Now I see it different. I can see this “single gender” classroom thing catching on because it sounds good in theory. I can also see it causing problems in future. I can see young women’s grades, no matter how high in the “all girl” classes, being seen as less good than those of young men in the “all boy” classes. A girl makes all “A”s in class. A boy makes all “A”s. The boy will be perceived as doing better because he was competing with other boys. The girl will be perceived as doing less well because her only competition was other girls. Yes, she did well when it was just the “girls”, but she probably wouldn’t have scored so high if she had “real” competition like in the “boy” classes. Separating the genders will just end up being another way that women’s accomplishments are made to seem less than they are.

Jenny K. I agree…the potential for any sort of distributed power system leading towards abuse is inherant. Power corrupts…

There must be checks and balances.

I would also point out that the fact that all of the children in the project are receiving mostly multiple-choice tests is a problem all by itself as such tests are more and more widely regarded by the education community as poor assessments in terms of measuring actual student learning.

I live in a very diverse urban area that is mixed racially, economically, and religiously, but mostly Catholic. My Brownie troop is 30% Asian, 40% black, 10% white, 10% Hispanic, and 10% mixed race (I have a big troop). The parents of girls in my troop are in the military (both enlisted and officers), doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, plumbers, clerks, secretaries, cleaners, the gamut. Some of the girls are first-generation Americans, some are immigrants themselves, some are Mayflower descendants, some are old money, some are new money. The main common denominator I can find is that almost all of the parents have urban roots, and about half of my girls are either only children or the oldest children in their families. Are people generally overprotective of their oldest/only children if they are girls?

Part of the reason I have a big troop is because most of the families are two-worker families, so I have plenty of adults who able and willing to help but cannot commit to the kind of effort being a leader or a co-leader requires. I find that I cannot predict which parents are the most likely to be involved, because it appears to depend on their job situation. I have one parent, bless her heart, who will come to help if I ask her to, whenever she’s not actually working, even if she hasn’t slept more than 2 hours in the last 24 (she’s a NICU nurse). I have another parent who has made no commitments whatsoever for two years straight but whose daughter attends every meeting without fail and gets picked up on time every single time.

I agree 200% that successful Scouting depends on the parents. But as Rock and Mythago have been debating about the role of schools in education, I would also mostly agree with Rock that the parents must be involved for the schools to be successful in educating their students. As a sterling example of this, I have a girl in my troop who was in a very chaotic home situation. She had many adults in her life who loved her to bits and gave her presents and made sure she had clothes on her back and food to eat and a bed to sleep in and a house to live in, but NOT ONE SINGLE ONE of those loving adults checked her backpack to see what she was doing in school or helped her with her homework (not to mention even making sure she got it done). After a very frustrating year for her, she was held back. Oh, when the notice went out that she was failing, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, the drama was a sight to behold. At her father’s request, I helped them find a tutor, but it was too little, too late. So over the summer, a widowed aunt moved in with them, and now she’s the one who has taken on the responsibility to make sure homework gets done, pays attention to the flyers and the notices, goes to Back to School night, and all of that other stuff, and the difference in the child is amazing. She is so happy and is feeling so good about herself now, whereas last year she had anger management issues and was sad or sullen a lot of the time.

Yes, the school is where you send your child to be educated. But the school absolutely cannot do it all - the parents MUST have a role and do their parts, too, or it just plain does not work.

That would have been news to my high school.

I think you could not be more right on one side and mistaken on the other.

The mistake: I have worked 6 days or more a week for the last 25 years. When the kids were growing up I started my own business. For 3 years it looked like it was going to work. The last two were frantic trying to save it and going into heavy debt. I would drive all night to meet with clients and prospects, arrive at home rest for an hour shower and go back to work. When it failed, we were so far in debt my attorney thought I would never pay him and told us solvency was impossible and to declare bankruptcy. (I refused.) It took another 5 years to pay off the debts working at anything that would pay a dime, selling everything that was not essential, negotiating every bill over and over. We rented out our home and moved into a cabin. Just when things were looking like we might be OK I broke my leg badly and was unable to work for three months. (It was the only time in my life I was not insured. My kids emptied the urinals and brought me food in my bed. It was very, very hard.) My wife and I did not go on a date for years. We prioritized, no cable, library cards instead. We both came from terrible family situations and were not going to let another generation suffer. It was not going to happen because of the schools; we did everything we could to provide positive experiences for our kids. If it meant getting money from the Elks, or the Church or Lions to pay for tuition for an activity for the kids we did it, many days we ran out of hours in a day to make another dollar and we needed all we had to keep the water on. I quit taking my meds because they cost so much, untreated depression is a real treat when things look impossible for real. We never quit giving to the less fortunate every week and serving them through community outreach’s, I believe this is why we somehow made it through. God has been so good to me. Our kids saw all of it, and are better IMO for the witness. It is not smug; it is knowing what can be done when one has to and being blessed to see it working in my kids. (The first generation in memory that are not drug abusers, sexually or physically abused.)

The right: I agree the schools need to provide as many and diverse opportunities as they can. Also that they are terribly under funded and teachers are not treated with the respect and reverence they deserve. (Mom teaches at an Indian school, both my wife and I taught at University, anything for a buck, so we know this first hand.) Still even if kids go to a very good school it is incumbent on the parents, the family and where these fall down the community to take responsibility for the kids’ educations, it cannot fall only to the school. That is asking far too much of the institution and the teachers; unless it evolves to something of a community effort and not just paying very low taxes and expecting a miracle to happen. I do not see this happening soon though. We cannot get healthcare for 40 million people, education is not as obvious. Opening Smart Centers for kids after school to get help. Volunteering at Church’s in poorer communities to do tutoring etc. Stopping the myth that it is the states responsibility, and teaching parents and young people that it is part of the deal to raise your kids and not leave that for someone else. If you don’t know the math, then hold the kids accountable to the person that does. Why should the state be the defacto parents? It is my job to help my neighbors kids who are in need. Do we really want Bush’s vision of education to be the last word they hear? In my belief, if the Body of Christ behaved as it should, there would be no want, with just the existing Church itself. If the rest got on board with taking one little person under their arms, we would need much less of the government in our lives, and many folks would find peace in a way that is beyond their current grasp. I think the search for all the mitigating factors as to why Bobby is falling behind is because we have lost sight of the main thing. We are looking to fix a problem in academics whose foundation is relational. (Hopeless idealist.) Love your neighbor; it truly is the law of laws. It is true the dog analogy was silly… but I laughed when I pictured it, so there it is. Blessings.

Well, if “Freaks and Geeks” is any indication, by 1980. (until you get to college, anyway) All the Mathletes for McKinley High are girls. :)

sofakinglazyboy:

I went to a single sex school for a while too - my college - which I loved. My take has always been that it has to be the students’ choice, which rules out elementary school (and I would add should only include the occassional middle school class), and that while some students may need it, most don’t, and so it should be mostly avoided since we all need to live and work with different types of people.

Your comments about hazing being a larger part of a peer support system remind me a lot of some of the stuff my college did. Every upperclass had a special connection with the incoming first-years and our dorms were deliberately balanced so that there were a variety of classes in each dorm, often on each floor. This, as much as anything else, is part of what made the school work.

One of our favorites was Disorientation, where the seniors would make the first-years do all sorts of stupid, silly things. We were warned to keep it safe and fun, and it was technically optional, but obviously peer pressure was to join in and/or make the first-years do outrageous stuff. So I can see how very good and useful peer support systems may end up including some not so good hazing.

The important dividing line to me is how much the support system creates a heirarchy, and how much it fosters mutual respect. IMHO, support systems that reinforce heirarchies, and allow peer implemented punishment, are more likely to lead to abuse that systems that don’t. We may have “made” our first-years do stupid stuff, but unlike the Greek system where you have to pledge to get in, the ony initiation you had to pass to join our “sorority” was to be accepted into the school, which nicely avoided the whole “upperclasswomen as gatekeepers” thing. I don’t think the support systems would have worked as well otherwise.

Are those studies showing that boys are ‘failing,’ or that girls are pulling ahead of them? Why on earth do you think it is wise to separate students by gender?

would you allow for your first statement be applicable to girls’ grades prior to the changes made to the education system some 20-30 years ago? in other words, would it not be fair to state that girls weren’t being left behind, but that boys were simply pulling ahead of them?

but to answer your question, if boys grades were not improving once the teaching methods and envirnoment were changed to better suit how boys learn, then your point would be valid. however, such is not the case. boys appear to do better when their learning needs are met instead of ignoring them and expecting boys to learn as girls do. not to send you to an obviously biased site, you should seriously read the research and studies that have been conducted on this subject.

but why on earth do you think it is wise not to separate by gender? i assume that you support girl-only schools, classrooms, sports ,etc. that focus on girls need, so i’m seeing an inherent contradiction if it is okay to do the one but not the other.

Rock writes:

I like the idea of using all manor of approaches, however people are so dynamic and diverse, simply teaching by gender may prove harmful to kids who might respond to a personality or a method aimed at the opposite gender, age group or what have you.

unfortunately, the current situation is that teachers are simply teaching by gender. leaving the situation as is simply will not work, boys will continue to fail. and expecting a teacher to see to the individual needs of 30+ students is completely unrealistic. i went to an all-boy high school. few teachers’ personalities were exactly alike. i had just as many female teachers as i had male teachers, and their methods were rarely the same. the only real similarity was that they were boy-oriented. they molded their methods into a fashion that better suited boys. were there students who still didn’t get it? yes. were their boys who were more comfortable learning in a girl-oriented way? yes. but for the most part, they were a very small number of students.

you cannot treat every child as exactly the same as another, i agree with that. however, we there are differences in the way boys and girls learn. that is a fact. and just like we provide students who find their classes either too easy or difficult with classes that suit their needs, it would be wise to do the same for boys and girls, particularly given the results that we see when that is done. if did not work, i would not support it. but it does, and we should provide it.

To Aaron V.
In my experience…which is first hand, it is MUCH more than hazing and abuse heaped upon knobs by upperclassmen. Hazing, when it occured, was usually waranted, with cause, and instructive. Actually, much of it was geared towards academic performance. The fourth class system is set up such that each successive class is under the direct academic supervision of the one that came before it. The academic support structure was quite impressive I assure you. Mandatory study time, which was EVERY NIGHT from 6:30 to 11:00, was completely uninterupted until after 10:30. Hazing, if it occured on a weeknight at all, only happened when an academic officer encounted a student NOT studying when they were supposed to be. The lesson being: If you dislike studying so much that you arn’t doing it when you were ordered to, we will come up with an alternative activity that will make you reconsider your priorities.

Also, each knob had an upperclassman who was their mentor. This person was responsible for monitoring their studies and interceding on the knobs behalf should military or disciplinary intersts be interfearing with academic. Since this upperclassman’s own leave and liberty policy were usually directly linked with the knob’s academic performance, they were zealous in their duties.

Im not sure which question of yours I evaded…I dont really recall you asking one, but if you would like to re-ask it, I would be happy to satisfy your curiousity.

I do not believe it is the states job to educate my children. They did not teach my kids to count, to read, much of the arts, natural history; instill a love of books, political science, theology, or any number of issues and themes. Much of the knowledge came over the dinner table, on the sofa, piled up in the bed reading, hunting mushrooms, pressings flowers, wandering in galleries, films, [...]

I think your kids are lucky to have you. Wouldn’t it be great if every parent had the time, the ability, the skills to do as you have done? Sadly, a great many can’t do the things you have. Some are too busy working to pay bills to spend time at home. Hunting mushrooms, wandering in galleries? If one doesn’t have days off because they work two jobs, when should those activities be scheduled? While I am glad your kids have turned out so well, your attitude seems a bit smug. “Gee, look what I did. Why can’t everyone?” Well, I am sorry, but everyone can’t. And those who can’t, depend on the public schools to teach their children. And the thought that schools are spending limited funds on half ass ideas like separate curriculums for boys and girls is scary.

Children are not little adults. Children are children. If you treat a dog like a chicken you will not get a chicken you will get a neurotic dog that can’t lay an egg.

Now you are just being silly. Puppies don’t grow up to be chickens. Teaching them to act like chickens would be foolish. Children, however, do grow up to become adults. So teaching them to act like adults is not foolish.

It is my belief that panic and fear of decline has pushed many to believe the children need to work much harder to “keep up” with some unknown group.

But it isn’t panic and fear. It is reality. And it isn’t some “unknown group”. It is the world. The US is falling behind in education.

I like the idea of using all manor of approaches, however people are so dynamic and diverse, simply teaching by gender may prove harmful to kids who might respond to a personality or a method aimed at the opposite gender, age group or what have you. I find it ironic that that it takes studies to show that men or women, girls or boys act differently around each other or separated. A trip to a bar, sweat lodge, locker room, stag meeting, camp out, etc. have born this out I am sure for eons. The thing is, it is important to quit trying to pretend it isn’t there, and move on and aim for as many kids as we can, without the labels and the stigmas. I was in Special Ed for a few years, thought I was “retarded” (their word) severe dyslexia and abuse in the home were the issues. The label stuck in me for years. I was more of a rug person at that time; aggression freaked me out until I learned that it is appropriate in sports etc. I do not get the propensity to seek the extremes and the either or mentality. Neither do I understand the need to deny that there are propensities that may well indeed be weighted towards genders and try and be sensitive to them. It seems that boys need to deal with more aggression and shorter attention spans when young. Why not allow for this without excluding girls that may be the same or forcing boys that aren’t?

Mythago,

It is true they do and should provide schooling; however this IMO is nothing but a facet of what a person needs to learn or know. The schools are equipped to teach, however I do not believe they are solely responsible for ones education. It is up to parents, student, and interested others to see the job is done well. If Bobby can’t read, it should be no surprise to the family, what are they going to do about it? (We offer after school tutoring as many kids’ families are not equipped to help, it does take a village sometimes, as the schools are poorly funded where parents are least available one has to wonder if there is not an agenda.) Blessings

Are those studies showing that boys are ‘failing,’ or that girls are pulling ahead of them? Why on earth do you think it is wise to separate students by gender?

I have to wonder, if it were reversed, if it were girls who were disadvantaged, if it were girls with a high drop out rate and low enrollment in college, would they have changed the curriculum to help girls?

yes, they would, which is why girls are fairing better in math and science than they were. if males learn differently than female, i.e. certain methods of teaching work better for different genders, then it would seem better to apply those methods which work best to the specific groups rather than force one group to attempt to learn a way which makes it far more difficult for them.

i agree that the serotonin/oxytocin is nothing more than the polar opposite of the socially engineered androgyny proported by feminism. but i hardly see how helping boys–whom virtully every study done in the last ten years show that they are failing in education–is a bad thing or will somehow harm girls. i think there is an element of truth in the idea that the teacher teaches how s/he learns. i went to a co-ed grammar school but an all-boy high school, and there was a very clear difference in how the boys learned when they had female students in the class. there was also a difference in how they learned when they had female teacher versus a male teacher, and when they had a more vocal teacher rather than a visual teacher. in my junior english class, the teacher, who was female, told us before we took our ACTs that we really shouldn’t try that hard because girl scores would be higher anyway. and i noticed that teachers like her, both male and female, would give off that attitude, that because we were male, we shouldn’t put forth that much effort.

if you look at how our education system has changed in the last thirty years, particularly public schools, it’s all about testing and removing any element of competiveness, which would seem like an oxymoron. i’m completely in favor of lessening the testing and allowing in more competiveness, (and bringing back recess) and allowing boys and girls to learn separately so long as both feminists and non-feminists social engineers stay out of it and let the kids learn.

That’s nice, but in fact it *is* a requirement that the state provide an education for your children through public schooling. You can decline this offer by choosing private schools or homeschooling, of course.

How old are your children?

I do not believe it is the states job to educate my children. They did not teach my kids to count, to read, much of the arts, natural history; instill a love of books, political science, theology, or any number of issues and themes. Much of the knowledge came over the dinner table, on the sofa, piled up in the bed reading, hunting mushrooms, pressings flowers, wandering in galleries, films, (we did not have TV for over ten years, and there was much time to spend.) camping, going to Church, helping those in need, working jobs… The school had far less to do in educating my children than their family(we were at the school often as well). I pity children who go from school to the TV, to bed, who only see People magazine for literature, and may not be blessed to be captured by a great teacher or two in the schools. I think you are correct most people do send their kids to school to be educated, unfortunately for many reasons including overwork, underpay, excessive numbers of students, under budgeted districts stretch many very good teachers so thin they cannot possibly take on, what IMO is still the responsibility of the family to attend to most.

Children are not little adults. Children are children. If you treat a dog like a chicken you will not get a chicken you will get a neurotic dog that can’t lay an egg. All things have their proper season, children can have many responsibilities, and handle many realities and still be kids. Piling on work to memorize at 8 years old will not produce a better more intelligent adult, dreaming and play are as essential to health and development as hitting the grindstone. That is not romantic, it is fact. Most children are far more enthusiastic about work when it is balanced with play.

My kids had jobs very early on in life, most of their own choosing. (They loved the independence, my daughter printed up cards at 7 years old, “Mother’s Little Helper” where she would entertain small children while mom was home so they could get things done for less than a baby sitter, for example.) They also had age appropriate chores. I never made education a “job” or discipline one of many reasons they have always done well with it.

It is my belief that panic and fear of decline has pushed many to believe the children need to work much harder to “keep up” with some unknown group. Parents accepting responsibility and participating seems to make a bigger difference IMO than teaching based on hormones. Blessings.

Rock, I do not understand your comment. Most parents send their kids to school with the assumption that they will be taught and educated.

We are loosing something when the kids can’t be kids, while they are kids.

I think this is a recent invention of society. The whole “ideal” of childhood is highly romantic. And it doesn’t seem to be working. If you treat children like little adults and give them responsibility, odds are they will grow up to be responsible adults. If you treat them like children for a very long time, they will grow up to act like children and expect others to fix all their problems.

The current trend towards testing for the measure of success in educating the little gems is problematic. I see lots of books, lots of homework for little ones, staggering with backpacks going home every night much of which is memorization.

Expecting kids to do homework, which is pretty much their only job, doesn’t seem like a big deal.