I appreciate you breaking down some of these myths Rebecca! Your myth-busting resonates with what I've observed in my teaching as well; there isn't a distinct line between how boys and girls learn. Yes, there might be some very high-level generalisations (as you've pointed out) but learning is learning, and everyone's going to approach it a bit differently.
this is great… But forgive me one question: if girls being educated separately from boys is better for girls because boys have lots of learning issues that girls would do better not being around, where would this leave us if this approach was applied more widely?
we already have a massive amount of residualisation in Australia due to our perverse tripartite education system. For every girl educated in a single sex environment, doesn't this increase the number of problematic male students that other male students have to learn near?
Understandably parents just want what's best for their own kid... but shouldn't we be more worried about the cohort?
You're right, Ben and I have biases due to having girls, working with girls etc. One thing that would help is great Tier 1 where teachers are using high-impact practices that secure student attention, are trained in the science of reading, and of course effective learning support. I'm aware of the funding issues so that last one is perfect-world of course. You raise a good point, Ben.
We can reposition your suggestion to ask two questions:
1) Should girls' education be sacrificed for the 'greater good' of boys' education?
2) Is this not a question for single sex boys' schools? That is: why *aren't* they able to create learning environments that ensure they learn as well as they can with girls in the room?
You also conflate private and single-sex school environments, which is not the case. There are many single-sex public schools in NSW and some of those (eg: Randwick High School) have recently been in the news regarding their shift to co-education. I appreciate that girls' schools are more common in the private sector but did want to point out that they are not equivalents.
I appreciate you breaking down some of these myths Rebecca! Your myth-busting resonates with what I've observed in my teaching as well; there isn't a distinct line between how boys and girls learn. Yes, there might be some very high-level generalisations (as you've pointed out) but learning is learning, and everyone's going to approach it a bit differently.
Thanks for sharing!
Pleasure, Scott. Thanks for reading.
this is great… But forgive me one question: if girls being educated separately from boys is better for girls because boys have lots of learning issues that girls would do better not being around, where would this leave us if this approach was applied more widely?
we already have a massive amount of residualisation in Australia due to our perverse tripartite education system. For every girl educated in a single sex environment, doesn't this increase the number of problematic male students that other male students have to learn near?
Understandably parents just want what's best for their own kid... but shouldn't we be more worried about the cohort?
You're right, Ben and I have biases due to having girls, working with girls etc. One thing that would help is great Tier 1 where teachers are using high-impact practices that secure student attention, are trained in the science of reading, and of course effective learning support. I'm aware of the funding issues so that last one is perfect-world of course. You raise a good point, Ben.
We can reposition your suggestion to ask two questions:
1) Should girls' education be sacrificed for the 'greater good' of boys' education?
2) Is this not a question for single sex boys' schools? That is: why *aren't* they able to create learning environments that ensure they learn as well as they can with girls in the room?
You also conflate private and single-sex school environments, which is not the case. There are many single-sex public schools in NSW and some of those (eg: Randwick High School) have recently been in the news regarding their shift to co-education. I appreciate that girls' schools are more common in the private sector but did want to point out that they are not equivalents.
I like that reformulation.
1) Should we not think about the cohort overall?
2) It definitely is. It also opens up the question about what are we doing in schooling that is making boys do worse in general.