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| Yes | 37% | 296 votes | Total: 795 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesI had always been a student of single-sex schools. In my primary education, middle, high school, intermediateand even now in my Bachelors, I never had the misfortune, as I'd call it, to study with the fair sex. This doesn't mean that I have zero interaction with the members of opposite gender or no communication skills when it comes to girls? In fact, I've always left a good impression over the females I've met over my life span.
In a single-sex school, a child gets the opportunity to fully open up and there are no inhibitions. You can play around without the fear of any girl noticing you, laugh out loud and play any sort of pranks with your colleagues without looking here and there to find out about the presence of a girl.
Opposite always attract each other. So no matter how one favours the co-education, there is no denial to the fact that sexual problems arise from such setups. Children get involved in wrongdoings which in turn emerge as future problems in their marital as well as social lives. Teenage pregnancies and abortions are one of the several branches of this menace.
Most people assert that studying in co-educational institute grants their child the interaction between the two genders and hence they learn to behave in different conditions and it naturally results in a better groomed personality of the child. This scribe differs in this aspect as well. I, myself, have never been to a co-ed. Moreover, I've been in a traditional public school for half a decade, which encompassed most of my teen years. I see and feel that I haven't wasted my time while studying over there. My friends who studied in hi-fi, co-ed institutes where there was no restriction the way both sexes interacted, they do not know how to behave in public especially with the opposite gender and elders. And, they are even dumbstruck when it comes to addressing a gathering of, say 70 people. This also shatters the orthodox belief that child gains confidence only when allowed to study in co-ed.
The phenomenon of studying of both sexes together fails to get unnoticed on account of time wastage on students part. Kids tend to remain in college long after school, spend more time on their friends place, remain aloof from their own families and are always seen with a tiny screen of cell phone in front of their faces texting hysterically to their friends of opposite gender. This whole concept has ruined the family life of the youth and has freed them from the hold of their parents, detracting them from the main course.
The life of schooling is the time of "make or break" of a child, may it be the career, social skills, grooming or upbringing. So it's better for a child to concentrate on the studies alone. If anyone is caught in a wrong ditch and still that chap tries to emerge as triumphant, it'll all be in vain. It is the role of the parents to seek the most appropriate type of institute for their child. I've seen many refined kids in co-eds and have seen many very talented kids go down the drain in a single-sex school just because they were caught up in a bad company. So they ended up behind the bars. Having said all this, I still rest my case.
Learn more about this author, Hasan Goreja.
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No
Do children learn better in single-sex schools? If we're talking about facts and figures, I will admit, I can't give you the answer. It is true that several studies have suggested that males and females learn in different ways and at different paces. Some have interpreted this data to mean that males and females would be better off in a single-sex school system. While I'm not an expert and I can't argue that such a system wouldn't have its benefits, I strongly believe that single-sex schooling is not the answer.
As we all know, children learn much more in school than things like algebra, history and literature. Schools are one of the primary socializing agents for our children. It is in school where children learn to interact with others and to deal with conflict. And it is important that children learn to healthily interact with members of both genders, not just their own. After all, unless you are also suggesting single-sex universities and single-sex workplaces, then our girls and boys are going to need to learn these skills eventually. And, in this instance, I think that sooner is definitely better than later, for all parties involved.
By separating our children into different schools based on gender, we are not just hindering their development, but we are supporting the idea that males and females are entirely different creatures. Yes, we all know that we look and function differently and tend to have different strengths and weaknesses, but in the end, we are more similar than we'd like to admit. We all know the dangers of separating humans into different categories and creating labels. Inevitably, one group will decide that they are superior. It's happened with race, it's happened with religion and it's most definitely happened with gender. In my opinion, single-sex schools just ad fuel to the fire.
Should schools completely ignore these studies? Of course not. School faculty and those responsible for developing curriculum should take these studies into consideration and keep in mind males and females may have different ways of learning. But to base a child's education off of these ideas alone is problematic to say the least. What about the little girl who learns more like her male peers or the little boy who learns more like his female peers? And within each gender children are still going to learn at vastly different rates. Ahh, yet another way for us to categorize our children. Soon there would be the school for slow white males and another for accelerated black females. I won't even begin to address how problematic this idea is for children who are struggling with their gender identity!
Let's face it, children benefit from variety, whether it's within the food pyramid or the classroom. If there is one thing that this world has to offer, it is a variety of human life. And sheltering our children by separating them into groups based on gender is not encouraging them to embrace this variety.
Learn more about this author, Marie Gerber.
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