Boys and Girls Are Different?

You could have knocked me over with a N.O.W. membership card when I read this article.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - David Chadwell believes boys and girls can get through the awkward middle school years better when they're separated, learning in classrooms tailored to the learning styles of each gender.... The theory is that by separating girls and boys—especially during middle school years typically marked by burgeoning hormones, self doubt and peer pressure—lessons can be more effective because they are in unique classroom settings.

Now, we've been told for decades that there is no difference between boys and girls. But this new attitude is the separate but equal policy that was used during the days of segregation. What do the feminists have to say about it?

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, believes states should not advocate educational experiments. Segregating boys and girls could damage students if boys come away with sexist ideas of being superior, or if students are boxed into learning a certain way, she said. She also questioned whether single-gender programs' successes are due to good teachers and smaller classes, not sex segregation."

Once again, I have to say, whoa there. That wasn't the attitude of feminists some years ago when there was a move to allow men into Wellesley College. Suddenly all this equal opportunity stuff went out the window. The students said they couldn't compete in a classroom with men. Men were intimidating. Men were a distraction They didn't want to have to wear makeup every time they went out the door (yikes, who'd want to go to THAT college?). My thoughts are that single-gender schools are a step in the right direction. School uniforms would be another good step. But the best thing you could do for public schools is to get rid of the teachers. Graduates of teachers' colleges should be barred from having anything to do with kids. Thomas Sowell wrote an excellent book on the subject: Inside American Education. I lent my copy to a liberal teacher and never got it back. So, who would teach? Math would be taught by mathematicians, history would be taught by historians, chemistry would by taught by chemists, etc.. Gone are the days when my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, taught five grades aligned in five rows in a one-room country schoolhouse. Teachers aren't that smart anymore.