An Idaho educator is making national news for separating the boys from the girls at her elementary school in southwestern Idaho. And I can see why: This has the stink of separate but equal all over it. It didn’t work during segregation and it won’t work now.
Robin Gilbert’s school is one of dozens of public schools being targeted by the American Civil Liberties Union in a battle to decide whether or not single-sex learning is a violation of our civil liberties.
When I was in college I chose to spend my freshman year living in an all girls dorm because I didn’t want the distraction of boys. Granted they were still all over campus and in my classrooms but at least I had one place free of testosterone where I could just be myself without worrying about what some guy was thinking about what I was doing, how I looked or behaved. This was what I chose; no one told me that I had to be separated from the boys.
I agree with the schools that separating boys and girls into classrooms by sex will definitely help to teach them in a way that works better for each sex and eliminate distractions but I think that it will end up feeding into gender stereotypes. By allowing the schools to decide to separate and determine how the kids will be taught and where the emphasis on different parts of the curriculum will lie, it gives the teachers too much responsibility and power over the child. Depending on what each teacher's own personal philosophy is on the sexes, they could teach different things or place emphasis on different subjects resulting in shortchanging our children's education.
I personally don’t want my girls cut any slack because some random teacher thinks women are not good at math or won’t need to know how to use advanced physics. The fact that some teacher might think it’s more important to teach my daughters how to cook and sew instead of figure out algebraic formulas scares me.
Obviously, we all know that women can be anything a man can be but I don’t want to leave the decision in the hands of a stranger. I am entrusting my children into the care of the school system to be taught the foundations to become anything they want to be in this world. The last thing I want is for my girls to be brainwashed into believing they have to live in a pink sparkly world and their only option is to be someone’s wife.
What do you think about students being separated by sex? Good idea or bad idea?
Image via Spader/Flickr
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Comments 17
Local elementary school offers this, I wish we were in that district! Test results show that the girls are scoring higher in math and science in all girls classrooms, and feel more confident in their own abilities, than in mixed sex classrooms, while boys are more paticipatory and have raised their scores in several key areas. For some kids, it's the best option. And for my girl crazy 4 year old (he tells me he needs a girlfriend to love! ARG! He's not even 5 yet!) I'd really prefer it.
Early segregation, particularly based on race, WAS because of stereotypical perceptions, particularly the mindset that Blacks were 'inferior' to whites - that they weren't as smart, because they came from a tribal culture, they were slaves, etc. Modern segregation of boys and girls based on learning styles - which has been proven - has no resemblance whatsoever to that early segregation, and to compare the two only serves to reveal your own ignorance.
Further, as MAE points out, the modern educational model strongly favors females from the get-go. Starting in Kindergarten, children are expected to sit quietly, work quietly, read quietly, for long blocks of time. Most boys are not wired that way; they are wired to learn 'on the fly', by doing, by getting their hands in it, through movement. But the female model - sit quietly - is easier for the teacher, so that is what is used. It has been hypothesized that this is exactly why far more boys have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD than girls.
If there is an option to not partake of this model, I see absolutely no problem with it. The ACLU has a problem with it because it doesn't follow their political agenda, and they don't care if it benefits the kids. Pathetic.
Don't be stupid.
They're not giving them a different education based on gender or race. They're keeping them from being distracted by one another.
There are all-boys and all-girls schools still, how is this any different?
I love the idea.