| According to Cross's article (which is excellent, by the way, and as a reporter, I respect Cross's professionalism and quality of work, and steadfastly refuse to "shoot the messenger" of ill tidings) the argument for single-sex schools are "that boys and girls learn differently and that single-sex classrooms can help both genders perform better." Examples Cross uses are the differences in vision and thought processes in elementary school. Leonard Sax, who is quoted by Cross, argues that not understanding the differences in kindergarten can lead to gender stereotypes in the future. Sax, who is a leading proponent of single-sex education, is not quoted as saying why single-sex education is the only way to understand the differences between genders.
I certainly agree with Sax that not understanding the differences between genders can lead to stereotyping. However, single-sex education is a cover to make it look like we are entering an era where we take the education of girls and women seriously enough, while continuing to look at how the education of boys and men can be improved. Sounds great, doesn't it? Makes a nice sound bite, but it doesn't stand up to other factors Sax and his colleagues do not seem to take into account. I have to agree with both the American Association of University Women and Lisa Maatz, public policy director for the group, who are mentioned in the article. If you are worried that girls aren't getting a fair shake (and I admit, they aren't, nor are any of our students that differ from the dominant hegemony), then you should find it interesting the leading proponent for single-sex public schools is a man, while the leading opponents are women.
I submit that the problems involved in same-sex schools are numerous, and the legal, social, and ethical ramifications inherent in an increase in single-sex public schools Sax's solution calls for a different type of stereotyping. At the very least there are two forms of stereotyping at work, but I would not be surprised if a more general sociologist was able to come up with more. Rather than promote the elimination of gender stereotyping in the classroom, single-sex schools or classrooms will promote stereotyping by forcing all boys and all girls into established and predicted patterns of behavior. Normally, pointing out that all boys are not the same or that all girls are not same would be as obvious as pointing out that gravity keeps us glued to the ground. However, it seems to need pointing out now, since the truth of those statements seems to be in question. Not all individuals learn the same. While there are similarities among the majority, we cannot ignore the minority. By preparing teachers in same-sex schools to teach according to the predicted pattern, we will be shutting down the ability of students, whatever their sex, to learn despite abilities that are outside of that pattern (whether they resemble the norm for the other gender, or learn according to an entirely unexpected pattern). This is not a solution, rather it is simply dressing up the problem we already have in different clothing and calling it "corrected."
Then there is the issue of transgendered students. I am aware that many conservatives, and many members of the religious right, will balk at the subject being brooked. Tough. Transgendered students are invisible enough in co-ed schools, but at least then they are free to associate with members of their actual gender (gender, as opposed to sex, is the self-identity and mental patterns of an individual which may be described as "male" or "female" or "both" or even "other"), rather than the gender that the establishment simply assumes to be theirs by virtue of physical attributes. Removing transgendered students from a co-educational environment could be devastating. Very few transgendered students are brave enough to come out during the public education years, few enough even come out during the college years. Much of this has to do with the inability to realize they are not alone, and that they are not broken or mentally ill. These realizations are hard to come to in co-educational environments, where gender expression is tightly regulated by students themselves, but at least both (or more) forms of expression are known to a student. A single-sex environment where a transgendered student may truly be alone among peers would make such realizations harder to come to, if the student could ever actually come to them at all during such an experience. Self-esteem issues among transgendered individuals are already sky high, and many transgendered individuals of all ages end up committing suicide. If anything, single-sex schools will make these self-esteem issues worse.
Fellow critics of an increase in single-sex public schools argue that such schools are basically recreating the "separate but equal" doctrine at play during the segregation-era, and Maatz's group says that the issue is a "magic bullet" solution that distracts from the real problems facing schools which "would throw out the most basic legal standards prohibiting sex discrimination in education" and that this push is "another attempt to modify, in a really unfortunate and unnecessary way, one of the most successful civil rights laws this country has ever had." Ladies, I could not agree with you more. |
