Talking Points 7: Gender Specific Schools

1. “Among advocates of single-sex public education, there are two camps: those who favor separating boys from girls because they are essentially different and those who favor separating boys from girls because they have different social experiences and social needs.” (p. 3) Supposing that boys and girls develop neurologically differently, then in a co-ed classroom, one of the groups (boys or girls) dialogues may be silenced. If there is a female teacher, they may, unwittingly cater to female learning needs, and dismiss the problems of the boys as behavioral or otherwise, and not consider that they indeed may learn differently, because their brains are wired differently.

2. “They discussed how annoying it is when you’re out hunting, to be swarmed by yellow flies. Meanwhile, in Michelle Gay’s fourth-grade class, the girls sang a vigorous rendition of “Always Sisters” and then did a tidy science experiment: pouring red water, blue oil and clear syrup into a plastic cup to test which has the greatest density, then confirming their results with the firsthand knowledge that when you’re doing the dishes after your mother makes fried chicken, the oil always settles on top of the water in the sink.” (p. 5) It sounds to me like these classes are reinforcing traditional gender roles for their male and female students. The boys all had hunting experiences, which are glorified as examples in the class room, while the females all had to relate to doing the dishes at home. This model of teaching enforces the manly stereotypes for the boys, and the home maker stereotype for the females.

3. “While you’d end up with a better-than-random sort, the results would be abysmal, with unacceptably large percentages of students in the wrong place… ‘There are just too many exceptions to the rule.’” (p. 10) While it may seem to some that gender exclusive classrooms may be a good idea, it would be a logistical nightmare. As is said in the text, there are just too many problems that would arise. Separate gendered classrooms are just not practical, at least at the normal public high school level.

If the research is irrefutable, which, according to this reading, I do not believe it is, then it would be beneficial to keep boys and girls separated in school, supposing that it will raise test scores. It would be best to do this at a young age. I believe for this to truly be effective, it would need to be implemented early. Keep students separated while they are in grammar school, where they are developing at different speeds. According to this reading, both boys and girls are developmentally equal at around age 15, or right around the time they should be entering high school. So I propose keeping them separate up to grade 8, so that they can both thrive in their separate environments, and then bring them back together in high school. A fear that I had while reading this article was that students would start separate but equal, but eventually, the school system will begin to favor one group, creating an unequal learning environment for boys and girls. I am left wondering what repercussions a program like this could have in the public realm.