You can separate schools but you can’t separate life

Many play ground arguments begin with this simple question: who is smarter, boys or girls? This argument develops further with age. Boys use the fact that males fill most high-level jobs and girls counter this with the fact that many more females attend and graduate from college. So what is the answer? Who is smarter?

Neither girls nor boys can be considered inherently smarter than the other; however, the way each sex learns needs to be taken into account. The concept of single-sex classrooms, grades, and even entire schools is relatively new, but interest in the idea is rapidly increasing. According to The Toccoa Record, there were only 12 public schools in the United States that offered single-sex classrooms in 2002. That number increased to more than 360 at the beginning of the 2007-08 school year with Cleveland, Detroit, Albany, Philadelphia, Dallas and Nashville all featuring gender-segregated classrooms in their school systems.

Toccoa, GA is about to join this list of cities with Stephens County Middle School segregating its seventh grade class by gender next year. Principal Tony Crunkleton said that the grade will be divided into three teams, one will be all girls, one will be all boys and the third will be coed. Even within the coed team, classes will be gender segregated. Although student response to this concept has not been very enthusiastic, Crunkleton said that he has received nothing but positive feedback from parents.

The fact is that boys and girls learn differently. A study conducted by Harriet Hanlon and the Virginia Institute and State University examined the brain activity of 224 girls and 284 boys ranging in age form 2 months to 16 years old. Results showed that the development patterns of language, spatial memory, motor coordination and social skills develop in a different order for girls and boys. By recognizing these differences, schools have the opportunity to raise low tests scores, increase graduation rates and possibly reduce teen pregnancies. In a Los Angeles Times blog, Julie Ancis, a professor in the College of Education at Georgia State University, said that when boys and girls are separated, each group performs better in school and is more likely to go to college. The idea is that when you play off of individual strengths students will perform better and separating students by gender is an easy way to do this.

Since this is a fairly new concept, I am interested to see what the response is in Stephens County. Personally I would not be happy if I were forced to attend a gender-segregated school. Many of the reasons I chose not to attend an all girls’ college reflect the social, “real world” skills that these children will be missing out on. Girls and boys need to be able to learn with and learn from each other, which includes daily interactions. There are very few gender-segregated jobs now so both girls and boys need to learn how to work with each other in school so they can be prepared for the job market.

I agree that if we just continue in the status quo, test scores, graduation rates and teen pregnancies will not get better but I believe the teaching skills of teachers should be adapted to the new generation of student emerging rather than separating sexes. Too many social and interactive skills would be lost by stripping students of peers of the opposite sex. You can separate schools but you can’t separate life.