Talking Points #7: Teaching Boys and Girl Separately by Weil

          "On an unseasonably cold day last November in Foley, Ala., Colby Roster and Michael Peterson, two students in William Bender's fourth-grade public-school class, informed me that the class corn snake could eat a rat faster than the class boa constrictor." Just saying, I know not every one agrees, but I liked to watch snakes too when I was a kid. Having pet snakes in my classroom would have been fun. That is not something that pertains just to boys. Creating settings that aim to set social standards for children based on gender in crazy. What are these kids going to do when they are faced with settings that are co-ed, like many colleges? I really cannot say much on this subject because the idea of splitting children based on their gender may really prove successful, but I still wonder if this idea will embed social norms amongst these children which would later cause issues in their personal and social lives.
          "Fifty-seven percent of Foley Intermediate’s students are white, 24 percent are black and 17 percent are Latino; 70 percent receive free or reduced-price lunches each day. In the first year of Foley’s single-sex program, a third of the kids enrolled. The next year, two-thirds signed up, and in its third year 87 percent of parents requested the program." Reading further into the article, the author provides statistics and the fact that enrollment into the single-sex programs are receiving overwhelming support and more and more people are committing their children into these schools. Apparently they are doing something right because this strategy has proven to work. Focusing on areas where girls and boys learn better based on proven tests is a strong factor that is weaning people's support on the issue. Tests that show boys listen better to louder, deeper voices, and that girls learn better when colors are used does play a key role in what these schools are focusing on to create the most favorable and effective outcome. Maybe they could take this idea and those who fell that integration is crucial and find a common ground where they can be mixed and still have an effective outcome! 
            "So many variables are at play in a school: quality of teachers, quality of the principal, quality of the infrastructure, involvement of families, financing, curriculum — the list is nearly endless. Riordan says, 'You’re never going to be able to compare two types of schools and say, ‘The data very strongly suggests that schools that look like a are better than schools that look like b.’ ” I agree completely with Riordan's quote because so many factors play into how well a school performs and how well the children fend in the school. Before schools can be judged all factors need to be accounted for and if the school does well in certain setups that others do not, it may not be because that system is bad, it may just not work for a certain school. 
          This article was actually very enlightening because it did not play into one side although it does somewhat glorify the idea of single-sexed schools. I mean to say that the article gives examples where single-sex schools have failed and proven not to work. I'm at odds with whether I agree with this issue or not because in certain situations it does really seem to work, according to the article anyway. What I did not like was the fact that the article mentioned single-sex religious school setting and the fact that they are failing. I wonder if some of the information in the article is fabricated because many Catholic school for example are failing due to their traditional methods and this is a problem amongst single-sexed and co-ed schools. All in all though, I found the article to be interesting and I always like ideas that are different.