Gender Seperation Gains Speed

From my own experience and observation (both as a student and a teacher) I can think of more pros than cons concerning this concept.

And I don't think that separate but unequal as it would apply to women would automatically be the default reality anymore.

Is this akin to desperation?

Gender separation provides an excellent breeding ground for homosexuality, doesn't it?

um......no


however, miller, now that you have brought this up....

I have always been under the impression you are a lesbian.

So why would this be a problem for you?

Ouch!

shewolf and I must be mind melding this morning francis.

I can see that!

That is kinda creepy/cool.

I had no idea what was in this thread.. but obviously Chai, with her vulcan mind powers and her banana clip on her eyes , could see right through every thread and saw that I was saying the same thing


wow

esp is amazing between non lesbians.
I wonder what life is like for real lesbians?

That's not a banana clip.

It's a quantum trans dimensional optic device.


I got it on Amazon, free shipping.

only a lesbian would say that.......

Several years ago I watched a multi-part BBC documentary on how the genders learn. It was fascinating. The studies were carried out to discover why fewer boys were graduating and entering university, actually.

The study began with infants and went up through the ages until the end of high school.

It concluded that boys and girls do learn differently, and that previously (prior to 1970, say), the educational system focussed on methods geared to boys' learning style. Then they realized girls were not doing as well as they ought so teaching methods focussed on girls' learning style. What resulted was that fewer boys were graduating and entering university.

When girls were paired with boys for specific tasks (science projects, math questions, writing a story), both learned better.

One funny scenario: they had plasticine at tables in a kindergarten class and when they let the kids into the room, the girls congregated together and made little families and houses with the plasticine, while the boys were stabbing the stuff with pencils and ripping it apart and throwing it at each other. The camera pan of the tables at the end was hilarious. The girls' tables were neat and tidy while the boys' tables were a debacle.

Another interesting one was they had 5 yr olds who had been raised in homes where there were no gender-specific toys (no guns, no dolls)... again, they let them into a room full of gender-specific toys and the boys all ran to the trucks and toy guns and the girls went immediately to the cribs and dolls. So, apparently it makes no difference how you raise you kids that way - the genders are just wired differently.

I wish I could find that documentary - it was really interesting. I'd like to see it again.

I came to the conclusion that boys don't like plasticine...

Was there something else to understand?

I will look that up too. It sounds facinating.

Little Bean has no gender specific toys ... in abundance.. if that makes sense.

She has a set of army men ( those little plastic ones that hurt your feet at 1am)
4 my little pony toys
1 large plastic house
many blocks .. wood, plastic, foam..
Original lincoln log set ( moms proud of that one )
several small metal cars, trucks, dumptrucks
4 stuffed animals that she sleeps with
and art supplies coming out her behind..

At day care she is quick to play with boys, and be a very physical child.

She has only one girl friend, but does not play house, dolls or any other dress up type game.
She does love dresses, but she rips them off to climb a tree

She is very 'tom' boyish and I would , with out knowing the specifics, say she too learns like a boy.

( oh my god I have a lesbian )
im kidding people.. get yer knickers out of a bunch..

This is indeed an interesting theory. The interaction between boys and girls changes while they develop. Some years they are more obviously socially or academically at different stages. Some years hormones make it hard to work together.

Here's the rub: getting through the difficult parts is what makes people resilient. In other words, when gender first becomes an issue, it's minor, they learn to deal with it and carry on. That gives them tools to deal with more complicated gender issues later on. It's a spiraling cycle.

And my big thing here is that there are tendencies but no universals. There are boys who learn "like girls" and girls who learn "like boys."

Educational systems that work well with a variety of learning styles seems a better and more effective idea, to me, than just plain segregating by gender.

American education is a disaster, after endless reforms and changes in teaching theory over the last 50 years, after gobs of money spent, we have a system that produces HS Grads that are about 30th best in the world. Plus about a third never graduate. Why do we do so poorly?

I think that gender differences do matter, girls and boys learn better with different approaches plus are ready for particular subject matter at different times. But I think that the most significant problems are created by the culture in the coed schools. Middle schools (7th-8th) are where we lose these kids, as their hormones start to take over. Trying to be attractive to the opposite sex and trying to navigate relationships with the opposite sex sucks up energy, and for many begins to become more important than the project of learning.

High School culture is where for decades now the social is more important than the education for very many kids. I think only about 30% are serious about obtaining an education, the other 70% is passing time or more interested in perfecting their social skills.

Separating the sexes will not solve all of the problems, but it will help. We don't want a balkanization of the gender separation because kids need to learn about the opposite sex. The idea of being separated part of the day every day for core classes makes a lot of sense to me. I would like to see some test programs run and studied. We have spent two generations throwing money and new teaching theories at the schools and nothing improves, I think it is time to look at the culture with-in the schools, consider that the culture might be the primary problem. Separating the boys and the girls will change the culture instantly.

Why is it so in the American society?

It just means that you don't have an educational problem but a social skills' problem..



Like wearing a burqa?

It will have pervert effects as it has in some countries where this separation is enforced.




You could check out all the studies that have been made in Europe these last 60 years that lead to the opposite conclusions as yours.

These very same ideas are the kind of politicians like to release. Let's try this, even though it has been proved unsuccessful elsewhere.

Then, they will find some excuse to justify the their failure.

Yes, good point, Francis - what I always wonder is why every country has to reinvent the wheel. Why not just look at previous studies.

I am thinking of the British heroin addiction program, at the moment, as well as the Icelandic fisheries industry. They came to Canada to provide some guidance and one of the things they reported was that there were more people in the Fisheries Department than there were fish!

Perhaps it only works in Iceland - more fishes than persons in the Fisheries Department, I mean.