Catching up..

It seems like I have a lot to catch up on - I haven't been as good about posting my thoughts as soon as they happen and now I have so many thoughts I don't know where to begin!

But last night I was able to see a public school in the country I am living in - I have met a teacher here and she has been very informative, telling me about education here and taking me to see schools. For starters, public school in this country is not free - it costs between 1200 and 1500 dollars a year, not including lunch and book costs. Also, 80% of high schools are single sex. I was very surprised to hear this, especially after reading the New York Times article about single-sex education in American public schools and the current debate over its merits. The teacher I spoke with told me she believes the division here comes from Confucianist traditions which argue for separation of the sexes. The American debate appears to be more along the lines of nature versus nurture, and seems to take two forms. There are those who fight for and against single sex education, but within the pro-single sex education side there is another debate about whether there are intrinsic differences between boys and girls that need to be addressed separately or whether there are socially produced differences that need to be addressed.

Perhaps in order to evaluate single-sex education we need to look outside our own system and at those systems that have employed single-sex educational methods for much longer. Certainly, in my experience, the emphasis placed on education where I am living this year is much stronger than it is in the US.

I actually think that it may not be single-sex education at all that is revitalizing education in these schools discussed in the article, but just the change, the chance for something new - American education desperately needs change, and perhaps single-sex education offers one vehicle for hope, which translates into higher motivation and drive, sort of a placebo effect. It seems to me that instead of worrying so much about making all schools the same (having everyone on the same page at the same time on the same day as NCLB seems to encourage), we should be concentrating on offering more different forms of education, to cater to the needs of a continually diversifying population. Children across the US are different whether they are boys of girls; let's give them (and their parents) more choices about how to meet their specific needs.