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DiscussionTeen boys will not listen to female teachers
https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/s/01IlDnohOs
I like to lurk in the teachers’ subreddit. No reason, it’s just fascinating to read. And of course as you might imagine the sub is full of complaints and insight into modern problems with education (mostly in America).
On the rise in the last couple of decades has been an unwillingness of school administration and government organizations to punish children appropriately. Why? Well, mostly the fact that parents are much more forgiving than they used to be, and also more prone to treating school as a glorified babysitting service. Combine that with the advent of smartphones, and you see major failings in public education.
Anyway, one of the biggest problems which isn’t new but greatly worsening, is the way students treat female teachers specifically. It will surprise no one that a lot of students, particularly male middle and high schoolers, will not only not listen to female teachers like they do their male counterparts, but also make sexual/degrading comments towards them.
I can’t imagine why anyone would teach today, but that goes doubly for female teachers. There’s no accountability, no punishment, and now you have 13 year olds filming their teachers’ butts and putting them on their tik tok account. Male teachers are also facing problems in education, but almost all of them are exacerbated if the teacher is a woman.
Anecdotally, when I was in high school we had a French teacher (on the young side, pretty) who was frequently sexually harassed by the students, to the point where she quit, reportedly after having a teary breakdown when a few boys had joked and made as if they were humping her from behind during class.
Given that the majority of primary educators are women, I wonder what this means for the future.