Source: mensdaily
November 05, 2006
Vox Populi
By Denise Noe
.................."Boys need not be so distracted by the attractions of girls that they fail to explore and enjoy academic subjects."
Both The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its editorial opposing single-sex classes and the opinion by Meg Milne Moulton and Whitney Ransome supporting them make the mistake of assuming that developing academic skills and acquiring intellectual knowledge is the sole purpose of schooling. If that were so, then there would be little need for schools as we know them (single-sex or gender-integrated) as children could learn from computers and TVs in their homes. Social skills are just as important as book skills. The “nerdy” loner who aces test after test but spends lunch and recess with his or her nose in a book (yes, if you’re wondering, that was me), is not apt to be the most successful adult. Making it in the workaday world depends a great deal on “people skills.” Learning to be “cool” and “fit in” may not be distractions from the true business of school but a vital part of it.
Getting along well with the other gender is at least as important as turning fractions into decimals and vice versa. Indeed, for the heterosexual majority, being comfortable with future mates can spell the difference between a life of solitude and frustration and one of bliss.
The debate over the value of single-sex schooling, especially centering on girls, reminds me of a t-shirt I saw the other day on a female teenager. “If it weren’t for boys,” the legend proclaimed, “I’d quit school.” Thirty years after Florence Kennedy popularized the slogan, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” and in an era when anti-male ridicule is still depressingly commonplace, I found this young lady’s frankly pro-male t-shirt refreshing.
Of course, it is easy to put a cynical spin on such a slogan and the girl wearing it, assuming that she will find herself with a traumatic pregnancy or STD. The threat of an unplanned, unmarried pregnancy that hangs over adolescent girls makes them ripe targets for anti-male propaganda. It also means that conservatives and liberals, traditionalists and feminists, express more concern for teenage females than teenage males despite the fact that the latter have more severe problems in many areas. Conservatives pound on girlsÂ’ morals and chastity; liberals try to build self-esteem and encourage interest in non-traditional areas.
Despite the perils that nature lays for young girls, I believe it is quite possible for girls to enjoy the company of boys and graduate from high school as virgins. They can also spend an appropriate amount of time and energy on reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmitic (and determine to do well in the latter despite sex stereotypes), history, geography, and whatever interesting electives are available.
Boys need not be so distracted by the attractions of girls that they fail to explore and enjoy academic subjects.
However, being a diligent young scholar need not mean missing out on the winks, smiles, giggles, double entendres and sweet nothings that constitute the fine art of flirting. It is also vitally important that heterosexually oriented boys and girls learn to relate to each other on a “just friends” basis and work together. Those girls, and boys, who can combine learning from the teachers with learning from each other, academic achievement with popularity, are the ones who will adjust best to the real world — and ours is not a single-sexed planet.
