Study: Teacher’s gender affects students’ performances
August 27th, 2006A new study has concluded that boys learn more from male teachers and girls learn more from female teachers.
Some doubt the findings, but I think the researcher is onto something here. I know that most of my favorite teachers, from grade school all the way through college, were men: Mr. Wehmeyer, Mr. Cushman, Mr. Nimtz, Dr. Lindley and Dr. Edwards.
That’s not to say the women teachers I had were all bad (Mrs. Payne especially was one of my favorites). And it’s not to say that men teachers were all great, as Mr. Lehr was probably the worst teacher I had at any level. But for the most part, I think this hypothesis has merit.
I wonder if others have similar experiences. Guys, were men your best teachers? Ladies, were women your best teachers?
Oddly enough, I see more and more that the students at WCHS are mostly impacted by the male teachers. As I keep an ear to the ground they seem to consistently talk about the impact of the men on their lives and the more negative comments are consistently directed toward the women who teach. Since it is a private school from k-12 the memories in their conversations reach all the way back. The comments remain relatively the same. This goes for the girls and the guys. The men have a more positive impact on them.
My favorite teachers include a mixture, for what it is worth.
Pre-college, my best teachers were definitely women. In college it might have become a little more even, but still the women won out — Dr. Jayne, Dr. Walls, Mrs. Singleton, Dr. Pinson…
My best teachers have all been men, all throughout my educational career.
My 2 cents. Interesting poll.
I’d be interested to see a statistic on the distribution of teachers by gender across the grades. My guess is that lower levels trend more towards more female teachers while higher levels tend toward more male teachers.
If that’s the case, how does the demographics of a person’s particular set of teachers affect how they remember who their “favorite” was? Then, how did that affect their grades. Unfortunately, FOX’s article reports pathetically little about the study’s methodology or techniques. Uugh - pop media!
In my case, there were stand-out teachers all along the way, but largely, I had women teachers. I’d have to list Bauer (F), Woods (F), Maragni (F), Nimtz (M), and Katz (F). Notably, 3 of my 5 favs were from 7th/8th grade. There are others that were influencial and quality teachers, but these were tops.
I have always believed that God gave men the gift of speaking blessings into the lives of others. When you see the patriarchs placing a blessing on a son, you see that gift being used. There’s something about being affirmed by a man. I can’t explain it but I simply think it is a gift of God. I think this may have something to do with men beingeffective teachers and coaches. That’s not to to say that women cannot teach and teach well. I think men and women can teach equally well. It’s just that men have the gift of speaking affirmation.
funny you should list lindley in with your favorites… i made a C and D in the two classes i had with him
not that he’s a bad teacher, i just didn’t care for history all that much. overall though, i would say that my favorites are about half and half.
I also was a big fan of Mr. Bob Nimtz. There were pretty much two camps of individuals in his class. Those that were interested in history (I was, am, and always will be) and wanted to learn liked him. Those that didn’t care about history and didn’t want to be there in the first place didn’t like him. There was almost no in-between. The fact that he was a huge Cubs fan (and present for Stan Musial’s 3,000th hit at Wrigley way back when) only annoyed me slightly.