Do you believe single gender schools are good?

I never had a girl in my class until university. When a girl sat next to me, I got up and changed seats. I grew up in all boys church school. I do believe it is a superior school system and the emphasis is on academics, but I also believe there are social things that far excel academics.

My experience did leave me standoffish with women and I still stand back a distance when meeting women to-day. I don't have an inferior/superior attitude, but socially I am hesitant.

Cheers,

Jim

 

There's not an easy yes/no answer to this. Just like home school versus public school versus Christian school versus private school --- the answer varies by family and by student.

We have four same gender schools (all Catholic) and I have friends who send their children to some of them. For them, it is a good option. For us, our kids go to a Christian preparatory school that is co-ed & that is a good option for us.

I have seen studies - especially in the inner city - that show that same sex schools have worked better than co-ed ones.

 

It wouldn't have helped me any. I still wouldn't have done well.

 

Our children aren't allowed to date and they seem to be handling it pretty well.

 

I think separation of boys and girls in the primary grades would be a good thing. They are not at the same maturity level. I read an article many years ago by a woman. Her comment was, We allow little boys to be little boys until they go to school. Then we expect them to be nice little girls. This was not meant as an insult to girls, she went on to point out the differening learning methods needed to teach boys and then girls. There were not the same.

 

Friend of Spurgeon is on the right track.

There is no clear cut answer to this that can be applied to every student in every situation. Some students will benefit from same sex classrooms, others will benefit from coed, some will do better with Mom as teacher, others need the interaction of a classroom.

What we need in this country is academic freedom to chose what fits our child, instead of being forced into one mold or the other depending on personal finances. The public school system will never allow this to happen, because the fear competition rather than embrace it.

 

It is a shame that personal finances has a lot to do with it, but it does. It is not cheap to have a good school & tuition costs are rising. Hopefully though, most Christian schools have some form of tuition assistance.

 

According to whom?

 

Since men and women are both heavily in the workforce these days, I believe learning to interact as peers is a valuable life skill. Has nothing to do with dating.

 

Have you seen teenagers lately? They go to school with the opposite gender and still have no clue how to act in front of each other. Obviously, this is a misguided argument.

The reason they don't know how to act has nothing to do with school. It is about parenting, and mostly about how parents treat each other.

Even if someone was in a gender specific school for six or seven hours a day, they will still be around members of the opposite gender throughout the rest of the day.

So the argument being made here just doesn't hold water.

The question is, Will boys learn better by themselves? Will girls learn better by themselves? It seems that the studies show that they do. If we are serious about education, we have to at least consider this.

Imagine a teacher teaching in a classroom where he or she doesn't have to compete with the girl wearing a low cut shirt that is tight enough to see what's underneath it, with low rider jeans that reveal what she is wearing or not wearing. Teachers should not have to compete with that.

 

While I agree with many of your comments (esp about how many kids dress today), I'm not sure that I totally agree. There's a lot to be said about a coed education. These boys & girls will soon be going to college in a coed environment and then moving on to work in a coed work place.

They need to learn how to work together, to play together, etc. and learn that those of the opposite sex can be friends -- not just boy/girl friends. I think a good coed education can assist in that.

That being said, each student, each family and each situation is different and different solutions work for different scenarios. As an example, one friend has three children in different schools -- one public, one college prep and one Christian.