He's the man
< h 2 class = " overhead " >Male elementary school teacher a rarity in Ithaca City School District< / h 2 >Written by Sarah Hofius
Posted March 24, 2005
billy looked at bob sue jill and tom
Christina stomps her feet excitedly as she leans towards the chalkboard.
“Uppercase for Tom, ” she says as the teacher calls on her, after asking her to stop stomping her feet.
“Yes, you’re right,” the teacher says. “And that’s the name of your brother too, isn’t it?”
Christina giggles.
The rest of the first graders finish the sentence.
“A comma after Bob.”
“One after Sue. Jill too.”
The scene seems like any first grade grammar lesson, but something is different.
The kids, who have a hard time sitting still at their tiny desks, are as anxious as any other first graders. The classroom, with its books and alphabet chart and its teacher’s rocking chair, is outfitted perfectly for its 6- and 7-year-old occupants.
But, at the head of the class, stands Mr. Brown. Yes, Steven Brown—this first grade teacher is a man.
He buckles snow pants. He hears stories about pets and siblings and dreams. He fixes juice boxes that have holes in them. He provides a nurturing environment, one that’s essential for every first grader. He’s tall, kind of lanky, with graying hair and a graying goatee.
Brown, 47, is the only male teacher at the Ithaca City School District’s Caroline Elementary School, a school with 17 classroom teachers. The school is located 7 miles southeast of Ithaca.
There are only two male first-grade teachers in the district’s eight elementary schools. In pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, there are 18 men among 138 teachers, or 13 percent.
Nationwide only 21 percent of the country’s 3 million teachers are men. Male teachers are even more scarce in the elementary classroom, as only 9 percent of those teachers are males, according to the National Education Association.
Brown is rare — especially at Caroline. He’s about as rare as a classroom without a sniffling child in the middle of February.
The students don’t care about his gender though, they were all wiping their noses and restlessly waiting to go to music class one morning last week.
“Waaaaaa…he told me to go to the back of the line,” Joshua says, pointing at Kyle with one hand and wiping his eyes with the other.
“You know you’re not supposed to tell people what to do, Kyle,” Brown says.
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