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
With his open ears and his soothing voice, Brown handles the problem with ease.
Putting up with the antics of first graders is one of the things Brown does best, but that’s not how it always was ˆë he hasn’t always been a teacher.
When he attended Cornell University in the mid-70s, he says he “partied too much” and never really found a career he was passionate about there, so he ended up not graduating.
He had thought about teaching throughout his life, but his father, who was a Cornell professor, always talked him out of it.
“He wanted me to make money,” Brown says.
So Brown managed Domino’s, worked as an electrician and as a public safety officer at Cornell and worked at a mobile home factory too before he knew he had to pursue his dream.
He received his teaching degree from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1985.
Brown was 30 years old when he went back to school, and in his education class of 18-year-old freshmen, he was the only male.
According to the National Education Association, men are outnumbered by so many women for a variety of reasons, including the reason why Brown’s father didn’t want his son to teach.
Salaries are lower for teachers when compared with other professions, which the NEA says “lowers the prestige and social value of a career in teaching.” There’s also a historical notion that teaching is women’s work.
In addition, the NEA says there’s an idea that men become teachers to teach the subject, while women become teachers to nurture and develop children. This is why more men become secondary teachers, where educators specialize in a certain subject, rather than elementary teachers who are expected to teach many subjects and deal with more feelings and emotions.
“One thing I noticed right away was a lot of people assumed I’d become a principal within a few yearsˆëthat teaching was just a stepping stone,” Brown says. “But no way. I don’t want to work with adults, just kids.”
And besides the obligatory interaction with parents, fellow teachers and the principal, working with kids is really what Brown does.
Brown gathers the students to the floor at the front of the classroom.
“Bottoms flat on the rug,” Brown says, as he sits cross-legged and places the supplies for the lesson on the floor in front of him.
“Can you say symmetry?” he asks the class.
“Symmetry!”
“Can you say symmetrical?”
“Symmetrical!”
Brown then shows the boys and girls how to make shapes, that, when folded down the middle, are identical on both sides. He makes a heart. The girls ask for a butterfly. He draws a squiggly shape on the folded blue construction paper and cuts it out.
“Ooooh, an angel,” several girls say in unison.
He tells the students to take the shapes when they’re finished and glue them onto the white paper already at each kid’s desk.
“Take your time, but don’t take too much time,” he says. “They need to be good. They’re going to hang in the hall.”
With every shape students cut out, they were eager to show their teacher what they had created.
“Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown,” the 12 students seem to chant, pleading for one-on-one attention.
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