Teaching Boys and Girls Separately
By ELIZABETH WEIL
1. “You need to engage boys’ energy, use it, rather than trying to say, No, no, no. So instead of having boys raise their hands, you’re going to have boys literally stand up. You’re going to do physical representation of number lines. Relay races. Ball tosses during discussion...If you try to stop girls from talking to one another, that’s not successful. So you do a lot of meeting in circles, where every girl can share something from her own life that relates to the content in class.”
I will admit that I would not appreciate being in a school with all girls, I do like the things that they say girls enjoy. I love talking in groups, it's true, I also love relating things to my own life because it allows me to understand things more. I can see how boys might like relay races as well. The problem that I have is that I don't think all boys and girls are like this.
2. "I’m so annoyed by the sexist rubbish I just heard from Dr. Sax. Dr. Sax is trying to tell us that boys draw action and girls draw stasis. He might as well have said: ‘Boys are active, girls are passive. Boys should go out and have jobs, girls should stay home and have babies.’ "
Yeah, I can see how someone would have taken what Weil said in this way. I kind of can see this point of view. I felt as though Weil was saying this too. He kept seeming to say that girls can only be one way and girls the other. I don't feel this is true. Not all girls are colorful and sociable. Just as not all boys are physical. What about males who feel more feminine or females who feel more masculine. I did feel like Dr. Sax just kept saying how boys are like this and girls are like that but I don't think it is all black and white. There is more to it. What about individuality. If you say all boys are one way then it takes away people's uniqueness. I just don't want to believe that we are this simple and all work in the same way.
3. “Coed’s not working. Time to try something else.”
I don't see why coed is not working. I think it is doing just fine. Sure we have problems within the education system, but I don't believe it is because of coed schools. Private schools that are for a single sex probably get higher test scores because they pay to go to that school, they come from upper class/upper middle class families, and their is more discipline in those schools. It's not because they are not coed. If anything I think it would bring about a different problem. Wouldn't it cause social issues if boys and girls were separated?
I am not really sure about this article. I understood it and it made sense, but I don't think I would support it. I don't believe that this is the solution to the problem. I think it separate people and isn't it a proven fact that we learn best from each other and different point of views. Well a man's and a woman's point of view are going to be different.
i completely agree with your point of view on this article except for one thing: your second quote i read in the article as addressing solely Dr. Sax, not Weil. I personally felt Weil was reporting the facts on both sides and simply presented us a non-biased view of the situation, allowing us to make our own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when the article says that women are passive and you are obviously against that. Most of my bosses are women and are certainly not passive, I haven't met a passive women in the many management positions I have seen.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt that it seemed as though Weil was simply presenting us with information. We were being shown that Dr. Sax had a specific point of view while hers wasn't necessarily the same as his.
ReplyDeletei liked the way the second quote was worded because it really shed some light on stereotyping the genders. in reality, we all know not all woman are the same and not all men are the same either.
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