Gender-Divided Classrooms

     “Boys on one side; girls on the other” is a phrase I would sometimes hear in physical education.  On days where I would hear this, my classmates and I would be doing a physical fitness test.  This could be an example of a gender-divided classroom.  However, gender-divided classrooms generally mean boys in one class, girls in a totally separate one.

     For many years people have questioned whether or not to separate classrooms by gender.  Some might say that the presence of both genders make each do worse on their work.  For example, if girls are in a boy dominated science class, the mixed gender scenario would reinforce the stereotype that boys are better at science than girls, and the girls may not do well because of it.  Carol Dweck calls stereotypes “negative labels” and warns against them.  “When stereotypes are evoked, they fill people’s minds with distracting thoughts--with secret worries about confirming the stereotype” (Dweck, 2006, p.75).  If the girls did not know about the stereotype, they may do fine.  I never heard of the stereotype until later in high school, but by that time I was good in math and science so the stereotype had no affect on me.

     Others might say that gender divided classrooms need to be enforced because boys’ and girls’ brains are structured differently.  According to an article in Newsweek, “males have less serotonin in their brains, which…may cause them to fidget more…females have more oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding (Tyre, 2005, 59).  A principal at Foust Elementary School in Kentucky used this fact to separate the students at his school.  Their test scores were behind, and they needed major improvement.  To go along with the fact, “desks were removed from the boys’ classrooms and they got short exercise periods throughout the day…girls were given a carpeted area where they sit and discuss their feelings” (Tyre, 2005, 59).  Test scores went up dramatically, and the number of discipline problems went down.

     Despite the pros and cons of gender divided classrooms, success is in the eye of the beholder, and there is no third gender to say whether girls really do better than boys or vice versa.  According to Gladwell, success comes to people who employ the 10,000 hour rule and take the opportunities available to them.  He does not single out one gender being more successful over the other.  Some of his example success stories were male; others were female (Gladwell, 2008).

     In my opinion, the following is how gender-divided classrooms should be incorporated.  Gender divided classrooms would be present in elementary and middle school.  In elementary school, boys and girls do not like to associate with each other too much because the other gender has “cooties.”  In middle school, hormones are raging, and that fact alone causes enough trouble.  Mentally and physically, girls tend to mature faster than boys, and gender divided classrooms would help foster this growth.  The learning atmosphere of segregated classrooms would help knock out the stereotypes of boys or girls being dumber.  Both genders would be equally encouraged in every subject.  If comparisons were made between the two genders, the students would not know of the results.  Otherwise, negative levels might form.  High school would be mixed gender classrooms; it would prepare the students for the real world.  By the time the students would reach high school, maturity levels should be closer in range between the two genders.  In addition, with all of those years of stereotypes not being in the forefront of everyone’s minds, the stereotypes should not have any effect on either gender’s learning.  Colleges and universities would choose how they would want to teach their students, either gender mixed or divided.  Students choose the college they want to go to anyway, so they can choose which system they like better.

     In conclusion, gender-divided classrooms should be employed for a certain amount of a child’s life.  It would help remove stereotypes and handicaps placed on mixed gender classrooms.  It would also help foster a child’s growth into a young man or woman.  Although my proposal seems reasonable, gender-divided classrooms is a sticky issue, and there does not seem to be any resolution to the matter in sight.