Higher Education 1

I believe in segregation.

Take it easy.

Don't head straight to my comments section just cause I said what I said and it's day 2 of Black History Month. I'm not talking about racial segregation paisan.

I'm talking gender segregation...academically, at least for some subjects in school.

When I'm not online delighting the masses w/my witty repartee, snarky twitter comments, or working on the next great American bestseller, I earn my bread & butter molding America's future. Yup, that's right boys & girls, I'm a teacher. I'm actually a pretty damn good teacher at that, according to my administration and the parents of alumns who reach out to me to thank me for helping their babies through school.

It's kind of funny, to those who've known me forever that I teach 'cause I wasn't a model student. I did really well in some subjects, (english, foreign language, social studies, the arts) but in others (math & science) I pretty much sucked. I don't know what it was about those subjects, all levels of math chemistry and biology, that caused me such grief. There was something about them that made me feel as though I could never excel in them. Little did I know it had less to do with me, and more to do with how the material was being presented to me.

Having been in school for most of my life (I'm one of those people Kanye talks about whose degrees have degrees) I've been blessed to encounter a plethora of different teaching styles some that complimented my learning and others that clashed with it. While in pursuit of my most recent degree and the happiness I was sure it would bring my Daddy, I stumbled on an article in Newsweek by Peg Tyre titled The Trouble With Boys which she has since spun into an entire book.

Ms. Tyre states that one of the unfortunate byproducts of the feminist movement is that schools modified their learning environments to better suit female students. In doing so, these schools have scrapped classroom models in which male students are more likely to excel. (Hmmm...why can't we ever make things better for one group without making it horrid for another?) Many of our schools are failing as a result of this restructuring because:

• Boys need a competitive and confrontational learning environment, while girls can only succeed if they work cooperatively and are not placed under stress;

• When establishing authority, teachers should not smile at boys because boys are biologically programmed to read this as a sign of weakness;

• Girls should not have time limits on tests because, unlike boys, girls' brains cannot function well under these conditions; and

• Boys are better than girls in math because boys' bodies receive daily surges of testosterone, whereas girls don't understand mathematical theory very well except for a few days a month when their estrogen is surging

After further research, I learned that these changes could also be sighted as the cause for the higher incidents of discipline problems, more frequent special education classifications for males and schools implementing zero tolerance policies.

There's nothing wrong with the boys, they're not being taught in a way that matches how they learn so they act out or give up.

The opponents to gender segregated education claim that the classroom issues would be better resolved with tools like smaller rooms and more experienced pedagogues in the classroom.

They lament that the gender divisions leave the young people ill equipped to handle life in the real world because their interaction w/the opposite gender is so limited.

They worry that if we separate the sexes in school, there is no way to have them be separate yet academically equal.

This is a REAL NYC classroom...

Class sizes should be smaller so that regardless of whether the grouping is hetero or homogeneous based on gender, students can receive individualized attention (duh!) Who wouldn't want a skilled educator to teach their babies? (Duh!) Do you want a Dr. to operate on you w/no field experience? No? Apply it to teaching & voila.

Where the adversaries of single sex education go wrong is in assuming that separating the genders would be the equivalent of Jim Crow classrooms of the early half of the last century. #denied It is possible that separate yet equal classrooms can exist in our schools in a way that will benefit our students so that they can all have the most successful learning environment possible.

By no means does this suggest that either group learns differently as a result of a deficiency or because there's anything wrong with them, but rather because scientifically we are wired differently and therefore must have someone with a very clear understanding of these differences present the information to us.

Hmmm....You mean we actually receive and process information differently because of our gender? Oh sh*t! There actually is something to this Men are from Mars Women are from Venus thingamajig everyone's always prattling on about!

So all this time, we've been screwing up between each other 'cause we're not presenting our stances to each other the right way?

Damn.

Here are some more resources if you're interested:

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-37-spring-2010/gender-segregation-separate-effective

http://www.singlesexschools.org/home.php

SMOOCHES!!!

SHINE ON!!!!

PS

I didn't forget about my Make Black History E'ryday Beefcake feature.  Here you go.... 

I dedicate this one to my momma no tattoos...Enjoy...