Posted 5:03 p.m. Friday, July 29, 2011
Matt Damico, ’08 UW-L graduate, is one of the rare 3 percent of males nationally who’ve chosen to teach pre-school or kindergarten. Perhaps most males aren’t comfortable enough to show their “motherly, nurturing” side, explains Damico.
[caption id="attachment_479" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Matt Damico graduated from UW-L in 2008 with a bachelor of science in education with minor in early childhood education"]
[/caption]Matt Damico is well versed on the adventures of SpongeBob SquarePants.
He uses phrases like “great googly-moogly” just to get kids to laugh.
He can wait — patient and proud — as a 6 year old counts all the way to 600.
Damico is a kindergarten teacher. The ’08 UW-L graduate is one of the rare 3 percent of males nationally who’ve chosen to teach pre-school or kindergarten, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Perhaps most males aren’t comfortable enough to show their “motherly, nurturing” side, explains Damico — something necessary in a classroom full of 5-to-6 year olds. But this line of work is a good fit for him.
“I’m a big kid myself,” he says. “I like to color and watch cartoons — I have that natural bond with kids.”
Stereotypes exist
Damico says he occasionally has to fight the stereotype that kindergarten teaching is only for females. One parent assumed the signature “Mr. Damico” at the bottom of a letter introducing himself as her child’s new teacher was a typo.
“All I can do with that is laugh,” says Damico.
The gap between males and females in the career has a lot to do with stereotypes of women being the nurturers in society, says Troy Richter, ‘89, an adviser in UW-L’s College of Liberal Studies. Likewise, with few males in the profession, it’s hard for a male student to see it as a future career option, he notes.
“I think some students are very comfortable persisting against societal roles and some aren’t,” says Richter. “The men who go into it are very dynamic and nurturing for the young people and provide a different perspective than female kindergarten teachers. Not that one is better than the other; they’re just different.”
[caption id="attachment_482" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Kindergarten teacher Matthew Damico carves pumpkins while doing his student teaching at Franklin Elementary School in La Crosse."]
[/caption]Brenda Leahy, UW-L Career Services adviser, tries to educate students about professions that are underrepresented by gender. She encourages all education majors to get experience with different age populations.
“They may think they know, but until they work with that population, they don’t know,” she explains.
She is always excited when students like Damico realize the younger population is a good fit despite the stereotypes. She knows it benefits school districts, which like diversity in the classroom and want a teaching population that matches the students they have, she says.
“I think there is a great benefit to having a male perspective in the classroom and kids having that positive, male role model at school,” says Damico.
His doubts
Damico didn’t always know he wanted to go into elementary education. His first UW-L clinical experience caring for babies at a daycare left him with some doubts.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, there is poop everywhere,’” he recalls.
But, Damico hung in there.
The daycare experience, which later had him working with kids up to age 11, helped him see working with youngsters is a chance to play a big part in a little person’s life. Other student teaching opportunities at UW-L prepared him for the moment he would announce to his first class “Hello, I’m Mr. Damico.”
“I won’t lie, I was borderline terrified the first day of the job, but I had been through the introductions, the motions of meeting a new class and getting to know them,” he explains. “As you go through the (UW-L teacher education) program you are more and more on your own in the classroom, yet there are these safety nets behind you if you need them.”
He appreciated people in the Educational Studies department like Barb Gander, a lecturer and adviser who had real-world experience teaching.
“She helped me confirm that what I was doing was the right choice,” says Damico. “She got me really excited about it.”
Inside his room
[caption id="attachment_487" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Kindergarten teacher Matthew Damico talks to kids about the days and months of the year while student teaching at Franklin Elementary School in La Crosse. This fall will be Damico’s third year at Meadow View Elementary School in Oconomowoc."]
[/caption]Today Damico maneuvers through a maze of children in a Meadow View Elementary School classroom in Oconomowoc. Trucks vroom, building blocks teeter and crayons bring a blank page to life. While seemingly at play, kids are learning social skills and fine motor skills. By the end of they year, they can read, write sentences and count to 100 or more.
“A lot of people look at a 5 or 6-year-old kid and say ‘they can’t do this or that,’” says Damico. “I like to look at them and think of what they are capable of.”
For this reason, Damico doesn’t see any reason to stop kids when they reach 100 during the counting portion of their year-end assessment.
“I let them get that couple extra hundred in there,” he explains. “A child doesn’t get to show off that skill too often.”
He realizes what they learn in kindergarten can greatly influence who they become. And so can he.
“At this age, they don’t have a bad taste in their mouth for being in school and learning,” he notes. “They are like a fresh canvas.”
UW-L numbers:
Males rarely pursue teacher education programs in Early Childhood Middle Childhood. In the last five years, about 5 percent of the 189 UW-L students who completed the EC-MC program were male.
[/caption]Matt Damico is well versed on the adventures of SpongeBob SquarePants.
He uses phrases like “great googly-moogly” just to get kids to laugh.
He can wait — patient and proud — as a 6 year old counts all the way to 600.
Damico is a kindergarten teacher. The ’08 UW-L graduate is one of the rare 3 percent of males nationally who’ve chosen to teach pre-school or kindergarten, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Perhaps most males aren’t comfortable enough to show their “motherly, nurturing” side, explains Damico — something necessary in a classroom full of 5-to-6 year olds. But this line of work is a good fit for him.
“I’m a big kid myself,” he says. “I like to color and watch cartoons — I have that natural bond with kids.”
Stereotypes exist
Damico says he occasionally has to fight the stereotype that kindergarten teaching is only for females. One parent assumed the signature “Mr. Damico” at the bottom of a letter introducing himself as her child’s new teacher was a typo.
“All I can do with that is laugh,” says Damico.
The gap between males and females in the career has a lot to do with stereotypes of women being the nurturers in society, says Troy Richter, ‘89, an adviser in UW-L’s College of Liberal Studies. Likewise, with few males in the profession, it’s hard for a male student to see it as a future career option, he notes.
“I think some students are very comfortable persisting against societal roles and some aren’t,” says Richter. “The men who go into it are very dynamic and nurturing for the young people and provide a different perspective than female kindergarten teachers. Not that one is better than the other; they’re just different.”
[caption id="attachment_482" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Kindergarten teacher Matthew Damico carves pumpkins while doing his student teaching at Franklin Elementary School in La Crosse."][/caption]Brenda Leahy, UW-L Career Services adviser, tries to educate students about professions that are underrepresented by gender. She encourages all education majors to get experience with different age populations.
“They may think they know, but until they work with that population, they don’t know,” she explains.
She is always excited when students like Damico realize the younger population is a good fit despite the stereotypes. She knows it benefits school districts, which like diversity in the classroom and want a teaching population that matches the students they have, she says.
“I think there is a great benefit to having a male perspective in the classroom and kids having that positive, male role model at school,” says Damico.
His doubts
Damico didn’t always know he wanted to go into elementary education. His first UW-L clinical experience caring for babies at a daycare left him with some doubts.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, there is poop everywhere,’” he recalls.
But, Damico hung in there.
The daycare experience, which later had him working with kids up to age 11, helped him see working with youngsters is a chance to play a big part in a little person’s life. Other student teaching opportunities at UW-L prepared him for the moment he would announce to his first class “Hello, I’m Mr. Damico.”
“I won’t lie, I was borderline terrified the first day of the job, but I had been through the introductions, the motions of meeting a new class and getting to know them,” he explains. “As you go through the (UW-L teacher education) program you are more and more on your own in the classroom, yet there are these safety nets behind you if you need them.”
He appreciated people in the Educational Studies department like Barb Gander, a lecturer and adviser who had real-world experience teaching.
“She helped me confirm that what I was doing was the right choice,” says Damico. “She got me really excited about it.”
Inside his room
[caption id="attachment_487" align="alignleft" width="250" caption="Kindergarten teacher Matthew Damico talks to kids about the days and months of the year while student teaching at Franklin Elementary School in La Crosse. This fall will be Damico’s third year at Meadow View Elementary School in Oconomowoc."][/caption]Today Damico maneuvers through a maze of children in a Meadow View Elementary School classroom in Oconomowoc. Trucks vroom, building blocks teeter and crayons bring a blank page to life. While seemingly at play, kids are learning social skills and fine motor skills. By the end of they year, they can read, write sentences and count to 100 or more.
“A lot of people look at a 5 or 6-year-old kid and say ‘they can’t do this or that,’” says Damico. “I like to look at them and think of what they are capable of.”
For this reason, Damico doesn’t see any reason to stop kids when they reach 100 during the counting portion of their year-end assessment.
“I let them get that couple extra hundred in there,” he explains. “A child doesn’t get to show off that skill too often.”
He realizes what they learn in kindergarten can greatly influence who they become. And so can he.
“At this age, they don’t have a bad taste in their mouth for being in school and learning,” he notes. “They are like a fresh canvas.”
UW-L numbers:
Males rarely pursue teacher education programs in Early Childhood Middle Childhood. In the last five years, about 5 percent of the 189 UW-L students who completed the EC-MC program were male.