system: You are Sheila King, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Educator message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to Dale Hill about "Single Sex Classes".

They wrote:
-> It's kind of funny in a way how we approach the P.E. classes,
-> throughout elementary school we always had "recess" together, while
-> not an organized gym class, boys and girls interacted and
-> participated in a variety of activities with each other...I can
-> personally remember one girl who was an incredible kick-ball player
-> :)  When we entered junior high and the 7th grade, it was boys-gym
-> and girls-gym.  We could see the girls on the other fields playing
-> soccer just as we were, only we didn't play together.
-> Hehehe personally I *never* agreed with the Home Ec/Wood Shop
-> business!  My mom taught me how to
-> sew/cook/do dishes/knit/do laundry etc when I was about 10, at the
-> same time I was learning how to run my grandpa's band saw/lathe/drill
-> press and other power tools.
-> I'm 34 now, so that will give you a sense of the time period I'm
-> referring to.
-> Fortunately alot of those role expectation type limitations are no
-> longer present in the schools.
-> I just started bringing this echo into my BBS, so I missed the post
-> you mention -- the one that started this thread. If you still have
-> it, I'd be interested in reading it.  You could netmail/email it to
-> me if you'd rather not post it again.
-> True enough, a few single-sex classes in a co-ed school *is*
-> different, than if they were conducted exclusively in a single-sex
-> school. I personally have difficulty seeing the benefit of either.
-> Perhaps after reading the article you mention I may better understand
-> the arguement for the single-sex classroom.

Write your reply.

assistant: I don't know if "funny" is the word I would use to describe it. Maybe
from the kids' point of view. But as adults, we know that after puberty
sets in boys (on average) outstrip the girls in strength and size, and
an appropriate PE curriculum is probably better designed for separate
genders (in general).
I'm not saying I agreed with it. I'm just saying that taking courses
like that didn't cause problems with people being able to function as
normal adults in co-ed situations.
Same here. Although we didn't have any classes like that at the high
school I attended. Then again, the physics class I took in high school
had about 26 boys and two girls. Kind of wierd to be one of only two
girls in the class.
Thank goodness. As I may have mentioned previously, in my calculus class
this past year I had a ratio of two to one, girls to boys. Very strange,
but pleasantly so.
I don't usually repost articles, but I will this time since from what
I've read, you don't seem to be the only one who's missed it.
I also have trouble understanding the possible benefit. It is just that
I have read articles so many times in which research was conducted that
purportedly showed this benefit.
This past week I was at a teacher workshop, and one day at lunch Robert,
another teacher from my school who also attended, brought up this
question. He asked the rest of us (all women...about 4 or 5 of us) if we
saw any benefit to single sex math classes for girls or if we believed
this "research" that teachers tend to favor boys more than girls in the
classroom by calling on them more often and praising them more.
Not that we came to any conclusive position, but it seemed that we all
have trouble understanding this purported phenomenon.
Sheila