This article is from WeChat official account:Sanlihe (ID: Sanlihe1) , author: Carlo, head Figure from: vision China

In 2015, “China Women’s Daily” published an article about the shortage of male kindergarten teachers. The article mentioned an on-site investigation.

The host asked the parents two questions: One is “Do you need a male teacher in kindergarten?”

Parents unanimously answered “need”.

The second is “If you are asked to be a kindergarten teacher, would you like it?”

The answer is again the same “unwilling.”

The strong demand and the inexplicable “bias” coexist, almost always the wonderful situation of the male kindergarten teacher industry.

“China News Weekly” quoted statistics from the Ministry of Education. In 2019, the proportion of full-time teachers in preschool education in the country was 97.79%. Data from Zhejiang Province also shows that the proportion of male kindergarten teachers in the province in 2017 was only nearly 1%.

Male aunts, working women…the stereotype of male kindergarten teachers has always existed.

Zhihu also has many questions similar to: “What is the experience of being a male kindergarten teacher?” “What kind of attitude do people generally have towards male kindergarten teachers?” “How to evaluate or treat male kindergarten teachers?” Although many male kindergarten teachers replied that they are making love for their love and they like to learn and play with children, there are also female kindergarten teachers who are eager to have male colleagues. Many male kindergarten teachers feel that the treatment is not good, the status is low, and they are feminine. The preschool education industry.

What kind of existence is this scarce group like giant pandas? What is the difference between them and the female teacher? Can they really feed themselves?

With these questions, we chatted with three male kindergarten teachers in Hangzhou.

Parents wish there could be a male teacher in the class

Ms. Zhang

Private kindergarten, 2 years of teaching experience

“Poor status and poor treatment? Then you may have a misunderstanding of the male kindergarten teacher.” Teacher Zhang, a man from the northwest, smiled in the cold West Lake and retorted.

Ms. Zhang grew up in Shaanxi and went to a private kindergarten in Xihu District, Hangzhou after graduating from university in 2018. At that time, they had more than 2,000 students majoring in preschool education, and there were only a dozen boys. It is these dozens of people, many of them changed careers after graduation, some went to training institutions as physical teachers, and some left the education industry directly because they failed to pass the teacher qualification exam or physical exam, or obeyed the arrangements at home.

Currently there are only 5 or 6 kindergarten teachers, and Teacher Zhang is one of them.

“I have a lively and cheerful personality, and I also like to mingle with children. It is more suitable to work in kindergarten. Some boys can’t stand the environment of children’s chattering, so I make up my mind to change career early.”

The teacher is not the original career plan of Teacher Zhang. He has been learning piano since he was 7 years old. Originally, he wanted to take the road of artistic development, but always wanted to enter the Conservatory. However, his piano teacher suggested that if you learn piano professionally in the future, the development path will be very narrow.

The piano teacher thinks that with a lively and cheerful personality, he can try other majors, such as the education industry, especially the scarcity of male teachers in kindergartens, and the prospects for development may be better.

After entering kindergarten, Teacher Zhang found that “boys in this major do have many advantages.”

When he first came to Hangzhou for internship, he participated in the training of new teachers in the district. At that time, there were more than 200 students in the whole class, and only 4 boys. After the training, there is a graduationAt the ceremony, he went up to play the piano and perform shows, which immediately attracted the attention of many teachers, especially teachers from the Education Bureau.

The enthusiastic teachers pulled him into the “West Lake District Male Preschool Teachers Union.” “This group is about 30 people. After joining the group, I really have a new understanding of the preschool education industry, and I discovered that this industry attaches so much importance to male teachers.”

Almost every month, the Boys’ Kindergarten Teachers’ League organizes public welfare or leisure and entertainment activities, such as charity, volunteer activities, football, skating, etc. As long as they actively participate in activities, male teachers will receive additional year-end bonuses. Currently this benefit is only for public male teachers. Therefore, Teacher Zhang’s current goal is very clear: the establishment of the public examination.

Mr. Zhang’s private kindergarten is not considered top-notch, but the monthly salary is more than 9,000. In a district public kindergarten he has locked, the annual salary of male kindergarten teachers can reach 150,000 to 180,000, and it also provides accommodation.

“For us outsiders, it is a good choice to guarantee income from droughts and floods within the system. It is also good to save 20,000 yuan a year in rent. And in public offices, the longer the seniority, the higher the salary.” Teacher Zhang also deliberately I went to see the single dormitory provided by this public kindergarten, about 30 flat with independent guards, and he felt quite satisfied.

Compared with the salary, the spiritual satisfaction makes Teacher Zhang talk about it more.

“There are 21 children in our class, and the 5 teachers are evenly distributed. At the beginning, parents were worried that it was strange that the male teacher was lying next to the little girl and patted her to sleep. Later, he got used to it.”

Besides patience, a cheerful personality is very important when dealing with children. “There are not many boys. If you have a cheerful personality, you will develop well in kindergarten.” Teacher Zhang, who has just worked for two years, concluded that more children in modern society are women, so children will rely more on male teachers, and they are more likely to be seen and valued.

“I think Teacher Zhang is the most handsome in the world, even more handsome than his father.” Children’s words are the best advertisement. They are very simple. They will tell their parents which teacher they like when they go home, and keep talking about how Teacher Zhang in our class is doing.

Now it’s: “Parents wish there would be a male teacher in the class, they would not dislike you at all.”

Secret gender weakness

I wish teacher

Public kindergarten, 5 years of teaching experience

Different from Teacher Zhang, who was born in a subject class, Mr. Zhu, who has a baby-faced face and is very friendly, is a “student halfway” and has made great efforts to become a kindergarten teacher.

Teacher Zhu, who has been teaching for more than 5 years, has been stationed in the construction site for many years in undergraduate garden design. Because food and lodging are on the construction site, and there is no time to rest on weekends, he feels too tired and there is no hope for his life.

“I happened to have three elder brothers and sisters who were teachers at home, so I suggested that I take the teacher qualification certificate first.”

“They told me that kindergarten male teachers are very popular and asked me to take the exam.” Originally, they planned to take both elementary and kindergarten exams, but the elementary school teachers have requirements for undergraduate majors, so I wish the teacher just concentrate on In kindergarten.

For this, he also went to a public kindergarten near his home to experience it for a while. After the experience, I feel very good, because compared with almost 007 construction sites, the kindergarten has too much temptation to have winter and summer vacations on weekends.

In order to get the teacher qualification certificate, he paid a lot of money to sign up for the training class. He studied hard on weekends and National Day holidays, and he went through the mock examination classes, closed classes, and sprint classes.

“Because I have no foundation, I can only keep taking classes, which is equivalent to studying all of their undergraduate studies.” Looking back on the days when I was desperately researching, Teacher Zhu was still very moved.

After getting the teacher’s qualification certificate, Mr. Zhu started his career as a non-staff teacher, learning with other teachers while going to work. “I also worshipped a few masters, because the later tests involved playing, jumping, speaking, and singing, and all piano and dance tests were required. I really don’t know anything.”

Teacher I wish you are very grateful to the original masters. At that time, he followed them every day after work. After a semester, he started playing the piano from zero basic to temporary music.

After successful examination in 2016, he entered a public kindergarten in Binjiang and became a busy and happy head teacher.

When I first became the head teacher, I wish the teacher a lot of pressure, because when I just entered the kindergarten, all the habits of the children have to be cultivated by the teacher. Parents have more requests. I have to take a lot of photos and post them in the group a few weeks before school starts. Teacher Zhu joked that he was most afraid of children being bumped or scratched at the time, and parents would definitely send WeChat to ask about the situation.

So he thought of a way, took a notebook directly, and wrote down each child’s eating, nap and other information, and wrote a small composition at night in the group, parents can check it by themselves.

“Men teachers in small classes will really work harder, because the function of kindergarten is childcare plus education. Children in small classes are young and can’t concentrate, so the childcare functions must be more”, I wish you all There is nothing wrong with the stereotype of male kindergarten teachers.

Even experienced and patient senior kindergarten teachers like Teacher Zhu still feel that they have “gender weakness”, such as those who are not good at comforting crying children. “Children tend to find their mothers when they are sad, so male teachers are not as useful as female teachers to coax them.” However, children who have just entered kindergarten usually have separation anxiety and require teachers to hug them.

These worries will be much less in the middle and large classes. At this time, the children’s habit will gradually develop. They will take off their clothes, cover the quilt, put on clothes and even fold the quilt during a nap. The teacher has less places to worry about and can concentrate more energy Put it on education.

Now I wish the teacher have another sweet trouble. He likes to play with children very much, but “If you play with them too much, they will lose their skin, so you are not afraid of you as the head teacher.”

As the only male among the more than 20 kindergarten teachers in kindergarten, I wish teacher to be both a screw and a treasure of the town.

He said that when he first entered kindergarten, he did a lot of technical and physical work. The kindergarten is very rich in various activities, so he undertakes poster design, music editing and other technical work, and incidentally arranges the venue, adjusts the sound, and where to go. There are also environmental creations that are changed almost every festival, and he also takes care of all the physical tasks such as climbing and painting walls.

In addition, the dynamic kickboxing in the morning exercise class of the large class is brought by him because it is more about strength and masculinity.

Of course, as the only male teacher, Mr. Zhu has more opportunities to “show his face”. “Two years ago, I thought I would have more of the external exhibition activities. Because there are few male teachers, everyone will be surprised to see male teachers, and they want to watch male teachers attend classes.”

Despite the abundant activities, kindergarten has a lot of tedious written work. For example, you have to hand in two pieces of materials every month. The list of materials alone is as long as one page of A4 paper. There is also a kindergarten rating. It depends not only on the layout of the kindergarten site, but also on the documents in recent years. The materials have to be sorted by teachers. Some male teachers are not too impatient to do this kind of work.

In addition to writing essays and evaluating professional titles. “Like myself, I have published fewer papers in the past two years, because after all, I am not majoring in pre-school education. I want to write a paper very professionally and academically. It will definitely take more time.”

He also introduced that Binjiang District is considered to be a district with a large number of male kindergarten teachers in Hangzhou. This year, several new male teachers have been recruited. In terms of promotion, if it is a male teacher who graduated from a teacher-training major, the school will be more valued and there will be more room for improvement. For example, there are male deputy principals and male park directors in Binjiang District. But he also worries that female teachers usually love learning more than male teachers, and it is not easy for male teachers to calm down and engage in scientific research, so women will rise faster.

Although the number of male teachers is generally scarce, in recent years, the recruitment of kindergarten teachers has not specifically recruited men, and there is no policy preference for male teachers. Mr. Zhu, who has been in the recruitment site for years, said, “Education is more important.”

If you have a bachelor’s degree in Zhejiang Normal University, you will basically be admitted, because at least you have a professional background. There is also a scoring table when recruiting. If you are a graduate student, you have not spoken or displayed yet, it is already twenty points more than the others.

He also discovered an interesting phenomenon. There are no boys among the fresh graduates who handed in their resumes, and the male teachers recruited basically have one or two years of work experience.

Because the barriers to direct recruitment are getting higher and higher, many kindergartens require “outstanding school graduates, top 10% of grades, Zhejiang Normal University”. The embarrassing thing is that almost all those who meet these conditions are girls.

The ceiling really exists

Teacher Ge

Public kindergarten, 8 years of teaching experience

Ms. Ge is the first one among the male kindergarten teachers we contacted this time. After graduating from university in 2013, he was directly admitted to a public kindergarten.

However, he did not come from a preschool education class, but graduated from a sports major in a normal college. He planned to teach physical education in elementary school before, and then went to a kindergarten for an internship through the recommendation of relatives and friends. As a result, the internship felt okay, and it was said that the number of male kindergarten teachers was very popular, so I stayed in kindergarten.

Ms. Ge spent the first five years of his kindergarten teacher career in a public kindergarten in Ningbo. At first, he did not lead the class teacher, but gave the children physical education classes and logistical work.

In the past, the salary in Ningbo was about 120,000 yuan a year, but now I get more. If the seniority is high, it is entirely possible to have an annual salary of more than 180,000. “Although compared with the elementary school teachers in the district, kindergarten teachers are paid slightly worse, but not much worse.”

But Mr. Ge, who has 8 years of work experience, concluded that the biggest problem in this industry is the low ceiling.

He said that it is easy to be promoted to a second-level teacher. You can be directly promoted to the second-level after one year of undergraduate work, and to the second-level for three years after a junior college. After being promoted to a first-level teacher, you must have qualifications, write essays, and take open classes. The higher professional titles are basically nowhere near ordinary teachers. A kindergarten may be rated by a teacher.

Ms. Ge’s current career plan is to slowly evaluate the title. There are still opportunities for middle-level management posts such as general affairs. After all, the number of male kindergarten teachers is small, although it is a limitation but also an opportunity.

Mr. Ge, who is both a kindergarten teacher and a child’s father, loves family very much. “I think it’s good to be a first-line teacher. I have never considered being a kindergarten principal.” Because a man must pay more time and energy to be a kindergarten principal.

After being a kindergarten teacher for 8 years, Teacher Ge feels that he has also improved. “After all, playing with children, I won’t be sullen all day long, I have a good mentality.”

Unfortunately, because of the unstable mentality, many male kindergarten teachers’ careers ended early at the grassroots level.

This article is from WeChat official account:Sanlihe (ID: Sanlihe1) , author: Carol