On the Today Show this morning there was talk about a new phenomenon in the United States called “same sex classes”. The idea is that boys and girls learn differently, and thus are placed in separate classrooms. There are both public and private schools in various areas that have in one way or another adopted this type of learning environment. All together, there are 518 schools that are divided between the sexes.
This concept is interesting, and there is preliminary evidence that test scores are higher in these schools. The problem with this type of learning environment is that boys and girls learn a lot from each other, and when separated, they lose that aspect of learning.
In addition, there are more differences in learning style than there is in gender. In a single classroom of all boys, there will be a mix of auditory, visual and tactile learners, each one learning best, differently than the other. So while there may be some benefits to separating the genders into separate classrooms, it may not prove the most effective in the long run.
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