« Huckabee Drops Out | Main | EA Head to Resign »
March 6, 2008
Boys and Girls in the Classroom
Is single-sex education fair? Is it effective?
This week's New York Times Magazine featured an excellent article on single-sex education, a topic that has shifted to the limelight in public debate after a Georgia school board unanimously decided last week to convert its public classrooms to single-sex next fall. While it's debatable whether their plan will go through (most of the county's parents and teachers decry their absence in the decision-making process), the idea has nonetheless raised new discussions about gender and justice in U.S. public education.
At the center of these discussions stands Leonard Sax, a family physician who began espousing the benefits of single-sex schools after studying the neurological differences between males and females. While Sax does not support the Georgia school board's decision (he believes parents should be given a choice to enroll their children in sex-segregated classrooms), he nonetheless continues to campaign for more single-sex classrooms across the country. Sax founded the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education in 2002, and claims that there are now 366 U.S. public schools that are sex-segregated. Many of these schools have significantly benefited from the set-up, seeing higher test scores, less misbehavior in the classroom, and more parental support and investment.
The primary benefit of sex-segregated classrooms, argues Sax, is that the classroom can be tailored to fit each gender's biologically based learning method. Sax has concluded that the environment of most public classrooms is not conducive to boys' intellectual growth; he points to the "feminization" of curriculum and teaching methods as one reason why so many young men drop out of the learning experience (a concern he popularized in his 2007 book, Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men).
Another group of educators espouse the benefits of single-sex education, but do not root their arguments in what some have called Sax's "gender essentialism." Instead, people like the staff at the Young Women's Leadership School in Harlem say sex-segregated classrooms offer spaces where children are more easily able to develop their selfhood (and self-esteem) without the distraction, teasing, and competition of the other sex, especially while on the brink of adolescence. Young girls may be special benefactors of this set-up, as they can be encouraged to pursue stereotypically male areas of studies, such as math and science, without being ridiculed. The "social view" seems to have some credence: Since its beginning in 1996, every girl at TYWLS has graduated and been accepted at a four-year college, a feat rarely heard of in crime- and poverty-stricken Harlem.
Elizabeth Weil, author of the NYT piece, says single-sex education has divided feminists down the middle. Some, like the Huffington Post's Lenora Lapidus and Emily Martin, see in Leonard Sax's equation a "biological determinism" founded in shoddy scientific research that has young women getting the short end of the stick, neurologically speaking. They write,
The overgeneralizations that brain difference theorists promote have pernicious real-world effects. While boys' classrooms are being designed to engage students physically, to allow for hands-on learning, and to make education a game as often as possible, girls' classrooms are places where students are encouraged to sit quietly at their desks and to talk about their feelings. Girls lose when their education is based on the notion that their brains leave them unqualified for abstract thought or risk-taking, just as boys lose when teachers assume that their brains leave them unable to empathize or to nurture.
But there are other feminists who can't help but applaud the work being done at places like TYWLS, which offer a place where young girls grow academically and personally while more likely avoiding the "self-esteem plummet" that has been popularized in books like Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. They may have more opportunities to contribute to the learning process without fearing being "drowned out" by or "looking stupid" in front of boys. Only time will tell if feminists contributing to the conversation on public education will find a way to acknowledge differences between boys and girls' learning styles without compromising girls' opportunities to flourish intellectually and to enter the post-graduate world with the self-assuredness to want to change it.
Comments
Thank you for this article - it was enlightening in that I wasn't aware that there were puclic schools interrested in "doing the right thing" by way of trialing unpopular educational methodology in the public school systems. Though I cannot say that I am a fan of public schools, I will say that this may be the smartest thing they've endorsed in a long time. Only time will tell if it is really a method that will work. I'm interrested in seeing what changes will come about.
Posted By: Anita | March 6, 2008 12:10 PM
The point should be, "what works?" The answer will be different for each child. To say it doesn't work when it clearly has in places like Harlem is to make yourself blind because you don't like what you see. The distractions of gender interests affect classrooms of many grades. What the culture is telling young people about how to present themselves to the opposite sex doesn't help make classes of boys and girls function well either. Should parents be included in a district-wide decision? Probably. Is Sax or the other group correct in their reasoning? Probably some of both. The point is, educate the kids by doing what works for them. If they are not together in the classroom, they will have opportunities to get acquainted elsewhere.
Posted By: Carolyn | March 6, 2008 12:53 PM
As a former public high school principal and headmaster of a private girls' boarding school I believe that I can write with a reasonable amount of professional experience from the years spent in both educational settings. I believe there is great value in single-sex schooling, but I consider the greatest value for families and children is the opportunity to make choices in the kind of educational setting that best fits family values and goals.
Posted By: Carl T. Fynboe | March 6, 2008 12:56 PM
As an adult with no children, and an adult that does not like children. Here's what I see on the streets of New York City.
A loud almost obnoxious group of boys and girls running up and down the street at about 11:00 to noon weekdays during the school year.
There seems to be no adult supervision. These young adults are running up and down going in and out of deli's and other areas that supply food. What happened to school cafeteria's? I am talking about children ranging in age from about 12 to 15. In my day, to age myself, school grounds could not be left without permission. I come from a small town in Northern Pennsylvania.
I do not see any difference in the abilities to be loud and obnoxious between boys and girls. Separate schools seems a burden to the tax system and not necessary.
ROSE
Posted By: Rose Etta Crance Watkins | March 6, 2008 12:58 PM
As someone who a attended an all-girls private high school, I believe that single-sex education saved my academic career. Prior to high school, I hated school because I was constantly teased and bullied. I couldn't wait till I turned 16 and could drop out of school. During 8th grade, I heard about an all-girls high school that sounded wonderful, and to this day I thank God that my parents agreed to send me. For the first time in my life, I consistently excelled in school, developed self-esteem, and discovered a lifelong love of learning. I couldn't wait to go to school each day. I graduated with honors and went on to college and graduate school, eventually becoming a teacher.
Posted By: Julie | March 6, 2008 1:22 PM
I went to high school in the 60s in the Chicago public school system. I attended Lane Tech, which at that time was the number one academic school in the city, pooling the best students from the north side of the city. I should clarify that. At the time Lane was an all boys school. It has since become coed.
I favor single sex education, because there were far less distractions. There is plenty of time and opportunities later on to think about the other half of the human race. It was good to be able to focus better on academics.
Posted By: Larry Craig | March 7, 2008 5:53 PM
are you kidding me what will happen when they get to the real world
ohh sorry i cant talk to you. you might be a distration.
men and women are created equal and we must learn to at least talk to the other sex. i mean really
Posted By: brad | March 8, 2009 7:00 PM
Good single sex schools do not expect girls to "sit quietly at their desks and to talk about their feelings." Actually, research shows that desks for girls DO NOT do well at desks. Real world lessons are just as appropriate for girls as for boys--- more in subjects such as math.
In girls, math is assigned to the cerebral cortex, the same general section of the brain which is responsible for language. So, you have to find a way to incorporate the real world into math lessons for girls. An example for teaching the fibonacci series, is to bring in pinecones and show the girls how each cone corresponds to the fibonacci series.
But for boys, math is assigned to the hippocampus, an ancient part of the brain. If you tried the pinecone-fibonacci series lesson with boys, they would start "throwing the pinecones around like hand grenades. Incoming!"
as this article states: http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-learning.htm
Posted By: Joy Cohen | April 29, 2009 4:45 PM