Boys and girls at B.C. school are in a class by themselves
CAROLINE ALPHONSO
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
TRAIL, B.C. — In one classroom, Grade 7 students cover their desks with shaving cream and use their fingers to spell out words dictated by their teacher. Down the hallway, a group of enthusiastic pupils shoot up their hands to solve math problems.
What's unusual about these two classes is that the spellers are all boys and the budding mathematicians, bold and not afraid to speak up, are girls.
"It's like a dream come true," said 12-year-old Jenna Freschi of her math class devoid of boys.
Glenmerry Elementary School, a co-ed public school nestled among the snow-capped mountains in the mining city of Trail, B.C., split its Grade 7 girls and boys at the classroom door -- and the results have been nothing short of remarkable, lending support to proponents of single-sex schooling.
Student scores have surpassed school district and provincial levels on the Foundation Skills Assessment test, a provincewide exam given each spring to pupils in Grades 4 and 7 to test their reading, writing and math skills.
Specifically, last year's results showed:
All Grade 7 boys and girls at Glenmerry met or exceeded standards in writing, compared with 87 per cent provincially. The year before the gender splitting occurred, only 76 per cent of Glenmerry boys met or exceeded writing standards (and 100 per cent of girls).
100 per cent of boys and 88 per cent of girls met standards in math, compared with 83 per cent and 82 per cent respectively across the province. Prior to gender splitting, 82 per cent of Glenmerry boys and 79 per cent of girls met or exceeded numeracy standards.
86 per cent of Grade 7 boys and 82 per cent of girls met or exceeded standards in reading comprehension, compared with 68 per cent and 75 per cent respectively across the province. That was a slight drop from before the gender splitting took place, when 88 per cent of Glenmerry girls and boys met or exceeded reading standards.
Not only did students exceed expectations on the standardized test, but their final report cards last year would make mom and dad proud. In language arts, where boys tend to struggle, 21 per cent of them received As in the second term of the school year, compared with 4 per cent in the first term. And in math, 41 per cent of girls received As on their final report cards, up from 28 per cent in first term.
Principal Kere MacGregor said the strong results that come from separating the boys from the girls, now in its second full year of implementation at Glenmerry, speak to the success of single-sex classes, especially during the hormone-crazed adolescent years.
And the school's accomplishments are being watched as a possible solution to gender differences in education, in which boys struggle with reading and writing and drop out at a higher rate, while girls shy away from math and science.
"I'd say it works. It works for the needs of our kids," Mr. MacGregor said. "It works here."
The school in the West Kootenay mountains, with a population of 326 students from kindergarten to Grade 7, segregated the sexes in its highest grade for all classes except music, French and one physical-education class a week. The boys were not doing as well academically as they should be, and the girls were being held back as teachers spent the bulk of classroom time disciplining unruly males.
The rationale behind separating the genders in Grade 7 is obvious: Divide them up and perhaps they will spend less time flirting with each other and more time hitting their books.
Ask the boys and girls what they think of being split along gender lines, and their collective response is "Awesome."
"It's better because we don't get to deal with the girls. They all nag at you," said one boy, his friends nodding in agreement. Said Tyler Hwalstad, a 12-year-old boy with a kind smile and an open manner: "You get to express yourself more."
The girls echo the sentiment. "We don't get distracted," said one. "We can be ourselves here. We don't have to do anything to impress the boys," another responded.
Jenna and a couple of her friends put together a petition last year asking teachers to separate the girls from the boys in Grade 6. Some of the girls were tired of getting classroom detentions because of the boys' mischievous ways, she said. The school, however, has no plans to extend the gender separation to lower grades.
"The boys -- I'm not naming them -- they were always poking us with pencils and laughing out loud and stuff. They did that and we all got a classroom detention," Jenna said.
"We have more space now and we can be ourselves," she added.
That is evidenced in Bev Kanda's language-arts class on this particular day. The boys are learning to spell new words with shaving cream. They fidget and chat with each other. Ms. Kanda doesn't mind and there are no girls around to shoot them stern looks. Unlike the girls, who studiously concentrate on their work, the boys tend to joke around a bit more.
Ms. Kanda, along with the other Grade 7 teacher, Heather McQuiggan, said they have tailored their instruction time to the sexes. After all, studies show boys and girls learn differently, they say.
With the boys, directions have to be sequential. They are more "business-like," said Ms. McQuiggan, who teaches math and science. The girls are more visual and ask many questions.
Both teachers say their students appear more confident and relaxed in single-gender classrooms.
Said Ms. McQuiggan: "The girls aren't showing off for the boys. We put more emphasis on the work that has to be done and not all that other stuff."
Separating boys and girls is hardly a new concept. Private and religious schools have been doing it for years. But it's unclear whether the strong academic performance of private-school students has to do with has to do with their socio-economic status and parental involvement in their studies.
Educators say there is no clear-cut evidence that the successes seen in elite schools can be translated into a diverse public-school setting.
Still, a number of public schools in Canada are liberally poaching the idea from private schools and experimenting with single-sex classes during the critical adolescent years.
Leonard Sax, a Maryland-based psychologist and founder of the U.S. National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said it may sound counterintuitive, but co-ed schools actually reinforce gender stereotypes.
"When you put girls and boys together, the girls start to act more girlie, whatever that means, and the boys start to act more macho," he said.
Dr. Sax, one of North America's leading proponents of single-sex education and author of Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences, said both boys and girls gain more confidence in same-sex classes. The research shows that girls are more likely to be engaged in math and science, Dr. Sax said.
"You would think when you put girls and boys together, the girls would be more competitive, and the boys would be more collaborative. Just the opposite actually happens," he said. "When you have boys by themselves, though, they are amazingly nurturing and collaborative."
Critics, however, question the academic and social advantages of single-sex education. Are students doing well because they are segregated by gender or is it the result of programs in the school that contribute to the positive outcome? Some suggest that students perform better academically because of the extra attention they receive from teachers.
Michael Kehler, an education professor at the University of Western Ontario in London, argues that separating boys and girls reinforces gender stereotypes that females need nurturing and males work better in strict surroundings.
Further, he said that teachers may tend to overlook certain behaviours when a particular gender is grouped together.
"My concern is that the single-sex classroom is being taken up very quickly, but not very critically," Prof. Kehler said. "We need to be very mindful of what we legitimate by putting a group of boys all together. And what we legitimate in terms of a culture of masculinity, as well as a culture of femininity in single-sex classrooms."
Anecdotally, some schools have reported success. Others, such as H. B. Beal Secondary School in London, Ont., have tried and dispensed with the idea.
The high school adopted single-sex classes in Grade 9 applied math a couple of years ago out of desperation (applied math is usually taught to Ontario students headed into the workplace or to community college). The teenagers were not doing well on the math component of the provincial test.
The gender-splitting experiment, however, showed almost no gain in test scores. And while the girls weren't as afraid to take risks in the classroom, they missed having the boys around, said vice-principal Brendon White. The school preferred other interventions to boost test scores, including math help workshops.
Besides, Mr. White said, for students to succeed, it all comes down to having a good teacher at the front of the classroom.
"It depends on who you talk to when you look at the research [on single-sex education]. Some claim it's the best thing since sliced bread. And then you'll talk to other professors and they will suggest that at best, girls might make a slight gain, but with boys, without that moderating effect of girls in the class, some behaviours come out that may not be too helpful," Mr. White said.
"When we looked at the results of those kids, we didn't see significantly higher marks," he added.
Glenmerry Elementary's principal tries to block out the noise about single-sex classrooms. His school studied the research and then made sure parents were onside before separating the students by gender.
There may be other factors responsible for the improved performances, but Mr. MacGregor is convinced that splitting the genders has made a significant contribution.
The school will stick by single-gender classes in Grade 7 as long as student academic performance remains strong and the preteens like it, he said.
So far, it is working.
Not only have students done well in their studies, but classroom behaviour has improved. The school had about 300 discipline problems sent to the office last year, and not one came from the Grade 7 classrooms. However, there were a few fights on the playground.
"We've chosen to take some of the social pressures away and let the students focus on their academics," Mr. MacGregor said.
Jenna, along with 25 other girls in her class, couldn't be happier. Like most girls her age, she thinks boys are "weird" and "crazy."
"They just don't listen to the rules," she said.
But for all the positives of a single-sex classroom, Jenna acknowledges she sometimes misses the boys. "We don't laugh as much any more," she said.