The feminization of teaching has been gradual throughout the years, yet has led to a significant female population within the teaching force. In the 1700’s and earlier, education was provided by families, ministers or male teachers. These male teachers received low pay and often boarded with families. Although there was no pedagogical training required, women were still seen as being unqualified for the job. However, in the 1750’s women began establishing schools for young children in their own homes, called Dame Schools. These schools were typically for children who were too young to work in fields. Today, they may be seen more as a daycare, rather than a school. Although women were not originally seen to be suited for the career of teaching, throughout time and the rise of women’s rights, women proved different.
As schools were being authorized and children were being provided with an education in a local school, the need for teachers also began to rise. Also, men were moving into professions of business, industry and law and no longer entering the teaching force. This provided opportunities for women to ease into the field. The fact that women could be hired at a lesser cost than men was a significant factor in why they were suddenly being hired for the job. Nonetheless, women were presented with the opportunity to become employed, and many jumped at the chance.
Moreover, as women increasingly took over the job force, they began to be seen as a stable and reliable work force. Although teaching was previously seen in a diminishing light on men, it was now a respectable employment for women. In fact, it was seen as a natural calling for women because of their mothering instinct.
In 1856 Horace Mann began the establishment of Normal Schools for the training of female teachers. He insisted that women were best suited for the profession because of their love for children. This assumption is quite presumptuous and may not be fully true. However, the first three Normal Schools were created in Lexington, Barre and Bridgewater and set out to prepare the most suitable teachers: women. The Normal Schools consisted of a 2 year course of study that focused on the specific subjects they would teach as well as didactics and pedagogy. Also, they would practice their teaching on a model classroom to ensure their qualification.
Other people, besides Horace Mann voiced their opinions on women as being a natural teacher. For instance, Catherine Beecher, a crusader for the improvement of teaching and writer of “Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education” insisted that women were suitable to teaching because of their “temperament, morals, and maternal role.” The assumption that every women was a suitable teacher was at the forefront of hiring the teaching force.
Originally it was perceived that women were entering teaching because it was a natural calling. However, these are simply generalizations, and from the women’s point of view it was one of the few acceptable professions that allowed them to move away from home and create an independence. The fact of the matter is, is that women simply needed the work. Women were taking advantage of their chance to be able to be free from the possession of their fathers or possible husbands. The profession allowed them to improve their social status, while also providing them opportunities to travel and stimulate them with intellectual challenges. For women, it was not necessarily by nature that they chose to teach, but rather, a matter of financial need and independence.
Although there were many advantages for women who entered teaching, there were also many disadvantages. Besides extremely low salaries, women were faced with classrooms of 40-60 children, inadequate materials, no prospects for advancement and a strict code of behavior that prohibited them from marrying or even being seen alone with another man. In result of this, women began to organize, forming groups such as the American Federation of Teachers that advocated for better benefits and pensions for teachers and the National Education Association that supported bettering working conditions, salaries and professional development for teachers. The fight to better the conditions of schools and to improve the working conditions of teaching were well in effect, and women were at the forefront.
Today much of the teacher population consists of women, especially in the elementary grades. Since the 1800’s women have imploded into the teaching force and have began to fight to better their working conditions. Although it may be debated why woman began to teach, it can be assumed today that it is not only the money that encourages women to teach. The feminization of teaching has been gradual throughout the years, and perhaps both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards may be a leading force driving women to teach. However, there is no doubt that one prerequisite for teaching today is passion.
