[avtur3]

I make no excuse for such abuse (I am "survivor" myself as they are called these days) nor do I say that all accusations are false, merely that fear of such matters must impinge greatly on recruitment..

I am also a member of that club; as a naive 12 year old I had no idea why one of my teachers, known to me as 'Father Harry', also had the nick-name 'bummer harry' ...... until .......

For reasons that I do not understand and cannot explain there is clearly a significant bias in that the perpetrators (alleged and/or convicted) of such offences are far more likely to be male than female, so for me the even bigger elephant in the room is that males appear far more likely to be the perpetrators of such crimes. So as the years tick by this has become more widely known (dare I say accepted) and it probably has had an impact on how people choose the professions they wish to work in.

When my kids (both girls) were in primary school I was a volunteer classroom assistant, now in some ways it was sad, the reason was that I was computer literate where most of the (female - sorry hate to say it ... but it was true) teaching staff were not; my efforts were welcomed with open arms (and at that time, no concern). What may have been 'concerning' by todays standards was that I worked with the children (usually just two at a time) outside the classroom environment. That simply could not happen today, which from a child protection point of view is understandable but from kids point of view it begs the question what are they missing out on ... exposure to adults who may genuinely have something to offer the youngsters.

Now because of my life experiences I am old enough, ugly enough, wise enough that I would not let any of these concerns worry me ... but it probably is a worry for others, which may be why males in primary teaching are such a rare species. As for males in other other roles ... I don't know.

But I will repeat my question ... the subscribers here are predominantly male ... therefore the question asked by GtE in the opening post is one that should be answered here .... why are the majority of subscribers working in male dominated roles ... why did anyone here choose not to work in a female dominated role.

[riverrock]

Why do you think that working 2 at a time with kids as a volunteer would be discouraged? How do you think that tutoring works or piano lessons work? You'd now probably go through criminal records checks. The location would be carefully chosen to have windows or to be within shouting distance or line of sight of someone else, mainly to protect the volunteer.

I enjoy working as a volunteer and so have gone through child protection training. There are still a lot of misconceptions about how volunteering is done - but you simply take sensible precautions.

[avtur3]

Why do you think that working 2 at a time with kids as a volunteer would be discouraged? How do you think that tutoring works or piano lessons work? You'd now probably go through criminal records checks. The location would be carefully chosen to have windows or to be within shouting distance or line of sight of someone else, mainly to protect the volunteer.

I enjoy working as a volunteer and so have gone through child protection training. There are still a lot of misconceptions about how volunteering is done - but you simply take sensible precautions.

Sorry riverorck I think you might have misunderstood me or perhaps I didn't explain myself too well. I have no problem at all with any child protection training that may now exist (I am a survivor - I know full well why it is place).

All that I was saying was that at the time CRB etc was not in place and the environment where I worked was completely out of sight of anyone, that simply would not happen today.

One of my daughters is a primary teacher and I've helped her out a number of times as a 'parent helper' (all be it parent of the teacher - not a pupil ha, ha) . I think volunteer resources have a lot to offer kids in school and I'm all for it. I can understand the reason for safe guarding systems and don't have a problem with them. However I do wonder if folks of younger, less experienced, years may see this as an obstacle.

I totally understand 'sensible precautions' but I wonder if in todays environment perhaps many folks miss this point.

[riverrock]

I've probably misunderstood - apologies.
I wonder if the modern expectation that parents will return to work straight after having kids, reducing the number of parents able to volunteer / help?
My Mum tells me that the number of people volunteering occasionally in the places she volunteers at reduced when they had to go through the admin hassle of the police checks. More of those who volunteer are at retirement age.

[avtur3]

I've probably misunderstood - apologies.
I wonder if the modern expectation that parents will return to work straight after having kids, reducing the number of parents able to volunteer / help?
My Mum tells me that the number of people volunteering occasionally in the places she volunteers at reduced when they had to go through the admin hassle of the police checks. More of those who volunteer are at retirement age.

I can understand that, what I was talking about originally was me being a 'parent helper' in the classroom, I worked on a 24/7 shift rota at the time which meant I often had time to help during the school day. I suspect that in todays working environment it is much more the case that both parent work something like 'a normal working day' therefore they cannot help in school.

I'm now at 'grandparent age' and self employed which gives me a good amount of choice around what I do, currently I don't have any connection with local schools (both daughters in the 20's and away from home) but i'd like to think I had something to offer, although I probably wouldn't be first choice for football coach !!!

[JoeC]

I think the average heterosexual male

You obviously have very low standards.

[flybymike]

And I fail to live up to them.

[Paul_Sengupta]

why are the majority of subscribers working in male dominated roles ... why did anyone here choose not to work in a female dominated role.

Speaking personally, I was interested in electronics and computing from a young age. I became a radio ham. I programmed and ran a computer Bulletin Board. So electronics, computing and telecomms were my interests. That's what I wanted to work in. I did electronic engineering with a computing and telecomms bias in university. I got a job in telecomms!

I would hope that people of whatever gender would go for the sort of work they enjoy and not be pushed into something just for the sake of gender equality.

As for working with primary age kids? No, not for me!

[riverrock]

Similarly, I work at the job I do because I'm interested in it and good at it.
That I happened to go a University with more females at it, and did a Computer Science degree in a department with the closest gender balance in the country, and am currently working in a team with 2 female developers and 1 male developer working below me is neither here nor there. But then IT companies in general do try and promote women in computing (and the part of the company I work for, with lots of customer facing roles, probably attracts more females than most).

I do enjoy volunteering with a number of organisations working with kids (have worked with kids aged 3 to 18 in different roles) and my vice principal mother-in-law says I would make a good teacher, but I enjoy the mentoring and teaching aspects of my current role more (as a senior technical architect, trying to shape new graduates into the best they can be) than I would dealing with marking and school politics. I'm also great at supporting others but not the best at leading from the front.

Teaching used to be seen as a bit straight laced and staid. I think that impression is breaking. Its now seen as supporting innovators. Teachers need to be in the pattern of constantly learning new things ( a primary teacher friend has been trying to learn Spanish so she can stay one step ahead of teaching it to her P3 class). Good teachers are constantly thinking of better ways to present their material and engage their students. The Teach First system (England only...) is bringing in a lot of people who may not have considered teaching in the past (although it does have a high drop out rate). I'd say that few people would see it as an "easy" choice now.
I understand that about 20% of people being trained as teachers is male, a percentages that has been on the constant rise over the last 10 years.

[PeteSpencer]

I'm happy to accept why the very vast majority of midwives are female. But that, offhand, is the only profession I can see an imbalance in being genuinely a good thing.

G

Really? Oh I can think of one.......