Are All-Boys or All-Girls Schools a Good Idea? What I’ve Seen As A Teacher
Last month, I sat across from a mom at my elementary school’s parent-teacher conference, who twisted her son’s soccer wristband around and around while she explained why they were pulling him out. Jax, her 10-year-old, was talking too much in class, his math grades had dipped, and the all-boys private school 20 minutes across town told her they’d corral his “boy energy” better than our coed public could. No distractions from girls, less drama, more space for him to learn how he’s “supposed” to. She’d looked at my class roster, seen 14 girls and 12 boys, and decided the mix was the problem.
I didn’t argue with her right away. I just thought of my cousin Lila, who went to an all-girls high school 20 minutes from here, graduating 12 years ago. We talked at my grandma’s birthday barbecue two summers ago, and she admitted that first semester of college, she bailed on her first intro bio lab because her assigned partner was a boy. She’d never spent 10 minutes alone talking to a boy her age who wasn’t a cousin or a soccer coach. She sat in the bathroom stall for 20 minutes texting me, panicking that she’d say something stupid. That’s the thing no one tells you when you sign up for a single-sex school: the real world isn’t single-sex.
I ran into Jax’s mom at the grocery store a year after he left, standing in the produce section picking out Honeycrisp apples, her eyes more tired than I remembered. The all-boys school didn’t work out the way she’d hoped. Jax loved drawing anime in his free time, and within a couple months, the other boys started calling him slurs for being “girly”. He stopped bringing his sketchbook to school, then stopped wanting to go at all. His anxiety got so bad he’d wake up with stomach aches every morning. The school told her it was just boy stuff, he needed to toughen up.
I get why parents jump at all-boys or all-girls schools. We’re sold the idea that separating kids by gender fixes all the messy, annoying parts of growing up: hormones, distraction, boys being rowdy, girls being quiet. But what I’ve seen in 12 years of teaching elementary school is that separating kids doesn’t fix those problems. It just amplifies the worst stereotypes about what boys and girls are supposed to be, and robs kids of the chance to learn how to be around people different from them when the stakes are still low.
When parents ask me for my take now, I don’t just say I think it’s a bad idea. I tell them what to do instead, if they’re tempted. First, before you pull your kid out of a coed school to switch, test the actual problem. Jax’s distraction wasn’t because of girls—it was because his class at our school had just gotten a new student teacher, and he was acting out because the routine had changed. The mom I talked to earlier this year who thought her daughter wasn’t speaking up in class because of boys? We moved her seat, gave her a consistent small group partner, and within two months she was leading discussions. Most of the time, the problem isn’t the mix of genders. It’s something small that can be fixed without upending your kid’s whole life.
Second, if you do end up sending your kid to a single-sex school for whatever reason—maybe it’s the only affordable private option in your area, or a family legacy, or you got a scholarship—don’t just write off mixed-gender interaction. Sign them up for one low-pressure, weekly mixed-gender activity. It doesn’t have to be expensive or competitive: it can be rec center art class, community soccer, a library book club, even a regular neighborhood skate session. The point is regular, casual time with kids of all genders, so they don’t go into college or work having never navigated those interactions.
Third, push back on the stereotype talk every time you hear it. If your all-boys school sends home a newsletter saying boys learn best through rough competition and don’t need to talk about feelings, tell your kid that’s garbage. It’s okay if he likes drawing more than football, and it’s okay if he wants to cry when he’s hurt. If your all-girls school says girls should collaborate and be nice and avoid conflict, tell your daughter it’s okay to want to compete, it’s okay to be loud, it’s okay to disagree with people. Single-sex schools run on stereotypes, and you can counter that at home with small, regular comments.
Last week, I saw Jax at the public library, sitting at the low children’s table surrounded by crumpled pencil shavings and sketch paper. He was back at our coed school this fall, showing three other kids—two girls, one boy—how to draw the fire-breathing dragon from his favorite anime. He had an anime print on his hoodie, and he was laughing so hard he leaned over when one of the girls drew a silly mustache on his dragon. He still goes to therapy once a week for the anxiety he built up that year away, and it’s not like everything is perfect now.
I don’t think every single-sex school experience is bad. I know people who loved it, who thrived. But for most of the parents I talk to, it’s just an expensive band-aid for a problem that doesn’t need to be fixed by separating kids from half the world. Kids don’t need to be protected from other genders to learn well. They just need space to be themselves, around all kinds of other people, while they figure it out.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Are All-Boys or All-Girls Schools a Good Idea