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New York, 3:57 PM
Wed Nov 11
71 posts in the last 24 hours
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12:42 PM
Second thought: Gah, I'm stupid.
Third thought: But....if this trend continues, what will become of the Van Wilder franchise?!
03/11/09
03/11/09
School is a large part of a child's life but it's not the only part, and assuming that because someone's never been beaten by a girl in class they will assume that girls are stupid is pretty ignorant in itself.
03/11/09
I cannot recall a single girl getting pregnant whilst at school. In fact there was no peer pressure whatsoever to have sex. I am glad we did not have proms either. They must be great if you are popular but an absolute nightmare for the shy or the lonely who have no-one to go with.
There was bullying which can happen anywhere. However because we were small enough to fit into a single hall and hold daily assembles, we knew each other by sight.
If I had had a daughter I would have wanted her to go to a school like mine.
03/11/09
While I agree with Sadie's reasons for liking having boys in class when I was young, I'd also like to add one: recess. I know a lot of people who complain(ed) that boys play too rough, but I was a scrappy little kid (and am now, as I've been told, a scrappy bastard still) and I loved playing with the boys and the girls who, like me, were rowdy enough to play with them. All the other girls sat around playing dolls, or swinging (super fun, yes, but not enough) or playing half-hearted hopscotch, while I was playing Dodgeball On The Hill, which is significantly harder and more hilarious, and much more fun when you're playing with boys who won't start crying when they get hit.
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@Remedios Varo can't see no huevos.: I'm aware of them and very ambivalent. My friend went to the one in NYC and loved it. I do think it's a place of huge comfort to kids who may only feel safe at school. That said, it's a temporary fix and I don't know that segregating queer kids for 4 years is really doing anyone any favors that a strong GLBT club at school couldn't accomplish.
03/11/09
03/11/09
From browsing my mom's teaching documents, it's clear there are some SERIOUS divides that aren't addressed in mixed up groups. She worked in inner city schools for most of her career and her responsibilities as teacher involved lots more than simple reading, riting, and rithmatic. She often had to deal with social workers, counselors, or legal aid to help her students, and sometimes had to act as all three herself.
Furthermore, ESL classes are available in most public schools, and those are usually seen as a given in helping underperforming students improve.
03/11/09
"It worked for me" seems too facile, although no doubt that's where my positions stems from, and it does seem to work for others.
Maybe it has something to do with addressing a problem we seem to have today with not only gender issues, but also the education system in general. I don't really think anything should be set in stone as the one way to do something, but if this is working to some extent for the benefit of the kids and isn't the result of some prejudice against one group and in favor of the others, it seems both useful and benign to me.
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03/11/09
You're far more of an optimist than I am--I've seen how interested some counties are in schools with predominantly minority populations.
But, even if it weren't all doom and gloom and they were well-funded and well-staffed, I do think minority kids would miss out as much as the "non" if they did not have to interact with any culture other than their own, particularly when the "non" culture is often the one they will have to work within for jobs later in life.
... I really hope all of that came out properly and sans condescension.
03/11/09
i understand why you would think that, but as with people saying women don't benefit from being away from boys (in the classroom, not in life), i'm not sure evidence bears this out. the oppressed class always has an easier time knowing the oppressor than vice versa, because we are living in their world.
no condescension felt!
03/11/09
My high school was fairly progressive for a Catholic high school, but I was a huge closet case (and so were a few of my friends), and I think a large part of it had to do with being in a single-sex environment. Teenage girls are monsters sometimes.
03/11/09
And while I have trouble with dealing with the menfolk, I think that's a me thing, not a school thing.
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Girls are already othered to an extreme degree; I fear boys who don't interact with girls in the classroom will other girls even more and flip their lids when they have to deal with women in a professional setting.
Girls from single-sex ed environments don't flip their lids over men in a professional setting because they live in a male-dominated society so they'll learn that men > women elsewhere and be prepared for it.
03/11/09
I guess what I am saying is I see no evidence that co ed schooling has made boys any less misogynist.
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03/11/09
It might also depend on inter-school relations. There are several single-sex schools in my city and we certainly interacted. The boys' school that was sister schools with ours was down the block, for instance. We'd hang out before and after school and there were shared activities. These young men did interact with young women - not necessarily in the classroom, but since we beat their test scores every year, intelligence wasn't at issue - and the woman who were their friends and girlfriends were the ones who'd been taught to be strong, confident and to take no prisoners.
For the record, I think it also allowed the guys to feel more confident in who they are as individuals, rather than to be polarized into strict gender roles. They seem to like things which they might otherwise be afraid to admit to - like my friend who went to a all-guy military school who (while he still does pump iron and gets into periodic bar fights) also listens to Tori Amos and has fantastic taste in Deco lamps, etc.
Just my experience, and it should probably be discounted a bit because these were all great schools in the first place.
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03/11/09
If anything, the people I thought benefited most from my single-sex setting were those girls who did away with most, if not all of the silly-ass gender stereotyping that probably would have been more focused upon in a co-ed setting. Like me, for instance.
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@J.D.Regent: couldn't have said it better. I think what people don't realize is all the interaction same-sex schools foster with other same-sex schools. They encourage social mixing outside of school. I had guy friends in 3 other local all-boys schools, it was not a big deal.
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03/11/09
I agree that trying something is better than doing nothing, but I think the education system suffers from the constant upheaval of "THIS is the ultimate best practice, no, wait, THIS is the best practice!" Some of these initiative which show a lot of promise are dropped before they're even given a chance to succeed.
03/11/09
If the programs are tailored to boys' and girls' alleged "inherent differences," I disapprove. Then they're just perpetuating sexism.
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By the way, even my county's free Bike Safety classes added a women's-only version because they noticed a definite aggro/competitive spirit in the regular groups that disappeared when a couple of sessions happened to be females only.
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