Have you ever dealt with a population of economically underclass, single mother household black male children in a coed, urban public school environment? How much respect for " girls as fellow humans " do yo think is being taught in that context of “shorties, ho’s and bitches”.? An experimental separated scenario could hardly be worse in this respect than the existing coed environments.
Humans ARE animals; they respond to the same biochemical triggers and biological imperatives as any other. Males undergoing puberty want to impress females; this is as true of humans as it is of peafowl and elk and cichlids. Neuroscience research shows massive changes in the human brain in adolescents, with sex hormones being among the triggers (not the only one, mind, but an important one).
Yes. (I am female.) “Fairer sex” is old-fashioned, now, but it has been used as a descriptor for females for at least three centuries.
NPR interviewed the DC superintendent this morning. The thing that jumped out at me was when she mentioned they didn’t get any reaction when they opened an all-girls school a few years ago, but an all-boys school has the reporters knocking down the doors for an interview.
She also mentioned that given the problems DC schools have, this was a experiment to get data on what works to bring these students success. They’re also trying a no suspensions policy to get at discipline issues.
I’m fine with it after hearing that. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, try something else. What they were doing wasn’t working, so they’re trying something different.
I think it’s a good idea, probably won’t be popular with the students but their not the customer anyway, the parents are. Having kids spend more time with their studies and less with their genitalia seems like a fine goal.
I have never understood the idea that when it comes to educational success, the learners are irrelevant to the outcome.
I mean, the fact that the idea could be unpopular (initially at least) with the kids may not be the most critical factor here, and it may be that once the boys get used to this method of education then they won’t mind it so much. But I don’t think it’s a great idea to say of the learners “fuck 'em, who cares what they want? If they’re not on board we’ll just go ahead and have an education system without them.”
I don’t think he meant it quite in the “fuck 'em” vein, though I shouldn’t presume to speak for him, either.
As a twelve-year-old, I cried when my mom told me she was sending me to an all-boys high school. I don’t think it was even about hormones; it just seemed so serious and intense and not normal, like I was being punished or something. Suffice to say that I was not in the best position to judge what was best for me at that age. I think that the school and the parents did an excellent job of taking the students’ needs into account. But “popular with the students” shouldn’t necessarily be criteria.
Sure, I do agree that “popular with the students” shouldn’t be the determining criteria, but I wouldn’t dismiss it as totally irrelevant either. Children don’t always know, of course, what’s best, but let’s not pretend that the attitude of the learner to their learning is unimportant.
That’s why I take exception to statements like “it’s for the parents, not the children”.
For whatever it’s worth, the kids at the all-boys and all-girls schools here in Dallas seem to generally be in favor of the idea–there exist kids who want to go. Both schools do suffer from students leaving after 8th grade, though–lots of kids seem to like single sex education for middle school but want a coed experience for high school. We also have a lot more options for high school in the district.
DCPS has a bad reputation in DC. They’ve lost a lot of students to the Charter Schools. Considering the test scores and graduation rates in other high schools that serve that part of the city, I think that giving parents and students in that part of the City another option is a good thing. Remember that no child is being forced to attend this school by the District. You have to want to attend. The District has been putting a lot of money into making capital improvements to schools. The buildings won’t be the issue for much longer.
I’n OK with separate as long as they’re equal. That should be easy to accomplish, right?
ha ha.
As mentioned, there is an all girls school also, and nobody is forced to go to either of the all-one-sex schools - it’s opt in. Plus, the vast majority of students are in traditional coed schools.
I feel like there’s an important context that outsiders aren’t understanding about this situation - DC black men are a bottom-of-the-barrel population. They have no job prospects, no money, no fathers, no safety. The only thing most of them have is a criminal record or a drug problem. There have been 83 homicides in DC in 2016 so far this year, but just 36 for neighboring areas of Virginia. 73 of those were male victims, mostly in their 20s. According to HomicideWatch, at least 90% of the murder suspects are black men.
I’m probably not telling you something you didn’t already know, but it’s important to realize this isn’t just a random group of boys we’re talking about, here. This is a very vulnerable, dangerous, endangered population who, if not taught young, will be the next generation of DC’s black men living on the streets, dealing/doing drugs, and killing each other.
So I’m for anything that has a halfway decent chance of saving any of these young boys from the track they were born on.
Is this part is the “vagenda of manocide” I keep hearing about?