The New York Times checks in on a New York City public school which has been experimenting with single-sex classes ”as an experiment to address sagging test scores and behavioral problems.”
I’ll confess that as a 5th grade teacher, the idea of single sex education–especially single-sex classes within co-ed schools–holds no small appeal. As many teachers will attest, there comes a time when budding interest in the attention and opinion of the opposite sex drives all other thoughts from kids’ minds. Attention-seeking behaviors spike, rivalries form and learning stops. And while it’s easy to dismiss it as a cliche, in a roomful of boys, the rambunctiousness of 10 and 11-year old boys suddenly seems normal where it can seem inappropriate in a co-ed classroom. One quote from a parent in the Times piece says it all:
Before it was all about showing the girls who was toughest, and roughing up and being cool,” said Samell Little, whose son Gavin is in his second school year surrounded only by boys. “Now I never hear a word from teachers about behavior problems, and when he talks about school, he is actually talking about work.
The anecdotal experience cited by the Times — that girls are more likely to participate in class when no boys are present; and that boys, focus better without girls around — also jibes with my experience. At the very least it strikes me as a harmless, no-cost experiment that is worth trying. Another arrow in a school’s quiver that should be available.
The president of the National Organization for Women, tells the paper “A boy who has never been beaten by a girl on an algebra test could have some major problems having a female supervisor,” as if someone has suggested shipping boys and girls off to separate islands until they’re 21. Some of the reader comments following the Times story are similarly overheated. At the risk of sounding retrograde, I’m less concerned with creating a mirror of society in the classroom than getting my kids — all of them — to pass algebra in the first place.
If it works for some schools and parents favor the idea, then it’s a perfectly reasonable and responsible experiment. As a teacher, I’d sign up for it in a heartbeat. I suspect I’m not the only one.
