News Flash #2 - Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/magazine/02sex3-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=teaching%20boys%20and%20girls%20separately&st=cse&oref=slogin

http://www.now.org/news/note/091907.html

Lorber, Judith. “Night to His Day”. Feminist Frontiers. Ed. by Verta Taylor, Nancy Whittier, and Leila J. Rupp. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences, & World Languages, 2007, 51

Specialized single-sex schools have been praised as one of the best ways to educate children today. These schools are different from traditional single-sex schools because their educational techniques vary based upon the gender of each student. Proponents of this kind of education believe that because boys and girls are biologically different, they require different forms of education. It would seem that tailoring a school to the specific needs of its students is beneficial. However, by basing their education on assumptions about the ways that boys and girls are biologically driven to act, these schools perpetuate gender roles and stereotypes. In the article, Teaching Boys and Girls Separately, the author, Elizabeth Weil discusses the benefits and drawbacks to single-sex schools and there underlying educational philosophies. Weil concludes that separate is not always equal.

Advocates of specialized single-sex schools believe that the biological differences between boys and girls cause them to learn and develop in significantly different ways. These schools mold their learning methods based on these assumptions. Proponents of single sex schools believe that boys and girls have different brain chemistry and structure. These factors affect the way that boys and girls process information and learn. Supporters of single-sex schools believe that boys learn better in an active classroom environment where the teachers speak loudly and are constantly moving. They believe that boys should read action/adventure books and should be actively engaged in class discussions. Supporters of this type of education believe that girls, according to their biology, learn best in social environments where students are positioned to face each other in order to engage in conversational-type discussions (Weil 7). Advocates claim that these specialized single sex schools permit teachers to use educational techniques that are designed to best suit their students. They argue that co-ed schools do not benefit all the students in the classroom because the learning methods savor the developmental needs of female students. Supposedly, due to their biology, girls are better listeners and do better in lecture based discussions. Those who subscribe to this belief argue that in co-ed schools teachers use a lecture based, passive form of learning which is better suited to girls needs. Boys, who process information better in active environments, have trouble focusing and staying connected to lecture discussions. Because they do poorly in class, boys feel alienated from their teachers and from their schools. Some people have even gone as far as to blame the women’s movement for forcing public schools to overcompensate for the historical injustices done to women, by tailoring teaching methods to benefit female students (Gandy 1). On the other hand, maximizer feminists may also be proponents for single sexed schools because they believe that males and females are biologically different. These feminists argue that laws should be enacted to embrace these biological differences so that no gender has an unfair advantage over the other.

In Teaching Boys and Girls Separately, the author interviews Dr. Leonard Sax who makes an argument for single sex schools based on the idea that boys and girls are biologically different. A closer investigation of his claims reveals that, although there are biological differences between boys and girls, most are not significant enough to cause discrepancies in the learning patterns between male and female students. For example, Dr. Sax argues that boys require teachers who project and amplify their voices because it has been proven that boys have weaker hearing than girls. However, the hearing differences between boys and girls are not significant. The actual scientific data reveals that the hearing threshold of boys is actually only between a quarter, to a half of a standard deviation lower than that of girls. Weil points out that there are more similarities than differences between the hearing of boys and girls. Similarly, it has not been scientifically proven that there is a causal connection between the biological differences of boys and girls and the ways in which they learn (Weil 10).

If the biological data collected does not prove a relationship between brain development and learning abilities, why is it that people are advocating for single sex schools on the basis that males and females require a different style of teaching? Kim Gandy, author of Below the Belt, argues that single sex schools perpetuate social stereotypes. Children in these schools are taught that men and women are different and unequal. Because these schools are based on stereotypes, they create restricting environments that isolate students who deviate from the norm. In the article Weil quotes Jay Geidd, “Imagine trying to assign a population of students to the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms based solely on height. As boys tend to be taller than girls, one would assign the tallest 50 percent of the students to the boys’ locker room and the shortest 50 percent of the students to the girls’ locker room. What would happen? While you’d end up with a better-than-random sort, the results would be abysmal, with unacceptably large percentages of students in the wrong place”(Weil 8). The author cites this example to show that assumptions about gender stereotypes are not accurate because there are so many variants beside gender that affect the way that students learn. Many people argue that single sex education is actually detrimental to students. Judith Lorber writes in her article, Night to His Day, gender is largely a social construct that is ingrained in a child at a young age. The ways that students are taught in specialized single-sex schools helps to create and reinforce gender norms because girls are expected to be passive and quiet, while boys are permitted to be loud and active. These schools teach children these stereotypes and reward them for conforming to gender roles. Weis points out that, “Dr. Sax is trying to tell us that boys draw action and girls draw stasis. He might as well have said: ‘Boys are active, girls are passive. Boys should go out and have jobs, girls should stay home and have babies’ ”(Weis 9). Some people may argue that single sex schools are beneficial because they eliminate sexual distraction, and allow girls to feel confident and empowered in a comfortable environment that is devoid of a dominating male presence. However, In Below the Belt, Gandy argues that the way to empower girls is not to separate them from boys altogether, but to address the reasons why young boys harass girls and make them feel more self conscious. She writes, “When we separate the sexes, we perpetuate the concept that men and women can't get along, and that male harassment of women is best handled by building a wall, not by changing the behavior and its motivation” (Gandy 2). She argues that separating the sexes merely ignores the gender problem.

Despite the arguments against specialized single-sex schools, it has been shown that these schools have successfully increased graduation rates and have attempted to solve the nation-wide “boy crisis”. The boy crisis is a theory that boys in the United States are in an academic free fall and are virtually disappearing from college campuses. However the alarming statistics that allegedly prove the existence of this problem are extremely skewed and are misleading. The actual numbers of boys who are failing out of schools and not going college are primarily racial minorities from poor neighborhoods. The graduation rates of middle and upper class white males have not faltered. Among white students in college the ratio of males to females is consistently 49:51, and males still outnumber female students in Ivy League schools. So is this academic crisis a gender crisis, or is it an economic/racial crisis, in which the needs of poor students are being ignored by the schools systems which fail to motivate them.

If there is no real academic boy crisis, why then have single sex schools been so affective in increasing the graduation rates among girls and boys? First of all it is important to recognize that many single sex schools are being developed in poor neighborhoods in the form of charter schools. Although these are public schools, they have rigorous admission standards in which only best and most motivated students are accepted. These charter schools have been so successful not because they are single sexed, but because the students enrolled are highly motivated and their teachers are extremely invested in seeing their students succeed. So, once again, the statistics surrounding these schools are misleading because there are other factors beside gender which influence a students outcome. Although experts like Dr. Sax claim that the success of these single sex schools is due to the specialized curriculum designed specifically for boys and girls, others would argue that there are many other factors that lead to the higher graduation rates at these schools. Elizabeth Weil states that, “Many variables are at play in a school: quality of teachers, quality of the principal, quality of the infrastructure, involvement of families, curriculum — the list is nearly endless”(Weil 17). Gender separation alone does not make single sex schools successful; it is based on a number of factors including the high level of dedication demonstrated by the students and faculty.

While single sex schools have greatly improved the graduation rates among poorer students, these schools will never be able to completely solve the problems of prejudice, poverty and gender stereotypes. Charter schools place some students in a position of privilege because they are chosen to receive a better education than the other students who are left in public schools. One of the problems with charter schools is that they remove the brightest and the most motivated students from the public school system, leaving the students who are at the most risk for dropping out of school. Yes, charter schools give many students an opportunity to fulfill there academic potential, but they abandon the most vulnerable and unmotivated students in the overcrowded and under funded public school system in our cities. In order to solve the academic crisis growing among students of lower income neighborhoods, more single sex schools do not have to be created. Students do not have to be separated by gender, rather, state governments put more funding in the already existing public schools, so all students, not just the brightest students, can benefit.

Single sex schools that educate boys and girls differently have helped to perpetuate stereotypes and gender inequality. In her article, Teaching Boys and Girls Separately, Elizabeth Weil illustrates how single sex schools teach children that each gender is different and expected to act in a certain way. The biological data that proves that there is a difference between boys and girls is misleading, and from closer analysis it is obvious that each gender is most similar than different. It is therefore apparent that specialized single sex schools serve the purpose of not benefiting boys and girls but rather preserving the idea that each gender is different and unequal.