Everyone Hates Single-Sex Education (But Me And Some Other Sexists)

American Prospect blogger Ezra Klein (here) calls single sex guru Leonard Sax an "obvious" crank and says that single sex ed reinforces conceptions of gender.  To me, it's reflecting (acknowledging?), not reinforcing differences.  A generation of moms who tried to give their sons dolls and their daughters toy guns knows what I'm talking about.

Dana Goldstein (here) is even more appalled at what she reads.  "The stereotyping, heteronomativity, and misogyny of such an education would be laughable, if it weren't the backbone of actual lessons being taught to actual American children." She also suggests that such approaches could promote hate crimes against gay boys, which seems a little overheated to me.

Sara Mead (here) says that what's being described isn't single sex education, it's "gender based" education. She worries that readers won't get to the critique of Sax that's in the second half of the article, accuses Weil (who wrote the article) of giving too much credence to Sax's side of the argument, and chides the magazine of giving too much attention to a minor trend.  I think that Sax's prominence is bad only because he's such an obvious caricature it discredits the issues.

At least one blog comes out in favor of single sex education (here): "Let’s make sure to keep the kids mixed and keep ignoring solutions to the failing system. Our kids might be stupid, but at least they’ll be tolerant of their own ignorance."

Best headline: Same Sax Story

Previous Post: Does Single-Sex Equal Segregation? Not Really.

Comments

[private school kid]

So I went to an all male private school. I'm not sure if it had an effect on me whatsoever. I did get far better grades in my single-sex high school than my mixed k-8 school, but that could do to a variety of things (for one, the k-8 school teachers hated boys who couldn’t sit still, two: I probably gained vast amounts of maturity in high school as well).

Anyway, I don’t see single-sex education as evil. There were gay kids at my school and they were made fun of, but not more so than those who weren’t good at athletics, were dumb, or were rich. I mean boys in general are equal opportunity bullies. I don’t see a single male school promoting anti-homosexual tendencies whatsoever. In fact, when girls aren’t around, I found boys tended to do less bullying and posturing. (I can only judge between 7/8th grade and high school, so added maturity might factor in here).

But, here is my thought. If admittedly schools are failing children, why not try this? If it works then hey that's good. If it doesn’t, well than it’s no different than the status quo anyway, right?

[private school kid]

So I went to an all male private school. I'm not sure if it had an effect on me whatsoever. I did get far better grades in my single-sex high school than my mixed k-8 school, but that could do to a variety of things (for one, the k-8 school teachers hated boys who couldn’t sit still, two: I probably gained vast amounts of maturity in high school as well).

Anyway, I don’t see single-sex education as evil. There were gay kids at my school and they were made fun of, but not more so than those who weren’t good at athletics, were dumb, or were rich. I mean boys in general are equal opportunity bullies. I don’t see a single male school promoting anti-homosexual tendencies whatsoever. In fact, when girls aren’t around, I found boys tended to do less bullying and posturing. (I can only judge between 7/8th grade and high school, so added maturity might factor in here).

But, here is my thought. If admittedly schools are failing children, why not try this? If it works then hey that's good. If it doesn’t, well than it’s no different than the status quo anyway, right?

[Miss Profe]

There are definite advantages for women who attend single-sex institutions. As a graduate of a women's college, I developed greater confidence in myself as a learner and as an individual, and believed that being smart and a girl was taken seriously in such an environment.

[lilmissgenius!]

i definitely agree that women can do anything they can put their minds to. single sex helps that.