by Carolyn Abraham

A new study says male elementary teachers live in a steady state of anxiety, with 13 per cent reporting they had been wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with students. Part 2 of a six-part series.

The male elementary teacher is the spotted owl of the education system, the leatherback turtle, the Beluga.

His presence is so endangered that in many public schools his numbers can be counted on a single hand. In some schools, it requires no hands at all.

“It is now possible for a child in Canada to go through elementary school and high school and never see a male at the front of the class,” says Jon Bradley, an associate professor of education at McGill University, where men make up just five per cent of the elementary teachers in training.

The trend isn't new. Men have been the clear minority in primary teaching since the days of the one-room school house. But with their numbers dwindling to less than 20 per cent nationally, fixing the imbalance has taken on a certain urgency and there's already been talk of affirmative action. Of all the theories offered to explain why boys trail girls in academics, the lack of male role models tends to lead the pack.

Boys increasingly grow up without fathers... READ MORE...