(Untitled)

[areyououtthere]

My housemate's new (public, non-charter) school is doing an experiment this year. All the 9th graders who aren't in their magnet program are in single-gender classes with opposite-gender teachers. The whole program is being pushed top-down; as far as he knows, all or most of the students and their families had no clue this was happening until the

Comments

[nightengalesknd]

There is some literature on single-gender classrooms showing both pros and cons at www.tolerance.org that I was looking at just a few days ago. It didn't have any specific studies about GLBT students but it didn't just discuss straight ones either and the whole site is very aware of GLBT students in education. The general gist was that single-gender classrooms tended towards better academic and disciplinary results, but that specific teaching methods that assumed girls learned better in certain ways and boys in certain ways did not work as well.

[shrewreader]

Wow - way to make sure this experiment is going to have absolutely no different results than the regular system, admin.

Trying single sex classrooms with opposite sex teachers completely defeats the point: smart is smart (regardless of gender); skilled is skilled (regardless of gender). Also,particularly for adolescent girls, reinforcing the 'men are authorities' social norm defeats the purpose of teaching the girls that having ovaries doesn't mean they have to kow tow to -anyone- if they don't want to.

See, this is why DC needs home rule.

(Also, have found housing, thank you -very- kindly for your offer; can I take you to dinner Thu / Fri / Sat or Lunch Fri / Sat?)

[areyououtthere]

Dinner sounds great! I may yet end up going away for the weekend proper, so Thursday dinner or anything on Friday would be best. As it happens, one of my favorite restaurants in DC is in Tenleytown, not too far from where you'll be. Does that look good to you?

[shrewreader]

It looks -AWESOME,- and just what I'll be in the mood for. E-mail me Off LJ (My e-mail is my LJ ID at ya hoo dot calm) and I'll get and send phone info!!!!

[crystalpyramid]

Boys and girls do have really different learning styles (levels of assertiveness, interpersonal styles, etc), and different rates of development, so that makes sense. Can't figure out why opposite gender teachers, though, unless the idea is that everyone's straight and going to stare at the opposite gender person. Which is just weird, and totally counterproductive, not to mention the bit where female teachers don't necessarily know how to relate to adolescent boys, and vice versa.

[crystalpyramid]

I wonder if the Jesuits or other traditional proponents of boys' schools have literature on it. It wouldn't surprise me, and there are definitely some serious advantages.