Real Men Wear Pink
The first thing that caught my attention in the reading “Didn’t we solve this already?” was the paragraph from Marianne Williamson about the fear of the change. Within the first three words of the paragraph I knew I heard it before in the Movie Coach Cater starred by Samuel L. Jackson. It is so powerful because while she is saying what are deepest fear is she is also telling us what are biggest advantages is. “We are powerful beyond measure!” We can be anything we please as long as we embrace the change.
Middle school is time the time period in young boys life when the realized that all the girls in elementary school that had “cooties” are cute! Boys will do the most obscene things to get a girls attention and let them know they are attracted to them. It is also the time period when young girls think they are most popular in the school, and will catch an attitude will anyone to keep there reputation. So having single gender classes would be best for both genders, or some will say.
One of the main reason single sex education courses came into discussion was because of bias in the classroom between boy and girl students. Teacher tend to favor boys more and teach them better in their classroom; the saddest part is, it is unintentional and they do not realize it. Myra and David Sadker did a study where they taped a fifth grade classroom for two days looking for sexism, and the producers over the show did not see any sexism at all from the teacher. They mention this in their book “Didn’t we solve this years ago?” The teacher was terrific but their eyes and minds are trained to look for that. A big one the no one notice was that all boys were the right of the teacher and the females to the left; if it was race instead of gender it would not be so easily over looked. Just one of many the scenes to show how easily sexism could be over looked and how single sex education would benefit from it.
Research says that teachers are most affected by single gender classes because they can use a teaching habit that is most useful for boys and girls. They can use techniques with boys that allows them to be more active, so they can be using all of that extra energy they have; and for the girls they teach with more opened question to really get there minds going. That is assuming that all boys and girls learn the same as the peers. That comes from nature vs. nurture. This website shows the difference between the two and how it affects a students learning habits.
Having single sex classes helps breaks down gender roles and gender stereotypes. Boys will learn to accept things that are more feminine that they would normally not accept if a girl were in the class because they would not think they were “tough”. Also females will learn that they can be “tough” and just because they are girls, it does not mean that they have to run like a girl. Whatever that means!?
At the early stages of writing this paper I thought I would headed into the direction of talking about how single sex education classes are not good and that classrooms needed be complete desegregated by race, social class and gender. After visiting my mother kindergarten class Friday I changed my mind.
I walked into my mother classroom wearing a pink shirt (a girl color to the little boys in her class). As soon as walked in the class one of her boy students ran up to me and said “Jalen I thought pink was a girl color?” I simply told him “No boys and girls can wear whatever color they want. Now kindergarten might be a little early to start single sex classes but after that experience I definitely agree with it. All though having 20 boys in one room is not good any where on this planet, it will truly be benefit the teacher and the students.
Students are like snowflakes, every single one is different, and they all learn and remember information differently. As a teacher one cannot assume that all the boys or girls in the class learns the same. Even though single sex classroom would be good for the class as a whole, the teacher still needs to be ready to teach each individual student.
