Partly due to tradition and partly due to outdated male attitudes, male elementary teachers are rare. This needs to change.

No one disputes the fact that effectively teaching the youngest of our children is crucial to laying a proper foundation for later years. Yet many children go through their early school years—day care, kindergarten, elementary—without substantial contact with a male. After nine years as an elementary teacher, eight with the Boston Public School Department, it has become clear to me that one problem with public schools in America is that so few men serve as elementary teachers. Now this is no slight to my female colleagues, many who do an admirable job, but a profession is enhanced when its workforce is diverse.

As a country, we’ve taken affirmative action (a positive expression in my mind) to diversify several formerly White, male-dominated professions (for example, law enforcement and medicine). Clearly, those professions serve the public better because they have a variety of voices that impact on how they will carry out their missions. The percentage of men teaching at the elementary level dangles at only about ten percent. Why should a subsection of the teaching profession miss out on the benefits of diversity?

Part of the problem is we men ourselves. Some of us do not consider teaching children how to write their names for the first time or how to count to one hundred as “real” teaching. We dismiss wiping tears from a sad face because a selfish classmate made off with a toy or because someone was not allowed to join a game of kickball as fluff stuff. Some of us, sad to say, don’t like being hugged, let alone giving a hug. We view such activities as women’s work, and that is our loss.

Another problem is that men are not always welcomed. Simply put, no one has extended an invitation. Public school human resource offices make no attempt to encourage men of any color to teach at the elementary level. Elementary principals, who often see women as less assertive and less challenging, prefer the status quo.

As an African-American male who has taught only at the elementary level, it is clear that my task-oriented, no nonsense, no excuses style does not sit well with some of my female colleagues, some mothers of my students and even some principals under whom I have served. Frequently, my female colleagues will know all the details of their students’ personal problems and allow them to slack off on schoolwork due to their “unfortunate circumstances.” In nine years I haven’t heard a story yet (short of illness or death) that has moved me to let a student off the hook for not bringing in his or her homework. Also, the walls, doors, windows, etc. of my classroom, while tastefully decorated, are not covered with fancy knick-knacks, as they are in the rooms of my female coworkers. And unlike some of my female colleagues, “no” from me definitely means no. One concern frequently voiced by critics of our public schools is the lack of discipline. No one would like to admit it, but one solution would be to put more men in our elementary schools.

Tragically, never has there been more of a need for Black males to step up to the plate and serve as positive role models for our children (forgive the sports metaphor, it’s a male thing). Female headed households with absent fathers are far from rare in African-American family life, especially for our inner city school children. It is not uncommon for a Black child to turn eleven without having interacted with a man for any significant amount of time.

Today, the biggest complaint facing our schools is that our students are not succeeding academically. A generation ago, the nurturance/self-esteem, feel-good model of education replaced the task-oriented, get down to work style, and the result has been a disaster for our children. Now school boards, politicians and professional educators have been demanding improved academic results. Hiring more men to teach elementary school is not the primary answer to that challenge, but it would help.

The belief that an elementary school is an extension of the home where tiny tots go to get love and warm fuzzies will not be sufficient to advance successfully into the next millennium. School systems will have to rethink this approach and actively recruit men as teachers of children whose ages run in the single digits. Our colleges and universities should actively encourage men—especially Black men—to pursue this worthwhile vocation. Perhaps our classrooms will not look as pretty as they have for the past twenty years, but it is a small price to pay for improved test scores and restored respect for our nation’s public schools.