SCHOOL, ALTHOUGH it is seen as a place of academic learning, also teaches students social skills that cannot be learned from books. By making friends, working in groups and communicating ideas of agreement or dissent, school prepares students for the real world both mentally and socially. However, a number of schools in Kentucky seem to have lost sight of this dual purpose of education. Their decision to divide students by gender will be detrimental to the students' well-being, and these students will be ill-prepared for the social interactions and problems they will inevitably face.
In a district of southern Louisville, Ky., a middle school is dividing students by gender according to "Single-sex classrooms gaining favor," a news article by the Associated Press from Sept. 12. The school board decision calls for the complete separation of male and female students during school, and only the chorus and band are permitted to be co-ed. The cafeteria is also divided into a boy and girl section, and although the students may eat in the same room, they are not permitted to mingle with each other. Lastly, the classes also are staggered in such a way that male and female contact almost never occurs among the student body.
These measures, which were modeled after the less restrictive practices of a nearby school, have been put in place as an attempt to increase low test scores and curb student misconduct. In the more flexible school that served as a model, students were initially separated in middle school, and were then brought back together as they got closer to high school. The principal uses an impressive statistic to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system, and points out that during the year classes were mixed, 25 students were disciplined for bad behavior within the first three days. When the school was divided, only three students were disciplined.
Although dividing the student body may be easier on the faculty who voted for this procedure to be put in place, it should be worth the aggravation of mixing the classes for several reasons.
Dividing up the classes in such a manner may lead to a situation in which the students will get a biased education according to their respective gender. It is important for developing minds to see all sides of an issue, and mixing genders will add this objectivity to the classroom. For example, a slanted male perspective in class can be tempered by a female perspective, and vice-versa. However, dividing up the classes presents a potentially hazardous situation, because the class may be slanted toward a masculine or feminine viewpoint. For example, the issue of abortion is an extremely contentious issue, and although a group of boys can discuss this issue with intelligence and objectivity, it would be insightful for them to get a girl's point of view from their peers. Middle schoolers are still forming their opinions and identities at their age, and it is important to give them exposure to as many different points of view as possible. This way, they will be intelligently supportive of their convictions after hearing all sides of an issue.
The mere fact that males and females are interacting at a young age will make them better able to deal with social situations when they get older. Although supporters of the program argue that a lot of misbehavior is due to the male and female students wanting to impress each other, it is this juvenile type of flirting that ought to be seen as natural and tolerated within reasonable boundaries. There is obviously going to be tension between pubescent males and females, and trying to solve delinquency by repressing natural urges is definitely the wrong approach.
Instead, administrators should allow males and females to interact, and through experience, they will forge friendships and learn courtesy. Allowing students to learn through error would be better than trying to solve delinquency with same sex classes.
Wendy Kaminer, a social critic from the all girl Smith College, and the author of the book "The Trouble with Single-sex Schools," feels that single sex education is a bad idea. Rather than helping girls focus more on their studies and less on the opposite sex, it instead has an opposite effect. She claims that many females who attended single sex education had only romantic relationships with males, and the males and females would not treat each other as "intellectual peers or equals." Thus, some girls got turned into sexual objects. She also points out that some single-sex schools, instead of doing positive things such as making girls more vocal, may instead force gender roles upon them (http://cohortv.org/Siobhain/ed442bfinal.html).
If schools are split according to gender, students will go into the real world without properly developed social skills to interact with the opposite sex. Meanwhile, their colleagues who went to co-ed public schools will already have had friends and relationships with the opposite gender. They will be more socially competent as a result of their experiences, and the students of Louisville will be put at a severe disadvantage compared to their more experienced equals. They will be poorly able to deal with half the world's population, and their abilities to carry on friendships or long-term relationships with the opposite sex will be hindered.
It is extremely unfair to the students in these situations that a same-sex regulation be put in place. Although students from private schools can be voluntarily put into a same-sex environment, children in public schools do not have this luxury, and they should not be forced into this potentially damaging situation. The faculty who voted for this procedure have made their jobs easier, but they did not necessarily make the lives of the students easier. The teachers need to take every aspect of learning into account, and they ought to think of the consequences to students' futures rather than criminalizing the natural rebellion that comes with puberty.
(Kevin James Wong's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kwong@cavalierdaily.com.)
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