Should Public Schools Be Educating Children Based on Gender?

http://feminspire.com/should-public-schools-be-educating-children-based-on-gender/
6/18/13
Amanda Duncil

"This form of education is destroying the progress activists have been making toward teaching gender equality by teaching kids that they are expected to conform to specific gender roles. I've already discussed how schools can send harmful messages through dress codes by teaching male students that they are not at fault for their actions. These classes set out to solidify such cultural traps and more by suggesting that women are delicate and incapable of working as hard as their male counterparts. It also creates new social issues that stem from students not learning how to function in a gender-integrated society by teaching young girls and boys that they are radically different from one another and any deviating variables are undesirable."

Actually I think differentiated classrooms is a great idea. Let students choose whether they like a class taught with boisterous activity or quiet intensity.

I don't see the need to segregate based on sex, though.

If these people have time two create two different environments based on something as trivial as that, why couldn't they make some useful environment changes instead? Like introvert and extrovert curriculum...

To put it simply, based on the current research... No.

Boys and girls do not actually learn in different ways, and there is no evidence to support the idea that students are "more distracted" around members of the opposite sex. Things like the number of students to teacher ratio and method of instruction are so much more important.

If anyone's interested, I'd suggest reading Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot for an excellent summary of gender differences in development.