My group is for single-sex classrooms. Although there may be some benefits to coed classrooms, such as social interaction with the opposite sex, there are many problems with coed classes. For one thing, boys and girls learn differently. Boys tend be more fidgety during class, while girls tend to be more organized and calm. Public schools have limited funding, and the funds are used toward an average learning style of both sexes, which overlooks the specific differences of males and females. From the study we performed, females are showing much less confidence in math classes, than for males, suggesting something needs to change.
According to our clip from the “Today Show”, 59% of girls from coed classes in Florida scored proficient, where as 75% of girls from single-sex classes scored proficient. The boys’ numbers had much more of a contrast. 37% of boys in coed classes scored proficient, where as 86% of boys in single-sex classrooms scored proficient. According to one of our research article’s, when single-sex classrooms are used, social class benefits too (Jost, 2002, p.585). So people like Marita, who was mentioned in Outliers, would not have count on a lottery school for a quality education (Gladwell, 2008). Another one of our articles suggest that single-sex classrooms reduce gender stereotyping since the genders are separated during test and instruction time (Jost, 2002, p.573). With single-sex classes, teachers would also be able to further their education because they will need to be retrained to learn how to teach to their specific gender students.
Although coed classes have the benefit of a social environment between the sexes, single-sex classes seem to have a lot more benefits. Even though students would be separated by sex in the classroom, they would not be separated in life. There are still many social environments for all children to hang out and socialize, like church, coed teams, and the mall. Schools just seem to work better by not being one.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers. New York City: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.
Jost, K. (2002, July 12). Single-sex education. CQ Researcher, 12, 569-592. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/
This is in response to the last paragraph. You are right that school is about learning and not socializing. HOwever, we did account for socialization in school between the two sexes by suggesting that one day out of the week be coeducational to provide a kind of balance. Just saying...
ReplyDeleteI like how you pulled out specific statistics from the video clip. I think that really supported your argument.
ReplyDeleteTo Aikansh--I was thinking the same thing. So it would still be one, just not as dominantly.
I really like the first paragraph. It sums up our argument and gives some counterargument for the other one in a matter of a few lines. Then, like Ali said, I think the variety of statistics really made your argument strong.
ReplyDelete