In something of a continuation of our last piece, we continue in our coverage of the trend towards single-sex schools in Australia, Canada and the US.
Throughout the United States, but especially in the South (states like Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia), as well as in urban areas such as a Washington, D.C. and New York City, many charter schools catering to single sex students have appeared. Some public schools are also offering single-sex education options, while continuing to make co-ed classes available. As Kelley King, a single-sex education expert, said in the San Antonio, TX Express-News, ‘There are some distinct strategies that are more effective with boys or more effective with girls. Right off the top, it allows you to narrow the range of learning styles.’ King adds that there are different learning styles at work in boys and girls: For example, you tend to need to speak to boys more directly and with more brevity and you can be a little bit louder. … They hear you but they don’t take offense. With girls, they may feel like they’re being yelled at.’
Single-sex education has also been gaining support in Australia where, as in the US, some public schools have decided to move towards single-sex education, making co-ed classes optional. This has not been received in an entirely friendly way: As the Brisbane Courier-Mail reports, some parents are not pleased with the idea of seingle-sex education, while many of administrators and teachers in the education system are in favor of it.
In Canada, equality of results between the sexes has sparked much debate, including a series in the Toronto Globe and Mail on “Failing Boys.” While much of this series has centered on how inadequately boys are served by the present educational system, it has also discussed how schools can be made more friendly to boys, including through the option of single-sex education.
While it appears unlikely that former British colonies will entirely revert to single-sex educational systems, more schools may being to take it on as an option, and more parents — who have, so far, formed the bulk of the resistance to the idea — may become more sympathetic to it in the future.
Catholic boarding schools 