
āRichard Reeves, who studies this problem, said it may be more a result of having so successfully encouraged women to get degrees than having discouraged men.ā
It also shows some creative ways colleges are trying to recruit more boys.
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Thank you for sharing that article.
One of the suggestions in the article struck a chord for me:
Reeves said that, just as male-dominated programs in engineering and business have made extra efforts to recruit women, female-dominated fields such as healthcare and education should now reach out to men.
āThatās another thing that higher education institutions can do, is look at their courses and see where are the gender splits the greatest,ā he said. āRather than thinking the football team is the answer, maybe more men in your nursing school is the answer.ā
I wonder if there have been successful efforts to draw more men in to nursing and education. I know there are more male nurses now than there used to be, but as far as men in the classroom, itās still abysmally low. I think this is where our society really needs to look at how we treat educators and genderize certain professions. In particular, I think some of this is a U.S. problem and not necessarily a gender problem overall. My kid attended an immersion school and had a number of male teachers from Europe and the Caribbean. But at the (non-immersion) schools where I have worked or worked with that generally only have American teachers, the numbers of male teachers are quite small and usually limited to PE teachers in the elementary grades and then STEM & PE teachers in secondary grades.
And teaching is a profession that is currently in dire need of attracting more people, both male and female. I think itās largely due to the increased demands on teachers and how they are often scapegoated, in addition to lower levels of pay (though the pay is not necessarily the issue in some of the school districts of CC-ers who are in the small minority of districts that pay their teachers significantly better than in the rest of the U.S.).
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The field of nursing has deliberately welcomed, recruited and encouraged men, and the rising numbers of male nurses reflects that.
I think that in the field of elementary education, the other teachers welcome men. But Iām not sure society at large does. My kids also attended a school with an immersion option and I noticed the same thing you did: more male teachers on the Spanish side of the school than on the English side. But I also noticed a difference in how the career paths came to beāall of the English-side teachers had planned from the start to be teachers, the same was true of Spanish-side teachers who were gringos. But the native-speaking Spanish-side teachers had all been educated in something else and had just fallen into elementary teaching due to needing a job, having bilingual skills, and the fact that an alternative license path in legally available in our state. As an example, my S22ās (male) kindergarten teacher had majored in economics back in his home country. He was an excellent kindergarten teacher, but didnāt stay in the lower grades long. He felt that there was an unspoken fear that male elementary teachers might be pedophiles or something. Or at a minimum that it was unmanly.
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At my elementary school, in the late 70s, I had exclusively female teachers except for PE class. My children in the mid 2000s to mid 2010s had the same experience. Not much diversity at all in elementary education here (I also imagine that probably is the case in many places). I had a couple male teachers in middle school and probably one or two a year in high school. In the end, only a few of my teachers stood out to me and have remained iny.memoeies for positive reasons. Almost an equal number of male and female teachers make that list for me. Perhaps more male teachers would have been a positive thing for a young boy to learn from.
I quoted above because it strikes a bit of a chord with me because itās apparently a societal issue. Iād imagine some might be a bit put off by men teaching younger children. Hey, just look at the reaction men get over in the bear vs men thread. There seems to be an underlying question about men in general and their intentions, or at least some level of anxiety regarding the possibilities. This probably does affect the actual results we generally see in the vocation of elementary education. I imagine some would certainly question the motivation of a male 2nd grade teacher for example, as Itās not a ātraditionalā male role. Why would we trust any male that would choose that role to have Innocent intentions? Again, I imagine there are many that might feel āuncomfortableā about such an arrangement. No wonder there is such a lopsided statistic regarding elementary teachers.
I think there is a perhaps general angst regarding male teachers at the elementary level or male caregivers at say a day care center. Iāve never actually experienced the latter either. Perhaps it will just be said that āmales donāt actually want those rolesā. I personally enjoyed parenting and caring for my.young children. I personally liked teaching.them and helping them with their academics in elementary school. Anyway, itās an interesting situation that again, with the man vs best thread, brings up another question about how much society in general would actually trust a āmanā with our young children, this perhaps excluding many from taking on these roles.
" Seventy-seven percent of public school teachers were female and 23 percent were male in 2020ā21. The percentage of male teachers at the elementary instructional level (11 percent) was lower than the percentage at the secondary instructional level (36 percent). Overall, the distribution of public school teachers by sex was not measurably different in 2020ā21 compared with 2011ā12."3
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I recall maybe two male teachers in my elementary schoolāone was a 6th grade math teacherāhe was great! One was the boyās PE teacher.
In middle school we had very few male teachers as well. We also had a male counselor, VP and president. In HS, it seemed pretty similar.
One of my friends is a male elementary school teacherāhe was teaching 6th grade, then tech, now 1st or so. Heās an awesome person. My S thrived having him in 6th grade.
My infant grandson has a male caregiver at his daycare. Heās under 35 too. Seems to be fine.
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My husband was an education major. He made it all the way to student teaching. After seeing all the politics at the school he was assigned to, he decided that teaching wasnāt for him and dropped out of college! Five years later, he returned and got a BS in engineering. He would have made an awesome teacher. But Iām glad he switched because thatās why we met, in grad school.
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My H is getting to retire next month after teaching elementary PE for 32 years. Typically, there have been 2 other male teachers (out of ~30 in a K-5 school). Most kids at his school do not have a male role model at home. Many donāt live with either parent. And many bounce around from house to house, school to school.
Iāve long said that more male teachers are needed in elementary schools like his. The kids just latch onto H like glue. His is very good at what he does. He has a great rapport even with some of the roughest kids. And we canāt go anywhere in our city without kids, young and old, coming up and hugging him, bouncing all over us, etc. More teachers like him in an elementary school would make a difference.
Edit: I will also add that I think consistency is good and needed in these kidsā lives. H has been at his school for 30 of the 32 years. His first school closed after his second. Everyone knows that Mr. CM will be there every single morning greeting all of the kids as they arrive. Next year is going to be a big change I know.
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I remember 2 male teachers in ES - one was āCoachā (taught PE for many years). Both taught for years and were beloved. There were more men teaching in my kidās ES but they seemed to teach for a few years and then end up in administration. Perhaps it was a money thing?
I would love to see more men in early childhood and elementary education as well as in nursing.
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Yes, I agree there is that suspicion. At my elementary school, only the principal, the gym teacher and a couple of the upper grade teachers were male. (The gym teacher actually did turn out to be a child molester. Itās a bummer, but research shows that child molesters are disproportionately likely to choose jobs where they might have unsupervised time with kids: coaching, boy scout leader, church youth leader or priest etc. The answer is having safeguards so there wonāt be unsupervised time, and of course no more of the hush-hush culture that resulted in predators getting fired but being free to move onto another job.)
So anyway, yes there can be suspicions. But maybe just as important, the job (especially in the lower grades) is seen as unmanly. Principal, gym teacher and custodian are the only jobs at a school that society regards as manly.
And then thereās the low pay.
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Teachersā pay is so variable by region. My granddaughterās first-grade teacher makes over $100k. The average teacher in her district makes over $90K. That seems quite good for the job (and my husband was a high school teacher for 33 years so I know that they donāt get three months off in the summer but they do have about 6 weeks where they donāt need to be taking classes or preparing for the next year. Not to mention holidays, where yes, he did sometimes grade papers but was also free to spend time with family when he wanted). That may not seem like a lot to the CC crowd but really, itās not bad at all. On the other hand, I know there are parts of the country where teachers are paid half that. If that. I think the stereotypes of what is manly and the lack of encouragement may play a bigger role.
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I agree, it is more about perception than anything else. If you can get a job teaching in our town youāre making 70k the first year and topping out at 155k. And thatās with a late start every Wednesday and no more than 24 kids in your class.
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My spouse was part of that 10% of male teachers in an elementary school, and not as a PE teacher. Going in to education was something he felt pulled towards because heād had a hard upbringing and knew what that was like and wanted to help kids who had been like him. Since heād already served time in the infantry, he had no qualms about not being considered āmanlyā enough by teaching at an elementary school.
Even though he was a terrific teacher, he ended up moving into administration because of the pay. Although I said that I was perfectly happy with him continuing to be a teacher, I think he remembered what the pay was like in the state where he grew up (significantly higher than where we live with a significantly lower cost of living) and saw family members with much higher incomes and wanted to ātake better careā of his family financially. So though there was no pressure from his spouse, I think he felt pressure either from himself or from societal pressures, or some combination thereof.
Our school system just increased its pay scale for next year, with certified teachers starting off at $57k. It tops off at $82k after 32 years experienceā¦if you have a PhD or EdD. This is a HUGE increase in comparison with this year when itās been $45k to start and topped off at $70,500 with a doctorate and 32 years experience. And this is in a town where a 2-bedroom house I know of sold for about $465k the other year. It was not in one of the most desired neighborhoods in the city (though certainly not an undesirable neighborhood), just to get a sense of the cost-of-living.
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I just saw a news blurb that teacher salaries in my state are among the highest in the country (NJ) which sent me looking for a source. It turns out their info came from the NEA. I thought you and others may be interested in where their states land. I realize the NEA has a certain point of view so their commentary may need to be taken with a grain of salt.
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