Teaching is oftentimes already seen as a predominantly female profession. In fact, the majority of my colleagues are female so inclusion is not really an issue. However, vice-principal and principal positions are often seen as male dominated even though the majority of teachers are female. I have always wondered why there are so many female teachers, yet such few female administrators. My department head is a female teacher who has taught in the district for over 20 years. We had a discussion about this once and she shared her opinions with me.<\/p>\n
First, a lot of becoming an administrator is about networking and having the right connections. Since principalships have been mostly male dominated, it is hard for female teachers to move up and make the right connections and relationships. As well, many female teachers at some point in their lives will take maternity leave. While this may only be for a few years, it does create a break in the teacher’s career and slows down the pace of advancement. Furthermore, when opportunities come up during a teacher’s maternity leave, she is unable to take advantage of them because she is not eligible to apply for the available positions.<\/p>\n
The Coquitlam School District has a mentorship program where administrators and experienced teachers in leadership positions mentor younger teachers and give them professional advice on career advancement. I believe that it would be beneficial to have a mentorship program specifically for female leaders mentoring female mentees. Female teachers face obstacles and paths that are completely different from their male counterparts so it could be more advantageous for a female mentee to be led by a female mentor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Teaching is oftentimes already seen as a predominantly female profession. In fact, the majority of my colleagues are female so inclusion is not really an issue. However, vice-principal and principal positions are often seen as male dominated even though the majority of teachers are female. I have always wondered why there are so many female […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ldrs500","category-unit-8","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/ruthleong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}