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Can children be taught better in single-sex schools? Do the temptations of drugs, peer pressure, making a team, and yes, sex, do they go away in a single-sex school? Well if they don't, then the atmosphere of brain cells capturing and retaining information is no different than if you were to introduce the opposite sex into the equation. Let us also not forget the importance of having the opposite sex near. Both boys and girls prove vital in our experiences while growing up.

Children being able to learn isn't always hinged on who is sitting next to them in conversational Spanish. Subtracting the opposite sex and inserting the same sex does not make for a replicant of MIT. Kids have an uncanny ability to filter out spoken words they choose not to listen to. An hour lecture class with 30 boys does no good if 10 of those boys are daydreaming about the pool locker room at the all girls school down the road. They are lost to reverie. The teacher's stimulating look at the fall of traditional Eastern powers in the 9th century will have to wait for another day simply because you took the girls away.

The other thing you cause with all girls or all boys schools is a tense, pent up feeling. Raise your hand if you are a man now but at one time were once a horny teenage boy? (It is not necessary to put both hands up, one will do.) Yes, quite possibly we have avoided another teen pregnancy but we may have just seen a dramatic rise in masturbation and date rape percentages. Pent up horny teenage boys need a release. Halo 3 is only going to do the job for about 3% of them. They need teenage girls. They need the cheerleaders. They need a reason to explain the raging erection they get everyday at the same time. They need teenage girls because there is just something about getting a paper note that has been folded 17 times into the shape of a star in your locker that professes an undying love for you. Teenage girls are good for teenage boys' egos and besides our sexual organs, a man's ego must be stroked often.

Teenage girls need the boys too(and the feminists throughout cyberspace aim their daggers). They need the quarterback to be their boyfriends. They need boys to make them feel pretty and wanted. They need a Jon Cryer "Ducky" in their lives. A boy who is their very best friend since time immortal who they can lean on when their quarterback boyfriend dumps them. Which they need too. They need to be dumped. They need to know what it is like and they need to know that boys need them way more than they need the boys.

We need each other. Both sexes bringing their own unique style and substance to our lives. They help us grow, develop mentally and physically, and learn. Splitting the two groups up will not hamper the learning curve and math skills may inevitably go up, but learning isn't always about what is found in your Houghton-Mifflin biology book but sometimes what you find sitting next to you sharing your Houghton-Mifflin biology book.

Learn more about this author, Jimmy Ettele.
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