Learning is delightful and delicious …

I’ve often said that despite claims to the contrary, sexism is alive and well in our schools.

Example – a few weeks ago, a (female) colleague and I noticed a sudden “mass movement” in the playground outside our windows. Any teacher will know the sort of thing, that sudden development and movement of a crowd that denotes something’s going on.

We headed outside and started to make our way through the crowd. Neither of us is a shrinking violet and neither of us is… er, sylph-like… but some of the older boys thought it would be fun to bar our way, and of course, elbowing or shoving them would probably have gotten us slapped with a lawsuit. We eventually got through, the fight stopped, and we were then telling the crowd that it was all over and that they should go away. Did any of them move? Of course not. Until three male members of staff finally arrived and started bellowing at the boys to disperse. Then, they disappeared pretty sharpish.

There are countless other instances, too – but what I wanted to say was that for a change, yesterday I saw the boot on the other foot.

In a year 8 class, I had some extra help from a supply teacher who wasn’t needed elsewhere. He was a young, fairly good-looking guy who’s been at the school for a few days already and had already taught some of the kids in that class, so he was a big help. Apart from the fact that half a dozen of the girls in the class seemed to be sitting on feathers for most of the lesson, so giggly were they. The reason why didn’t occur to me until one of them piped up – “she finks that teacher is well fit miss!” Which of course led to a lot more giggling. The teacher, to his credit, took no notice whatsoever.

And it made me think that there are some difficult things about being a man and being a teacher (!) For starters, if you’re a guy and want to be a primary school teacher, there is this ridiculous assumption that you must be a paedophile. And if you’re a young, attractive man and work in a secondary school, you’ve got to deal with teenage girls!

I could be wrong – but I can’t remember hearing the same types of comments passed by boys about female colleagues. Well, not within their hearing anyway!