Gender in the Classroom

In response to Amy Standen's "Gender Matters" from Edutopia (http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1749&issue=feb_07).


In case you don't have the time to read the article for yourself, here's the basic gist of it: Girls and boys are different. Girls and boys learn differently. Girls and boys learn better if they aren't sharing a classroom. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Standen tells us that. There is inconclusive evidence for why certain single-sex classrooms perform better than co-ed classrooms. There is also an issue of the cost of running duplicate classes. The main point of the article is that boys and girls have different learning styles and that there is a possibility that if they were separated then the more efficient learning styles could be used in each classroom.

That's a short summary of the article. Now, my turn.....first off, why!!? Didn't we spend almost all of the last century trying to get rid of segregation and fighting about civil rights? Why the sudden move backward? Gender segregation seems to go against all of the civil liberties arguments that dominated the last century. It seems contrary to what we have learned to believe in to go back and see if we can make it work this time. Generally when something doesn't work the first time and you change it, it still doesn't work when you put it back into its original form. There is also evidence that there is a difference in learning styles of Caucasian and African-Americans (I don't know the exact details, but I know that there have been numerous studies that show that standardized tests favor non-minorities), but we wouldn't even think about segregating classrooms based on race. Why not? Because we tried that once, and it didn't work, and society wouldn't approve of it. But yet, we are entertaining this idea of separating classrooms based on gender.

Instead of trying to solve this problem of learning style differences with last century solutions, we should look forward and try to find a modern-day solution. Rather than separating students based on learning styles (or preconceived conceptions of learning styles, as not all boys learn alike) we should try to find a solution that incorporates a variety of learning styles. By using a variety of teaching methods we can hope to reach a greater range of students without singling out any one group of students because of their learning style or any other difference they may have. Diversity should be a building block in education, not a barrier.