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Learning Separately: The case for single-sex schools
Hoover Institution ^ | Winter 2008 | Peter Meyer

Posted on 01/18/2008 9:36:56 PM PST by forkinsocket

Susan Vincent reached into the cage and pulled out a small yellow bird, saying, “This is Kiwi. He loved us, but he was lonely.” It is a lovely spring day in Spanish Harlem on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Vincent, a former children’s clothing designer turned award-winning high-school science teacher, is explaining some facts about the facts of life. “We had to get Kiwi a mate. It was a perfect way for the girls to learn something about nature, about birds, about”—she smiles, holding little Kiwi up—“about the birds and the bees.”

It was, as they say in the field, “a teachable moment.” And for Vincent it was much more teachable because all of her 10th-grade students were girls. “There was no giggling and whispering, no holding back,” she recalls. “The girls gathered round and we talked about the mating habits of birds and they asked good questions and learned a lot. Boys would have been a big distraction.”

It seems so logical. Separate boys and girls so they can get their work done. It was clear to me and my classmates 40 years ago, as we gazed out the window during English class in our all-boys high school (a Catholic seminary) and watched the teenage kids from town “making out” on a stone wall; at least it was clear to Father Ignatius, who would threaten a “bastinado with salt rubbed in the wounds” if we didn’t focus on the sentence that needed diagramming.

“We can concentrate a lot better without boys,” is a comment I heard dozens of times in the course of researching this story. Boys seem less sure of the benefits. “Yeah, it’s okay,” says a student at the private all-boys Roxbury Latin School, outside of Boston (see sidebar).

(Excerpt) Read more at hoover.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: education; gender; hooverinstitute; schools; singlesex
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1 posted on 01/18/2008 9:36:57 PM PST by forkinsocket
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To: forkinsocket
No, no, no, haven’t you read the news? There’s no difference between boys and girls... It’s why there’s no.. Oh, wait, the Olympics still separates based upon sex, huh? Well, I’m sure that someone will file a lawsuit about that sometime soon. /s
2 posted on 01/18/2008 9:59:11 PM PST by kingu (Fred08 - The Constitution is the value I'm voting for. What value are you voting for?)
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To: forkinsocket
Roxbury Latin School, outside of Boston

Not to nitpick, but it is in Boston proper, in the West Roxbury section (where I grew up), it's just not downtown.

3 posted on 01/18/2008 10:04:34 PM PST by LibFreeOrDie
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To: forkinsocket

If I had gone to a single-sex school, I would have been a Rhodes Scholar.


4 posted on 01/18/2008 10:12:08 PM PST by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: forkinsocket

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

Roxbury Latin sounds like the kind of school every parents wants their kid to be apart of. Single sex classrooms makes a lot of sense.


5 posted on 01/18/2008 10:16:20 PM PST by a_chronic_whiner (FRED 08. SECURITY * UNITY * PROSPERITY)
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To: kingu

Yup, won’t be long till the liberals pile on the lawsuits. Their madness knows no end.


6 posted on 01/18/2008 10:17:48 PM PST by a_chronic_whiner (FRED 08. SECURITY * UNITY * PROSPERITY)
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To: Amelia; SoftballMominVA; Gabz

Public Education Ping


7 posted on 01/19/2008 12:03:55 PM PST by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: abclily; aberaussie; albertp; AliVeritas; Amelia; AnAmericanMother; andie74; AVNevis; bannie; ...

Public Education Ping

This list is for articles relating to public education.

Gabz, Amelia, and I volunteered to take over the list so that Metmom can concentrate on home schooling issues.

If you want on or off this ping list, please Freepmail SoftballMominVA who is this month’s official keeper of the list

8 posted on 01/19/2008 2:32:51 PM PST by SoftballMominVA
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To: forkinsocket

i homeschool my 2 boys and we belong to a very small co-op... 4 families, 12 students total... 3 age-levels... my oldest (11, almost 12) is in a group with 3 other boys, aged 12-14... i think it’s great for him at this age... he does have one co-ed class, which is Latin—6 students total... all the other courses: Writing, History, Literature and Logic—all the subjects that promote discussion—are boys only...


9 posted on 01/19/2008 5:50:00 PM PST by latina4dubya
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To: forkinsocket

i homeschool my 2 boys and we belong to a very small co-op... 4 families, 12 students total... 3 age-levels... my oldest (11, almost 12) is in a group with 3 other boys, aged 12-14... i think it’s great for him at this age... he does have one co-ed class, which is Latin—6 students total... all the other courses: Writing, History, Literature and Logic—all the subjects that promote discussion—are boys only...


10 posted on 01/19/2008 5:50:09 PM PST by latina4dubya
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To: forkinsocket

i homeschool my 2 boys and we belong to a very small co-op... 4 families, 12 students total... 3 age-levels... my oldest (11, almost 12) is in a group with 3 other boys, aged 12-14... i think it’s great for him at this age... he does have one co-ed class, which is Latin—6 students total... all the other courses: Writing, History, Literature and Logic—all the subjects that promote discussion—are boys only...


11 posted on 01/19/2008 5:50:41 PM PST by latina4dubya
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To: forkinsocket

i’m sure the girls already knew about sex.


12 posted on 01/19/2008 5:56:04 PM PST by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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