What Kinds of Positions Are Open to Men in the Educational Field?
The following types of positions are open to men in education:
(1) Teaching positions.
(2) Supervisory and executive positions on the strictly educational side.
(3) Executive positions on the strictly business side.
(4) Miscellaneous positions, such as those held by attendance and probation officers.
Teaching positions open to men may be classified as follows:
1. Positions in the eight grammar school grades—
(a) As teachers of the regular grade subjects (elementary school subjects) in rural schools.
(b) As teachers of the regular grade subjects (elementary school subjects) in fifth, sixth, and especially seventh and eighth grades in the city schools.
(c) As teachers of special subjects in the grades, such as music, mechanical drawing, manual training, agriculture, commercial subjects, physical training and playground work, including coaching in athletics.
2. Positions in high schools, as teachers of practically all high-school subjects, but especially in the sciences, such as geology, physics, zoology, botany, and chemistry; and in agriculture, commercial subjects, debating, history, mathematics, foreign languages, English, drafting, shop work of various kinds, and printing.
3. Positions in all-day, part-time, or evening vocational schools as teachers of vocational subjects.
4. Positions in normal schools, colleges, and universities.
The greater part of the teaching in the elementary schools is in the hands of women, and much of it should continue in their hands since they are better suited than men to teach the lower grades. But children, especially in the upper grades, should come in contact not only with women, but with some men as well. More teaching in these grades, therefore, will doubtless in the future be put into the hands of men.
In the rural schools, except where schools have been consolidated, a teacher usually teaches all subjects in all eight grades, or in a number of these grades. In city schools in the regular grade subjects, each teacher generally handles one group of children, all of whom are in the same grade. In the upper grades of the elementary schools in cities, particularly in grades 7 and 8, each teacher generally teaches one subject, and teaches that subject to different groups of children in different grades. Under these conditions the teacher has opportunity to specialize along the line of his choice. One may specialize in the regular old line school subjects, such as history, reading, arithmetic, writing, and geography, or in the newer subjects, such as music, art, and agriculture. Art teaching offers an attractive field. So do agriculture, woodwork, foundry, forging, sheet-metal work, concrete construction, simple electrical construction and wiring, printing, shoe repairing, and mechanical drawing. Except in the largest cities, the teachers of industrial art subjects are usually called upon to teach two or three such subjects. One’s preparation for the teaching of these industrial art subjects should include first, a knowledge of the shop side of these lines of work; second, some knowledge of the everyday problems of industrial production, distribution, and consumption; and third, some knowledge of the method of teaching.