Junior High School Confidential

I was walking past one of the schools in my area, and it is one of those "new" schools; that is, it is a junior high school only for girls, and they wear uniforms there. So that led me to think about two topics that were worthwhile: one, the gender specific schools, and the the uniform issue. Today, I think I will deal with the gender specific issue.

You gotta keep 'em separated: Separate schools have shown to be better for the students, in particular girls. Girls who go to separate schools do better for a variety of reasons: they get more individual attention; they aren't competing with boys for funding, classroom, gym and lab time; they don't get distracted by boys. Boys do better in gender specific schools as well, for pretty much the same reasons. If keeping the students separate leads to better grades and performance for every one, then why shouldn't it be done? And what parent doesn't want all the advantages for their kids?

Socially, there is no difference in how the kids do. Sure, they may not be in a single sex environment when they get into the real world (or, in some cases, high school), but they will adjust; they always do. But just because they are not in a single sex environment, there is no reason to believe the kids will be socially retarded, any more that home schooled kids are. The rest of the world is non-gender specific; kids get plenty of exposure to the opposite sex when they are in the mall, at family gatherings, in life.

The only real issue is where the finding should come from. Single sex schools have always been available to those who were willing to pay extra for it. But if there s enough demand for it, then it should be an option for any parent who wants it, just as a school with a music based curriculum or sports based curriculum is available. Then those who can't afford the extra cost of private school can have the same benefits as those who can.

We got to live together: The studies that show single sex school students do better are flawed at best. They do not control for private schools, which traditionally score better than public schools due to increased funding. They also do not track post-school results, which is far more relevant than just in school results. Do students from single sex schools have better paying jobs? Are they happier? Would the students - not the parents - do it again? Would they send their kids to single sex schools? These are the real questions that the studies need to address, and the fact that they haven't suggests that the authors don't want to know the answers.

School is where people learn their social skills that they will use as adults. If girls don't learn to boys at an early age, they won't succeed later on. That's why we teach people to read: so they have the same skill set as their peers. And boys need to learn to compete with girls as well. Girls already score better than boys on most tests, right up to (but not through) high school, and boys will only catch up if they are in the same sex environment. Keeping them from each other is counterproductive for both boys and girls.

Funding is a moot issue. If people want to pay more for it, then they can go with private school. The same goes for the music schools and sports schools and every other specialty school. Sure, schools can have different focuses, but the curriculum is still the same: math, language arts, science, social studies. If you don't want to pay extra for it, then you see no value in it. And if you can't afford private school - well, that's the whole point of private school, isn't it?

What I think: I think that the studies that show better results for girls are important. And I think that if I was a parent of a girl, I might be really tempted to send her to an all girls school. But I also know that the absence of boys does not make a school clique free; and both boys and girls are not going to suddenly accept everyone just because there is only one gender there. But I think my real problem with same sex schools is that they are archaic and they tend to reinforce gender stereotypes, not minimize them. A boys school is pretty unlikely to have, say, cooking as an optional class, and a girls school is less likely to have an auto mechanic class. So a tomboy or nancyboy will be even more out of place. If some people wanted to do the other gender's stuff, they wouldn't even have the option. The social skills are I think are irrelevant. It's not like you can avoid the opposite sex in real life, so that doesn't matter. I also don't really agree with what the existence separate schools implies about boys and girls - that both will be so distracted by the other that they will be unable to get their work done. But it does imply that, which reinforces the belief, which reinforces the behaviour, which is moving backwards.

How I relate: Never had the "privilege" of attending a separate school. One year, we did have a boys entrance and a girls entrance, though. So I am really having an opinion here without the benefit of living through it. I have had friends who attended boys schools, but always private and often sports focused, so I can't really use them as a barometer either. So I don't know - ultimately, I think it has to come down to what the parent wants, but I don't think it will really make a difference one way or another.

It's the 28th today - will I make another post by the 31st? And thus maintain my 3 per month average? Only the next three days will tell!