COLUMBIA, Mo.
After nearly a decade as an elementary school teacher, Steven Cook is a
natural. Off-key renditions of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to
start the day? No problem. Reading circles and mystery meat-fueled
lunch breaks? Piece of cake.
His 20 first-graders at West Boulevard Elementary School know that Mr.
Cook is something special. He’s also a rarity — the only male classroom
teacher in a building otherwise dominated by female authority figures.
Researchers have linked the shortage of male elementary school teachers
— only 9 percent nationally, according to the National Education
Association — to several detrimental effects, from lower test scores
among young boys to the absence of male role models in areas other than
sports and entertainment.
The recurring problem has prompted University of Missouri-Columbia
education professor Roy Fox to create Men for Excellence in Elementary
Teaching, a program he hopes will combine financial incentives with a
mentoring network to steer more beginning male teachers to the younger
grades.
“I would be sitting at graduation ceremonies and our elementary school
teachers would walk by receiving diplomas, one at a time, and I would
say, ‘where are the men?”‘ said Fox, chairman of the College of
Education’s Department of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum.
“A lot of people recognize it as a problem,” he added. “But there’s almost complete inertia about it.”
