When I was living in England and attending the equivalent of high school, we had a unified science curriculum. There were five periods a week, and each day we either had chemistry, biology or physics, but at the end of the year we were graded for "science." Each semester the science department would alternate which programs got two classes a week, and which got only one. I especially enjoyed semesters with only one period of physics a week.
But when I was 14, my school proposed and implemented a program whereby the highest scoring students would be able to take an extra class each week in science. They would then have six periods a week and be able to receive separate grades for chemistry, biology and physics, as opposed to one generic grade for "science." As it happens, in the first year it was carried out the expanded program consisted of all boys, except for two or three girls. That's two or three out of a class of thirty students. I was quite happy to narrowly avoid taking that program. I did not wish to be so greatly outnumbered by these creatures that confused me, occasionally mocked me and mostly just made me nervous. I liked being equal.
But then again, would I have minded being in a single sex classroom had it been all girls? Girls can be mean, girls can be cruel, but I think I would have said yes to an all-girl classroom. Not because I felt we were better than the boys, or that the boys were better than us. Not even because I thought we learned in different ways. I would have said yes to the more comfortable, easy-going environment. Removing the social aspects of who's dating who, who made out with who last week and a good chunk of the melodrama of teen life. Certainly girls still talk about these things when alone, but it does make for a different type of conversation. I never worried about looking too smart in front of the boys; I did worry about getting an answer wrong in front of the extremely clever lad I had my eye on. Remove that and I could have had a different learning experience.
For the past three years, a school in Sanford, Maine has been offering single sex classrooms at the sixth grade level. This year they extended it to the fifth grade. It is a completely voluntary program using the same curriculum in each class. In a recent article in the Portland Press Herald, several parents and students were described as enthusiastic about the program, and the positive learning environment it provided for their children. The district is now being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which argues that the program uses stereotypes that violate federal law. They are arguing that the district's justification for such a program is not strong enough to reach beyond mere stereotypes. The superintendent worries that the ACLU will not allow the district to address the needs of its children.
Division and segregation in the classroom is a touchy subject, but I can't help wondering if the ACLU has gone a bit overboard in this case. When does a protection of equal rights become an infringement on them? Personally, I'm not a big fan of uni-sex public bathrooms. I used one when in Philadelphia last year. They haven't quite caught on yet here in Maine, and while I don't think every man is out to get me, it made me uncomfortable. Does this make me a sexist? Does this make me a traditionalist? Or does it just display a preference that I am entitled to choose?
You can choose to send your child to a single sex private school. Should our public schools not also be able to offer single sex classes if they feel it will enhance the learning experience for all? After all, the curriculum being offered to the boys and girls in Sanford is the same. They aren't teaching wood shop to the boys and Home Economics to the girls, they are just putting a different spin on things for each group of learners. Groups of learners that have exhibited different approaches to learning. And it is voluntary, so it is not discriminating against those who do not wish to participate, or even those who do not wish to gender identify. By no means do I want my boys separated from girls until they are in college, but I wouldn't object should our school district take a portion of the teaching time and split it into boy/girl groups. I feel pretty secure in our constitutional safeguards. and I think we need to teach our kids the same security. At the end of Press Herald article, I couldn't help wondering: would I would feel differently had I daughters instead of sons?
