An article written in The New York Times titled "Teaching Boys and Girls Seperately," explains why both genders benefit by being taught in the same school but isolated from one another while learning in a classroom. "Foley Intermediate School began offering separate classes for boys and girls a few years ago, after the school’s principal, Lee Mansell, read a book by Michael Gurian called “Boys and Girls Learn Differently!”" The principal felt that the insight he gained from this book should be applied to his school so test score could be improved. Parents and Teachers were also incouraged to read this book and attend a seminar by Sax, someone advocating for separation of the sexes in classsroom settings. Boys had classrooms with dark painted walls, class pets, and low heat temperature. While on the other hand girls had classrooms with bright colors, higher temperature heat then the boys, and felt more comfortable without the boys because they were messy and liked animals. Both genders were given an artwork assignment in which they needed to paint whatever they wanted. Girls were praised for their drawing while boys were discourage because of the lack of compliments they recieved on their artwork. The reason for separating students into gender classrooms is because boys are falling behind academically while girls continue to advance rapidly.
I disagree with having children be separated in classroom settings by gender because the classroom is a place where ideas and opinions are shared amongst everyone. The world isn't separated by gender, children need to learn early how to interact with the opposite sex and understand that the world is diverse and everyone has their own opinions and ideas needed to be heard. By sheltering these children I feel it will not prepare them for what the real world is truly like and they will be in a state of confusion when faced with real-life gender situations and maybe identity issuses within themselves.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I agree with you. Students shouldn't be separated by gender, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, they may have different learning conditions but can't it equal out if you have a temperature in the middle of the high and low and a neutral, not so bright and not so dark wall coloring? I wonder how students would fair in that type of condition.
I also agree with you about what happens after they get out of school. The world isn't separated into just males on one side of the world and females on the other. They have to interact, daily, in order to get many things accomplished. It's not the smartest idea to be separating them when they're just going to have to be put back together.
The idea of seperating school populations by gender seems to be outdated methodology; but that could just be me. I also think that we live in a mixed-gender society whose views on interaction are becoming more and more complex. More so than ever has emphasis been put on social interaction and the importance of its relationship to a person's work place, schooling, as well as, their personal lives. By implementing academic structuring such as this, I believe we are sabotaging the social skills that we claim are just as important as academic. There needs to be a healthy balance of both in students' lives if we ever hope to progress from where we are today.
Post a Comment