Just recently, Title IX, the law that pertains to the prohibition of gender discrimination in federally funded schools, was modified.
It once prohibited single-sex public school classes in the entire nation, unless inequality is documented inside a coed classroom. Now, with the amendment initiated by the Bush administration, single-sex classes and public schools are allowed. With this major change in American education, activists and feminists suddenly became concerned again. The gender discrimination laws that they had fought for, have won, and are protecting for so long is now being threatened.They all fear that gender discrimination will happen all over again.
With the government removing the restrictions on single-sex education, it might not be long that the education given to boys will, over time, become far more superior to the ones given to girls, or vice versa. But Stabiner thinks otherwise. She stated that some students, girls more particularly, could actually benefit from a single-sex education system. She stated that girls are psychologically different from boys and as such, they require a different method of teaching in order to unmask each student’s full academic potential.
In a research conducted, gender plays a big role why remedial reading classes are mostly composed of boys and why most girls don’t do well on math subjects. She stated that a boy’s brain works differently to that of a girl’s. And if the innate philosophy and culture of boys and girls are individually applied in education, better graduates are produced. Although Stabiner is right on this one thing, I believe that her views cannot be absolutely correct if the whole picture is considered. The development of intelligence and the proper way of enriching one’s knowledge depends on many aspects.While single-sex education could be effective to girls who find it hard to cope in mixed-gender classes, there are girls who don’t find single-sex classrooms and classes mentally stimulating.
As a result, even if they are intellectually capable to excel in their schoolwork, their social and personal interrelationships with others students are not encouraged, resulting to poor performance. Therefore for me, the establishment of single-sex educational system has it own advantages and disadvantages.We cannot outwardly say whether it is good or bad - we can only work to make the scale leveled. And so I propose that the way to determine whether or not a student should enter a single-sex learning institution has to be analyzed and decided by the student’s parents, teachers, and counselor. A student’s entry to single-sex schools should be regulated by the government and that the application has to be endorsed by a competent psychologist and the school administration.
I would also suggest single-sex schools should be established far and between.This would ensure that there would be no room for unscrupulous individuals to abuse the system and the law. Because single-sex education systems are proven to be good to some students, we should not take away their chance to get better education for a brighter future. And as a powerful nation of great law and policy makers, it should not be hard for us to make the necessary restrictions to this law so as to would regulate the structure and curriculum of these institutions.
For single-sex schools to function properly, it needs to be properly monitored.The government has to make sure that they strictly follow all the guidelines it has set for them. The Bush administration is now allowing single-sex schools with the sole aim of improving the quality of education in the entire nation. But behind that law, the government is actually entrusting us to maximize this benefits of this move and not to abuse it. By now, we all should have learned the lessons of gender discrimination that had haunted us since 1972.
The formation of single-sex schools should not be a threat to us.More than anything, it should be a challenge to each one of us that as men and women born and reared with different personalities, capabilities, and ideas, we should now be able to patch up our individual differences and work as one. And instead of pulling each other’s legs to get ahead of each other, we should help one another towards advancement instead. Single-sex schools should not be a reason to practice discrimination. More than anything, it should be perceived as a solution that stops it from happening in the society, the homes, and the work places.
