Male Sexism within Teaching

Please, please, please take a moment to check out this link.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/mmmmmmmm#.ks0OVDO86

Titled '13 Really Hot Teachers That Will Have You Begging For Detention' and captioned Yes, Mr. Smith, I'll gladly stay after class.  This post shows that its not only females who are sexualized in their role as a teacher but males as well.  I'm not to sure what the person was thinking who posted this on Buzzfeed, but seeing as it is a 'top post' shows that teenagers are interested in 'hot male teachers'     As learned in law class, just assumptions of teacher student relationships can get the teacher into a pot of boiling hot water.  Even if nothing happened.  This topic makes me really sick so I'm not going to go into much more detail in student-teacher relationships.  I just wanted to address following my last blog that is not only female teachers whose roles are sexualized.  As the Buzzfeed post shows men are also sexualized in their roles as teachers.  Why do students feel its okay to post something like this?  Why would they take time to dedicate a post about 'really hot teachers'?Who knows; maybe its the fact that female students aren't used to seeing younger male teachers, the fact that they are more relatable to the students, or even that they just like the way the teachers dress when they teach the class.  That being said we as new teachers need to address sexism in the classroom, this needs to be done in order to create a safe place for both the teachers and the students.

Back to males being sexualized in the classroom, who here has heard of the stereotypes of male primary school teachers?  Good not just me.  Why is there a difference between a primary teacher who is male versus one who is female?  Why is it strange that a male wants to teach primary school?  Just to name a few sterotypes there are; men aren't as nurturing as women, men carry on sexual mistrust stereotypes in a primary level classroom, and the fact that men are just too rough.  As doing more research on the stereotype I stumbled across a very interesting article from ABC news called; The Mistrusted Male Teacher (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5670187&page=1). This article addresses the stereotypes that male teachers face, why these stereotypes are in place, and why this is a dangerous career for men to enter.  The article states that the main reason why men do not want to become teachers is because of the highly potential accusations of sexual abuse.
--I feel like were forgetting about the big picture here and what really matters.  Its not gender that makes a teacher 'good', its the teachers personality.  "What matters more then anything is that its a good teacher and the teacher loves to teach." (ABCnews, 2015) For the sake of the males within our community, we owe it to them to break these stereotypes and allow them to do what there passionate about; teach.  We owe it to them to be able to teach in peace.

Sexism is a problem that males AND females deal with everyday in and out of the classroom.  In the classroom we have a chance to make a difference in the students lives.  Curriculum is obviously very important but we also have the chance to teach life skills to these students, and sexism/equality for all should be one of them.