Monday Teeny Poll
And it shall be proclaimed that “Yeah!” and “Hell yeah!” are the overwhelming cries when asked if a third grader is too young to dye their hair. A goodly thirty-one percent weighed in that temporary dye was fine, but not permanent dye. You have to laugh at the dilemmas of modern parenting, really. Or else find oneself curled up in a corner, sobbing uncontrollably.
Today I’m going to bring up the subject of gender in education. Some experts and schools are advocating the separation of boys and girls in the classroom. Usually for certain classes such as P.E. and English, but sometimes for the entire school day. There is no doubt that taken as a whole, boys have a different learning style than girls. Which is neither good or bad. But is it a good idea?
I used to teach mixed junior high Language Arts. I would have loved to teach separate girls or boys classes! Many of my discipline problems would have been gone (and they were good kids, but hey, they’re kids! And, hello, hormones!). Particularly at that age, interest and curiosity in the opposite sex can be very overwhelming, I think.
Also there is a huge lack of male teachers in the public schools and part of this (from my observation) is because of the fear that some angry student will accuse them of harassment/abuse/etc. because she got a bad grade on a history test. That fear is huge for men because even a false accusation can quickly ruin a career and life. It would be interesting to know if more men would go into teaching if they had the option of teaching all-boys classes. My gut says yes, but it’s just a guess.
I think kids need to be exposed to other kids of the opposite gender early in life, so they do learn how to interact and deal. They generally don’t play together of their own accord, so the classroom is one of the few places where they will have to.
I can see the benefit for certain classes, such as PE, but generally, I think it’s beneficial to have them together most of the time.
That’s a tough one! Boys and girls do have different learning styles, but they also need to learn to work together and respect their different points of view. The key is to find a teacher who can accomodate both learning styles during the day, which can be challenging. I agree that more male teachers would be great in elementary school, but I’m not sure that the lack of them stems from fear as much as it just isn’t perceived as manly enough to teach 6-10 year olds.
I went to a small 1-12 grade school. For the 7th and 8th graders, classes were sometimes divided by gender rather than grade. Math and Latin were divided by grade, but for geography, English, history, religion, and phys ed, 7th and 8th grade girls were in one class and the boys in a separate class. I think separating very young children might not be a good idea, but at the junior-high age, it worked very well (except for the handsome 24-year-old history teacher, who was a bit embarrassed about being ogled by a room full of 12- and 13-year-old girls).
Maybe for some classes. It’s a tough question. At first I thought that separating would be a bad idea, but now I’m thinking maybe some classes.
The studies I’ve read show that girls do better in separated classes because they become more assertative and less self conscience.
Yeah, except when the segregated gym class tells us we can’t play hockey and baseball because we’re girls and instead have to play ringette and softball. Not that I’m still bitter about that.
I worry that segregation is a step towards marginalization. Surely teachers are already teaching all different kinds of kids; integrating our growing knowledge about different learning styles into a class curriculum is a challenge, but not impossible.
@ Eilish: I was in a very interesting conversation on the blog of a British MP and several teachers said this exact thing. The paranoia can kill careers, and some of the kids would threaten their teachers with this. It’s a horrible situation. The MP was flying somewhere with his family and the flight attendant tried to move him from his seat on the plane because they had a policy that a man couldn’t sit next to children. He was only allowed to retain his seat because the kids in question pointed out, at volume, that he was their father. Like you couldn’t tell to look at them.
I have to confess that I attended an all-girls high school and loved every second.