Are there benefits to attending a single-sex school?

Would you send your daughter to an all-girls, or sons to an all-boys, private school?

Probably not. Although I imagine there would be benefits, I doubt they'd merit the cost.

Hell no. Okay, school is supposed to prepare kids for the real world, right? Unless your daughter joins a nunnery, keeping her away from boys her whole academic life isn't going to teach her one damn thing unless you want her to become a lesbian. School (ha ha) is supposed to teach you how to socialize with people, so what? Now the game plan is make them anti-social for the opposite sex?

I wouldn't unless all the other public schools were awful and I made the choice to better his education. I really don't understand the argument that the opposite sex is a destraction. Especially for girls. I would think that the catty rivalries are what most destract girls.

femme fatale wrote:Would you send your daughter to an all-girls, or sons to an all-boys, private school?

I wouldn't intentionally seek out a single-gender private school, but if I were bent on my child having a private education, and the institution that I was the most impressed by just happened to be an all girls/boys school, then so be it.

There have been many studies that have shown the benefits of separate, gender-oriented classrooms for children up until a certain age, but that doesn't mean a separate school. The children are in separate classrooms for most subjects up until... I think it's grade 7 or 8 for many of the private schools. It has nothing to do with the opposite sex being a distraction, but to do with how children learn. Most girls are ready to learn in an academic setting at a much earlier age. Separate classrooms allow for lessons to be oriented toward that gender and have proven very successful. The kids still see each other at recess and lunch and at other times, but core academic classes are taught separately until around high school.

By high school, though, most classes are combined together. There have been numerous, recent studies, looking into how the public school system is failing boys, how it's oriented to the way a girl learns and that while boys used to catch up with girls by grade 6 or 7, that's no longer the case. They said that more and more boys nowadays are graduated academically behind girls.

TSJ, that is all very interesting. I have learned from your post. I thought it was all about keeping the genders separate for social reasons.

Nhaiyel wrote:

I wouldn't intentionally seek out a single-gender private school, but if I were bent on my child having a private education, and the institution that I was the most impressed by just happened to be an all girls/boys school, then so be it.

Hi Redbedroom - I was quit interested by it all, too, when I learned about it - think it was one of my sociology classes. Maybe it's different in the States, but in Canada, genders are usually separated because of learning styles and when children are ready to learn. The studies also talked about how in areas like math and science, there were real advantages in the early years, because girls were not as afraid to speak up in science and math classes when everyone else in the class was of the same gender. They could also embrace sports that were typical "male" sports, without worrying about being judge by the boys as being tom boys - things like hockey or lacrosse. Boys didn't have to worry about trying to keep up with girls, who were more socially ready to learn. They also weren't as pressured when it came to things like choir. Basically, the studies looked at how when children were educated in gender-specific classrooms, they were more able to step out of the traditional gender-ideas about education - boys like sports, girls like to read, boys like science, girls like art - and be themselves, pursuing their own interests without worrying about gender stereotypes.

If I had the money, the school I would want my kids to go to is run with gender-specific classes until grade 8. At that point, students are combined together for everything but PE, I think. The gender-specific classrooms aren't the onyl reasons I'd choose this school, though. It's one of the top private schools in my city and the students who graduated from there are capable of entering any university anywhere in the world thanks to certain programs. Academically, they are far ahead of most public schools and they are exposed to a wide-range of activities and experiences that are simply not as available in public schools. Of course the tuition there is the same as I paid for my early years of university education, so it'll only be a dream to send my kids there unless things really change.

I wouldn't think so. I think schools are set up to be single-sexed because administrators and parents think that it will be easier to control the student body without the distraction of boy/girl interaction. For some reason society likes to thinks that the more children are shielded, or restricted, from things the less of a temptation they will be. I can't help but think that it's actually the opposite. I imagine that the boys and girls at single-sexed schools are probably even more boy/girl crazy, because they've made the opposite sex more of the forbidden fruit.

Yeah it's kind of like the prison system. People are very...paranoid, about unisex prisons but they do say in the ones that are, they see a dramatic decrease in male on male rape, and no word on male on female rape though those that do exist are probably 99% by the guards instead of the prisoners anyway.

^^^^Interesting facts

My mother was thinking about sending me off to an all-boys school at one point...

Man, the sex I would've had in one of those places. I would've been the biggest whore imaginable.