Blog 10: Should Boys and Girls be Educated Separately

Nicholas Matuszewski

Blog 10

Educ. 361

10/17/2011

Blog 10: Should Boys and Girls be Educated Separately?

            When boys and girls are educated separately they probably have many reasons for doing better in school because of this. Some of these reasons may be because they feel more comfortable working with students of the same sex, have an easier time conversing with one another, and because they are similar in the way they think. Even though evidence may show that students who are in same sex schools learn better, I still don’t think that boys and girls should be educated separately. The question “should boys and girls be educated separately” seems to be lacking information to me. Is it asking if they should be educated in separate schools or educated in the same school but only with other students of the same sex? For this blog I am going to assume the question is asking if they should be educated in separate schools.

            My biggest concern with educating boys and girls separately is how it may affect the students socially. Let’s take reading for example. If students are discussing a book they read boys and girls may differ in how they interpret what they have read, how the story may relate to something they have experienced, how they feel about what they have read, and they may have very different predictions about what may happen in the story based upon what they have read. Students may better understand what they have read by talking with other same-sex students but may lack hearing many different perspectives, especially from the other sex. This may hurt students in the future when they converse with the opposite sex because they don’t really understand each other and the way they think. The more they practice interacting with one another the better their communication skills will be.

            Another concern I have with same-sex schools is delinquency. I feel that if students are in a same-sex school they may get bored or sick of being with the other students of the same sex. The rules these school may have in these schools may also affect them. These circumstances may lead students to be more delinquent. Being told what they can and cannot do may be accepted by them at first but the repetitiveness of day to day interactions in classrooms with other same-sex students will get a bit old. Students may break away from the norm or what is expected of them simply because they need a change. Conflict due to being in a same-sex school may also arise between students and their parents/families because they have a hard time dealing with the differences between school life and home. I guess seeing the movie Dead Poets Society has influenced me a bit on what I think about same-sex schools/learning.

            I have little idea how the data between same-sex schools and diverse-sex schools relate to one another and if one shows to be much better or not. Academically same-sex schools may show that their students are learning at a high level, but this makes me concerned about the social aspect of their lives. Will learning in same-sex schools hurt students once they finally go out into the workforce? I don’t know but I am concerned that our future may be lacking good and efficient communication between boys and girls. How are guys supposed to build up the courage to ask a girl on a date if they are too scared because they had little or no interaction with girls, or vice versa? I actually feel that teaching boys and girls separately and together could work the best. The problem with this though is how?