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Note for anyone ready to dismiss based on title alone: The big idea is not that girls distract boys and boys distract girls, so they should be apart. The big i

by tinco 13y ago

Note for anyone ready to dismiss based on title alone: The big idea is not that girls distract boys and boys distract girls, so they should be apart. The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective. So this is not empirical evidence, but my mom who has been teaching high school for over 30 years strongly agrees with this. In her opinion the average boy just can't sit still and needs to be motivated more competitively, whilst girls benefit from more social engagement. Of course that analysis is rather crude. There's subtleties there. Of course boys would benefit from being taught to be more social, and girls would benefit from being taught to be more competitive. But it's clear that there's efficiencies to be had here. For me personally high school felt as a very inefficient time of learning, but I also had much fun and made many friends with both boys and girls. I wonder if the research has shown anything there. Do boys who graduate from boys-only schools work well with girls? What is their opinion on them? And vice versa? Although I think high school could benefit from efficiency improvements, I also think high school is an important preparation for growing into a broad-minded adult. I hope they keep that in mind when the decisions are made.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective. That is all very well, but where do the hermaphrodites go?
- tinco 13y ago
  I don't know, that's a good question. Perhaps to where they feel most safe? Or perhaps in which learning style they most fit in? The question also reveals the imperfection of the solution. What of the boys who identify as male, but think/learn/are motivated more like girls are? And vice versa? If we were thinking purely in terms of effectiveness, we would instead devise a test that would determine which teaching style would best suit you. But then these boys would likely be a small minority in girls classes, would that lead to social problems for them? Would it be preferable to just go to a boys class for them?
  - VLM 13y ago
    "Or perhaps in which learning style they most fit in?" This brings up the nightmare scenario where in the name of equality, by law girls are not allowed to compete (including sports?) and boys are not allowed to learn by discussion / cooperation. Given the fixation my educators had on forcing more or less all male EE and CS students to do group labs and group programming projects and group discussion in class and group participation grades, and implementing grade inflation such that your grade is pretty much your attendance record and there's not much point in competing, by the theory that girls can only learn socially not competitively then all male establishments are already doing everything they can to make life harder on the men and easier on the women, short of the proposals like outright segregation "separate but equal" and all that.
    - tinco 13y ago
      That is indeed a nightmare scenario. In The Netherlands at the end of elementary school there is an aptitude test that high schools base their admittance on. This is a nationwide system, with 3 levels of education. The highest level is a 6 year long education that grants you automatic admittance (except for some number-limited fields) to any university. Note that even if you get a score that only gives you admittance to the lowest level of education you can still get into any university by taking a few years longer and finishing the other levels as well. Anyway, my best friend in elementary school was always in extra classes because of his supposed special intellectual ability. I feared very much that if I didn't score well at the aptitude test he'd go to a school I wouldn't be able to go to. Luckily I did score well and was admitted to the highest level, but I can imagine this system could smash dreams.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- derleth 13y ago
  > That is all very well, but where do the hermaphrodites go? Wonderful question. Really. I just have two things which will make it more effective: 1. The preferred term is 'intersex' now. I know, but using the word everyone else is using makes people less likely to get angry. 2. Transsexual people are a broader category of people who will be impacted by what you bring up. The number of people who are born with an indeterminate sex (intersexed, that is) is a lot smaller than people with gender dysphoria, or feeling like they've been born into a body of the wrong sex. Trans people are still a minority, but they're a larger minority, and a more vocal one, so people are more likely to care about them. It's not the way things should work, but it's the way they do work.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    I was being purely biologically functional rather than asking the question in terms of the broader gender groupings and social terminology because it provides the stronger point. When you get into gender, the argument can still be forced into a binary perspective by not getting much further than agreeing that some boys can be like girls and some girls like boys. If you are forced to take into account the full spectrum of physical biology however, it becomes obvious that the issue is far more fundamental than the social labelling. Biology is messy and doesn't care much for people's ideas on exclusive differences.
    - derleth 13y ago
      > When you get into gender, the argument can still be forced into a binary perspective by not getting much further than agreeing that some boys can be like girls and some girls like boys. Except if you do this, you can't really say you're segregating by gender or by sex. You have to say you're segregating by learning style, which isn't what the article's about.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        True, from a perspective that accepts that arguments where gender is different from sex are valid (which I do). I am aware however that not everybody agrees with that viewpoint and so I went with something that is much harder to deny as it does not rely on accepting other people's opinions of what goes on inside their own head, but can be directly observed instead, which makes it much harder to bullshit around. edit - what I am essentially getting at, I guess, is that I don't think that using a more inclusive argument would have made the argument stronger. It would have made it nicer, but not more effective. Those who already agreed with the point will applaud it even more if it is couched in their preferred terms, but those who disagree will either get put off by the language or try and argue about the definition of the group, which is much easier despite being larger, precisely because it is not as well defined.
angerman 13y ago
That's what was my take from the article as well, it focused on performance base on single-sex vs. coed school education. Would this be an issue as well, if we had mandatory clubs and after school (coed) activities as well. Are we not confusing two things here? On the one hand, because the mandatory institution we have is school, and we consider getting to know the other sex an important part while growing up, we conclude that school should be coed, so to force the latter intent? Also, isn't interest in the other sex somewhere natural and could result in a higher after school coed activity (clubs, sports, ...) in those going to single-sex schools?
XorNot 13y ago
> The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective. This idea is even more harmful. The differences within the group are greater then the differences between the groups - but by trying to split the environments along enormously broad divisions, you're ensuring you marginalize huge swathes of people in addition to creating an unhealthy socialization environment. The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say about people beyond what their genitals look like, you're letting in any number of other harmful ideas. It's no coincidence that girl's only highschools mysteriously lack shop-classes, for example but always have Home Ec.
- tinco 13y ago
  > The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say about people beyond what their genitals look like It would be ignorant to think otherwise. There are differences between sexes beyond the genitalia. That is not a harmful idea, that is a fact. The harmful idea is that any of the sexes should be denied any opportunity, like a shop-class or Home Ec. That would be equal to denial of education, and I'm proud to say we've moved past that in the past 40 years.
- Mikera 13y ago
  It concerns me when people confuse the idea of gender equality and rights (which I think most reasonable people agree is a good thing) with the idea that men and women's lives have to be the same in all aspects. I think it is much more harmful to impose a dogmatic belief that forces everyone to lead identical, mono-cultured lives and denies individual choice. What if I want to go to a single-sex school? Who are you to deny me that choice?
  - XorNot 13y ago
    Who's denying it to you? But the same thing you complain abiut ia also ehxactly what single-sex schools are doing - its not about looking at your interests and learning style based on your home envitonment, test scores, and social proclivites to tey and find an optimum learning environmwnt for you - its about seeing if you have a penis and declaring that obviously you must 'learn competitively' and its very important we advocate you running around outside. Because clearly girls don't do those things. I'm sadly never surprised that the cinclusions people draw about gendered education just so happen to reinforce societal gender stereotypes.
memracom 13y ago
The really big idea is that when you allow teachers to observe their class and experiment with different techniques, then you can get better than average results.

by tinco 13y ago

moocowduckquack 13y ago

The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective. That is all very well, but where do the hermaphrodites go?

tinco 13y ago
I don't know, that's a good question. Perhaps to where they feel most safe? Or perhaps in which learning style they most fit in? The question also reveals the imperfection of the solution. What of the boys who identify as male, but think/learn/are motivated more like girls are? And vice versa? If we were thinking purely in terms of effectiveness, we would instead devise a test that would determine which teaching style would best suit you. But then these boys would likely be a small minority in girls classes, would that lead to social problems for them? Would it be preferable to just go to a boys class for them?
- VLM 13y ago
  "Or perhaps in which learning style they most fit in?" This brings up the nightmare scenario where in the name of equality, by law girls are not allowed to compete (including sports?) and boys are not allowed to learn by discussion / cooperation. Given the fixation my educators had on forcing more or less all male EE and CS students to do group labs and group programming projects and group discussion in class and group participation grades, and implementing grade inflation such that your grade is pretty much your attendance record and there's not much point in competing, by the theory that girls can only learn socially not competitively then all male establishments are already doing everything they can to make life harder on the men and easier on the women, short of the proposals like outright segregation "separate but equal" and all that.
  - tinco 13y ago
    That is indeed a nightmare scenario. In The Netherlands at the end of elementary school there is an aptitude test that high schools base their admittance on. This is a nationwide system, with 3 levels of education. The highest level is a 6 year long education that grants you automatic admittance (except for some number-limited fields) to any university. Note that even if you get a score that only gives you admittance to the lowest level of education you can still get into any university by taking a few years longer and finishing the other levels as well. Anyway, my best friend in elementary school was always in extra classes because of his supposed special intellectual ability. I feared very much that if I didn't score well at the aptitude test he'd go to a school I wouldn't be able to go to. Luckily I did score well and was admitted to the highest level, but I can imagine this system could smash dreams.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
derleth 13y ago
> That is all very well, but where do the hermaphrodites go? Wonderful question. Really. I just have two things which will make it more effective: 1. The preferred term is 'intersex' now. I know, but using the word everyone else is using makes people less likely to get angry. 2. Transsexual people are a broader category of people who will be impacted by what you bring up. The number of people who are born with an indeterminate sex (intersexed, that is) is a lot smaller than people with gender dysphoria, or feeling like they've been born into a body of the wrong sex. Trans people are still a minority, but they're a larger minority, and a more vocal one, so people are more likely to care about them. It's not the way things should work, but it's the way they do work.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  I was being purely biologically functional rather than asking the question in terms of the broader gender groupings and social terminology because it provides the stronger point. When you get into gender, the argument can still be forced into a binary perspective by not getting much further than agreeing that some boys can be like girls and some girls like boys. If you are forced to take into account the full spectrum of physical biology however, it becomes obvious that the issue is far more fundamental than the social labelling. Biology is messy and doesn't care much for people's ideas on exclusive differences.
  - derleth 13y ago
    > When you get into gender, the argument can still be forced into a binary perspective by not getting much further than agreeing that some boys can be like girls and some girls like boys. Except if you do this, you can't really say you're segregating by gender or by sex. You have to say you're segregating by learning style, which isn't what the article's about.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      True, from a perspective that accepts that arguments where gender is different from sex are valid (which I do). I am aware however that not everybody agrees with that viewpoint and so I went with something that is much harder to deny as it does not rely on accepting other people's opinions of what goes on inside their own head, but can be directly observed instead, which makes it much harder to bullshit around. edit - what I am essentially getting at, I guess, is that I don't think that using a more inclusive argument would have made the argument stronger. It would have made it nicer, but not more effective. Those who already agreed with the point will applaud it even more if it is couched in their preferred terms, but those who disagree will either get put off by the language or try and argue about the definition of the group, which is much easier despite being larger, precisely because it is not as well defined.

angerman 13y ago

That's what was my take from the article as well, it focused on performance base on single-sex vs. coed school education. Would this be an issue as well, if we had mandatory clubs and after school (coed) activities as well. Are we not confusing two things here? On the one hand, because the mandatory institution we have is school, and we consider getting to know the other sex an important part while growing up, we conclude that school should be coed, so to force the latter intent? Also, isn't interest in the other sex somewhere natural and could result in a higher after school coed activity (clubs, sports, ...) in those going to single-sex schools?

XorNot 13y ago

> The big idea is that boys and girls, especially at high school age learn/are motivated in fundamentally different ways so splitting them and teaching them in different ways could be more effective. This idea is even more harmful. The differences within the group are greater then the differences between the groups - but by trying to split the environments along enormously broad divisions, you're ensuring you marginalize huge swathes of people in addition to creating an unhealthy socialization environment. The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say about people beyond what their genitals look like, you're letting in any number of other harmful ideas. It's no coincidence that girl's only highschools mysteriously lack shop-classes, for example but always have Home Ec.

tinco 13y ago
> The reality here is once you let in the idea that gender has something to say about people beyond what their genitals look like It would be ignorant to think otherwise. There are differences between sexes beyond the genitalia. That is not a harmful idea, that is a fact. The harmful idea is that any of the sexes should be denied any opportunity, like a shop-class or Home Ec. That would be equal to denial of education, and I'm proud to say we've moved past that in the past 40 years.
Mikera 13y ago
It concerns me when people confuse the idea of gender equality and rights (which I think most reasonable people agree is a good thing) with the idea that men and women's lives have to be the same in all aspects. I think it is much more harmful to impose a dogmatic belief that forces everyone to lead identical, mono-cultured lives and denies individual choice. What if I want to go to a single-sex school? Who are you to deny me that choice?
- XorNot 13y ago
  Who's denying it to you? But the same thing you complain abiut ia also ehxactly what single-sex schools are doing - its not about looking at your interests and learning style based on your home envitonment, test scores, and social proclivites to tey and find an optimum learning environmwnt for you - its about seeing if you have a penis and declaring that obviously you must 'learn competitively' and its very important we advocate you running around outside. Because clearly girls don't do those things. I'm sadly never surprised that the cinclusions people draw about gendered education just so happen to reinforce societal gender stereotypes.

memracom 13y ago

The really big idea is that when you allow teachers to observe their class and experiment with different techniques, then you can get better than average results.