Gender separation

[Happy]

From Today Tonight

BOYS-ONLY CLASSES TO BRING OUT THE BEST

Reporter: Nicholas Boot
Broadcast Date: February 19, 2007

There's no other class like it - an all boys kindergarten in a co-educational public school.
And the five- and six-year-olds are not being taught to be sensitive new age guys, but to be little blokes.
"At the beginning of the year I said to the boys that we were like a football team," explained teacher Steve Jackson.
"We were there to help each other, to support each other, to play by the rules, to follow the schools rules, and to show good sportsmanship."
Steve thinks that for the boys, being a bloke - in a girl-free classroom
- is helping their education.

"With girls you can have a lot of sort of tale telling and setting boys up, you know playing one against the other and bitching and all that sort of thing.
"You don't get that with boys - you know what boys are like."
And parents of boys at Bowen Park Public in Orange, regional New South Wales, say the transformation has been remarkable.
"Keegan has become a student that I thought he'd never be," said delighted mum Joanne Jones.
"He was diagnosed with mild Asberger's Syndrome and I was really worried. I used to cry some days thinking, 'Is this child ever going to learn?'
"Now he can read, he can just pick up a pen and put it to paper he sounds the word out it is just amazing - Mr Jackson is wonderful."
Nick Gardiner's son Jesse is no longer scared of setting foot in the school yard.
"He loves it now, really does, which is the best part of it.
"Before we used to have to convince him to go to school he didn't want to go to school you know, 'I don't want to go today, I'd rather stay home'.
"He now wants to go to school more than anything which makes it easier on us."
Statistically girls are 18 months ahead of boys when they start school.
Girls are more developed and adapt more easily to the traditional methods of teaching - and that gap will grow unless educators can turn the tide.
The school's Principal, Penny Small, argues that boys need a different approach to teaching.
"The boys were falling behind, and we had to do something and we knew we had a recipe for success," she said.
"Boys like to do rough and tumble, and they do like to touch things and they like to get out there and kick a ball around, then they might like to sit at the computer and play computer games.
"It's capitalising on that to get the most out of learning, it's looking at what you are good at."
Bowen Park Public has hit upon a strategy of getting the kids to work together, giving the thumbs up and a sense of bonding.
It is this mateship which is grabbing the kids' attention and finally involving them in learning.
And the classroom itself has been specially designed with boys in mind.
"Each part of that room is part of their territory - it's like a bloke's shed - you get in there and shut the door and those guys are getting on with their business," said Penny. "They're just a bit too young to have the stuff that goes in most sheds."
Headmaster of the King's School, Dr Tim Hawkes is one of Australia's leading experts on boys' education.
"Generally boys prefer a method of teaching which is very visual - good use of diagrams, pictures and so on," he said.
"They like action-based learning, they like to be able to move, to experiment, and they like teachers who use a lot of verbs - run, measure, pace, count."
Dr Hawkes believes teachers need to focus on what excites and enthralls their pupils, to grab their attention and make them enthusiastic about subjects.
"What we need to do is create the sense of wonder in our classes so our students are excited about a particular topic, and then you use that as the intro into learning.
"We need to look at ways of developing this sense of wonder."
Bowen Public certainly seems to have found a way of making the youngsters in its boys-only class want to learn - by the end of the year, they are eight months ahead of boys from a mixed class.

Few thoughts:

If gender separation is so good, shouldn’t we continue with it in secondary school, university, workplace, bulletin boards, nursing home?

Is it possible that other cultures are trying backdoor pseudo-scientific research to pull wool over other people’s eyes?

Is academic achievement so important that we can ignore other aspects of social interaction?

What about learning how to interact with other sex representatives which might be useful in life?

 

[Rafa]

I been at an all boys school, primary thru to secondary...
(ok, i'm ready for the jokes... )

But seriously, it hasn't stopped me, or any of my mates from that matter, from meeting/marrying/interacting with/picking up at clubs/etc/etc girls what so ever.

I can only speak from my own experience, as well as from observing friends who went to mixed schools, and i can categorically state, that i wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

For girls however, co-ed is a lot more beneficial that an all girls school... (again, this is based on obsevations of girls i have met)...

So, if i had a son, it would be all boys... a daughter, then co-ed.

 

[Nicks]

I agree with Happy.

We already see some religious nations supporting gender seperation (eg. Taliban).

I went to an all boys high school and quite frankly would have preferred if there were girls there. This is what we are expected to operate with in society, work, socially etc.

I am a bit perplexed by Rafas comment about sending his son to an all boys, and daughter to a coed - if everyone did this, how would this work?

 

[Rafa]

yeah, i guess its not for everyone...
but i'll be following that principle...

(its like we should all be financially savvy... if that was the case, no one would make any money... )

but back to the topic,
this is certainly not a religious view point, rather based on experience... i just think guys are more easily distracted by girls than the other way around.

without girls, you can get up to a hell of a lot more mischief... and generally have some good (oftern harmless) fun.... which is the role of every growing teenage boy

 

[insider]

GENDER SEPERATION!!!!!! are you people going crazy?

Don't forget that procreation and survival is the most important thing... Guys being incapable of interacting with girls, which is what will happen if you seperate them, will make them technically sterile... We all know that girls find the personality of a guy the most important thing to attraction... If the guy is acting all weird then she'll leave...

I'm speaking from experience... I think sexual attraction and money should be taught in school as seperate subjects... I'd make a great teacher

 

[Rafa]

u saying all guys who have been to all boys schools can't interact with girls...!
that is the most rediculous thing i have heard today!

 

[Julia]

Going to an all girls school didn't prevent me or my friends from interacting with boys. There were lots of social functions organised with the "brother" college.

My concentration in high school was poor enough without it being further diverted to focus on some cute boy.

Totally in favour of single sex schools.

Julia

 

[goldilocks]

I am a bit disturbed by the growing trend of single sex schools. Some boys might be disadvantaged at age 5 than some girls, but this is more than made up for in the workforce where the average male still earns more than the average female.

Single sex boys schools promote the old boys club, which is evident at the highest levels of the corporate world. There are very few females on the board of public companies.

My brother-in-law is typical of the man who went to a boys school. When he wants to talk business to his mates, he tells his wife "you can shoo off now", despite the fact his wife has degrees in accounting and geology. He simply doesn't feel comfortable talking "blokey" subjects (finance & business) infront of his wife.

I would like my daughter to have the priviledge of competing with the boys in class. If she is clever, it is a bonus to work with boys as well as girls.

I would like my son to develop a view other than just the "blokey view" and be sensitive to a whole range of things that both males & females can draw his attention to.

How can my son develop to be a great novelist, playwright or writer, if his upbringing was limited to being around one gender?

 

[Rafa]

This is a rather strange post...

U saying all the novelists, playrights, in the past went to co-ed schools?

Also, are you saying that male schools, even tho they are beneficial for boys should be stopped because bad for girls...

Whats more, you don't want your own son to experience those benefits! Rather you want him to be more 'feminine'...!

 

[goldilocks]

This is a rather strange post...

U saying all the novelists, playrights, in the past went to co-ed schools?

Also, are you saying that male schools, even tho they are beneficial for boys should be stopped because bad for girls...

Whats more, you don't want your own son to experience those benefits! Rather you want him to be more 'feminine'...!

It was interesting reading about one of Australia's top writers who was paid to present a "creative writing course" to a top Melbourne boys school. I don't have his quotes in front of me, but his words were along the lines that the boys were "cocooned" in an "unnatural" all-boy environment. To be a versatile and creative writer, the boys have to have experiences outside of this environment. I wish I had the article here - the male writer had strong views about this.

I haven't said anything about banning boy schools. Are you trying to re-interpret my words? I have found it disheartening, for instance some NSW co-ed government schools are now segregating the boys & girls classes, with no debate whatsoever.

Why is it feminine for a boy to
(1) work with girls & boys from an early age
(2) appreciate a viewpoint other than the "blokey" viewpoint
(3) benefit from having girls around - for instance, do you think drama classes might be more interesting with girls around?

The motivation for segregating boys seems to be to help the boys "catch up" with the girls. Recently the girls have been outperforming the boys. Why is it bad for a boy to compete with a girl if she is better in some areas? Do you think a boy's debating skill might increase if he practiced with a highly literate girl?

Even if I wanted my son to be more feminine, why is this a bad thing?

 

[2020hindsight]

Interesting comments goldilocks. While I suspect I agree with you, I'd be guided by an expert in the field,

Re the high "commerce" achievers - maybe the stats on the background of some of those directors / directoresses you mentioned. coed or all girls? (?)

Re the playwrights - Not too many plays involve what happens at school lol. But I hear you. And for what it's worth, personally I really enjoyed a class reunion the other day - especially as I went to a co-ed school. wide ranging conversation, minimum of footy etc lol.

Scholastically, my kids (who went to various schools) would be enough evidence for me that one sex schools have better results than co-ed (Not that I see any of my kids on boards of directors in the near future, lol.) Right now, my daughter's itching to work in a Ghana orphanage - so much depends on individual personalities See what happens in the future of course, as there's more to life than academia.

Gender in architecture.
heck - just to take the discussion off on a tangent...
you work in some Asian countries, they don't even like overly male "views" from an office window. We had a work office view over a stark industral estate, with an even starker police station next door - and some of my Chinese workmates plastered a big "Ying-Yang" sticker on the inside of the window to "balance things up"

 

[happytown]

whilst this is not strictly related to gender separation in the schooling/learning environment, it nonetheless presents some food for thought on gender and our respective hobbies/interests/jobs/businesses/passions that bring us all together at asf,

"Women outshine men as stars of stockmarket

Matt Wade

March 2, 2007

DO WOMEN or men make better workers? Three economists at Emory University, in Atlanta, have bravely attempted shed light on that delicate question. The guinea pigs for the study - by Clifton Green, Yue Tang and Narasimhan Jegadeesh - were stock analysts who worked for investment banks and stockbrokers on Wall Street.

The job of a Wall Street stock analyst is to provide research and analysis on the performance of companies listed on the sharemarket for their clients, mostly big institutional investors.

They are well paid for their efforts - the average salary of the stock analysts in the study was more than $200,000.

What interested the researchers about these workers was not their incomes but how effectively their job performances could be measured and compared. Every stock analyst tracked a set group of companies and this allowed the researchers to compare the workload of each one. Also, a key task of stock analysts is to make regular earnings forecasts for the companies they cover. The accuracy of these forecasts gave the researchers an "important measure" of how good each analyst was. A measure of the professional reputation of stock analysts was also found.

The researchers decided these indicators - output, forecast accuracy and reputation - provided an "objective" way to compare "gender performance" and they set about poring over the work of 7900 male and female stock analysts between 1995 and 2005.

So what did they find? On the first indicator - workload - men were superior. Males were responsible for researching an average of 10 companies, compared with nine for women.

The higher workload of men might have reflected greater demands on women's time away from work. "Traditionally, women have carried a bigger share of family responsibilities and a reduction in number of firms covered may be a natural way for women to accommodate greater demands on their time away from work," said the paper, Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street.

The type of company that women were most likely to research was also revealing. Women were most highly represented among the analysts who followed companies in consumer industries such as food, beverages and cosmetics.

The authors politely conclude that this "may be natural if these companies emphasise sales to women". But it also raises suspicions of crude gender stereotyping.

The second indicator - accuracy of forecasts - revealed a noticeable gender difference. Women's earnings forecasts for companies tended to be less accurate than men's. The discrepancy was roughly equivalent to four years of experience, the authors estimated. But on the third indicator - professional reputation - women came up trumps. The researchers measured this by the number of men and women designated "all-stars" by the respected Institutional Investor magazine and admitted to its annual "All-American Research Team". Team membership is based on thousands of institutional investor surveys. Stock analysts at many Wall Street firms can expect healthy pay rises if they make the team. Women were found to be "significantly more" likely than men to do so.

"The fact that women cover fewer stocks and are less accurate at earnings forecasts but are more likely to be designated as all-stars suggests they may perform better at non-quantifiable aspects of the job, such as client service," the researchers said.

Client service includes keeping customers abreast of industry trends and developments in individual companies, and arranging for meetings between investors and company management. Even though these attributes are hard to measure, they are highly valued by the clients of stock analysts.

Neither gender can claim a clear victory from these findings. Despite taking on bigger workloads and being more accurate forecasters, men tend to be less appreciated by their clients than women. Ouch!

But the greater likelihood for women to be ranked as all-stars raises some suspicions. Could this indicate that Wall Street's many male investment managers prefer interacting with female stock analysts, regardless of skill?"

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/...-of-stockmarket/2007/03/01/1172338790503.html

cheers

 

[2020hindsight]

thanks happytown - and there's that yin-yan I was talking about

 

[2020hindsight]

The wife just found this joke
In the hospital the relatives gathered in the waiting room, where their family member lay gravely ill... Finally, the doctor came in looking tired and somber.

"I'm afraid I'm the bearer of bad news," he said as he surveyed the worried faces. "The only hope left for your loved one at this time is a brain transplant. It's an experimental procedure, very risky but it is the only hope. Insurance will cover the procedure, but you will have to pay for the brain yourselves.."

The family members sat silent as they absorbed the news. After a great length of time, someone asked, "Well, how much does a brain cost?"

The doctor quickly responded, "$5,000 for a male brain, and $200 for a female brain."

The moment turned awkward. Men in the room tried not to smile, avoiding eye contact with the women, but some actually smirked. A man unable to control his curiosity, blurted out the question everyone wanted to ask, "Why is the male brain so much more?"

The doctor smiled at the childish innocence and explained to the entire group, "It's just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the price of the female brains, because they've actually been used."

 

[goldilocks]

Thanks 2020,
I would like to refer to you some research by University of WA, about a couple of years ago. They compared the performance at University of former private school students and former government school students.

They found the former government school students, on average, performed better at University than the former private school students.

The private school students had performed better at high school than their public counterparts.

The researchers tried to find reasons for this. They surmised that on average, private schools had better funding than the government schools. There was possible better staff/student ratios. Gender separation, more common in private schools, contributed to possible fewer distractions for the students. So the private school students performed better at high school.

Government school students went on to perform better at University than their private counterparts. The researchers surmised that government school students might not have had the extra assistance that their private counterparts might have had at high school. This might have lead to a higher level of self reliance, a valuable attribute when some University subjects could have a 200:1 student to lecturer ratio.

In addition, the government school students were most likely to come from co-ed schools (government schools were definitely co-ed when I lived in Perth). The former government students might have coped better with the distractions that the opposite gender provided at University.

So overall this picture is quite interesting. I still haven't yet been convinced to send my son to a private boys school, but I could still send to him to private co-ed school, if I felt he needed extra assistance.

 

[nizar]

The wife just found this joke
In the hospital the relatives gathered in the waiting room, where their family member lay gravely ill... Finally, the doctor came in looking tired and somber.

"I'm afraid I'm the bearer of bad news," he said as he surveyed the worried faces. "The only hope left for your loved one at this time is a brain transplant. It's an experimental procedure, very risky but it is the only hope. Insurance will cover the procedure, but you will have to pay for the brain yourselves.."

The family members sat silent as they absorbed the news. After a great length of time, someone asked, "Well, how much does a brain cost?"

The doctor quickly responded, "$5,000 for a male brain, and $200 for a female brain."

The moment turned awkward. Men in the room tried not to smile, avoiding eye contact with the women, but some actually smirked. A man unable to control his curiosity, blurted out the question everyone wanted to ask, "Why is the male brain so much more?"

The doctor smiled at the childish innocence and explained to the entire group, "It's just standard pricing procedure. We have to mark down the price of the female brains, because they've actually been used."

Thats GOLD!

 

[2020hindsight]

as I said, nizar, my missus thought it was pretty good too
Speaking of gender separation - here's a couple of typical aussies who went to one-sex schools :- only to be brought together by "the random dictates of history".
Based on these, I think you could infer that Maxine can afford a better photograher at least
....
and in the pink corner, we have the challenger ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_McKew Maxine McKew is a parliamentary candidate for the Australian Labor Party and a former journalist living in Sydney, Australia. As a broadcaster, McKew hosted a number of programmes on Australian Broadcasting Corporation television and radio, most recently Lateline and The 7.30 Report. In February 2007, McKew announced her candidacy for Bennelong, the federal parliamentary seat held by Prime Minister John Howard

McKew was born and grew up in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland. Her father, Bryan McKew, was a boilermaker who at times struggled with alcoholism. When Maxine was five, her mother Elaine died, and she was sent to live with her grandparents for three years. When Bryan remarried, Maxine and her sister Margaret returned to live with their father in the suburb of Moorooka. McKew attended All Hallows' School in Brisbane.[1]

McKew currently lives in the Sydney suburb of Mosman with her husband, former ALP National Secretary Bob Hogg.

....After matriculating she briefly attended university before dropping out and living in London for two years. She supported herself with a variety of temporary jobs, including relief typing at a London BBC office. A letter of introduction””written by McKew on BBC letterhead paper””was rewarded with a cadetship at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Brisbane in 1974. In 1976 she moved on to host "This Day Tonight", a local current affairs program.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939), Australian politician, is the Prime Minister of Australia. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies. He previously served as Treasurer in Malcolm Fraser's government from 1977–1983 and was Leader of the Liberal Party from 1985–1989. Elected again as Leader in 1995, Howard became the 25th Prime Minister of Australia after defeating incumbent Paul Keating in the election of 2 March 1996. His government has been subsequently re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004. After his victory in 2004, Howard's government gained control of both houses of the Parliament from July 2005.

Howard grew up in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood. His father, Lyall Howard, and his paternal grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They later ran a petrol station and mechanical workshop in Dulwich Hill, where John Howard worked as a boy. Lyall Howard died when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John (or "Jack" as he was known in the family) and his three brothers.

Howard suffered from a hearing impairment in his youth, and this has left him with a slight speech impediment, something that he shares with namesake Winston Churchill.[2]

Howard attended the publicly funded state schools Earlwood Public School and Canterbury Boys' High School. In his final year at school he took part in a radio show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB, and a recording of the show survives.[3] After gaining his Leaving Certificate, he studied law at the University of Sydney. Howard joined the Liberal Party in 1957.

 

[Kimosabi]

She sure is better looking...

 

[2020hindsight]

lol yep - right there too.
wikipedia continues... (and ends with a couple of interesting quotes lol - )
you'll notice she has sacrificed the option to have kids to be where she is. Sad indictment (but obviously factual) on women's chances of making it to the top.

Other Interests:- McKew is a long-term participant in the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, a bipartisan bilateral civil diplomatic initiative founded by Melbourne businessman Phil Scanlan. [1] Additional activities include membership of the Women’s Advisory Group to the National Breast Cancer Centre, and membership of the University of Sydney’s Research Institute for Asia Pacific. She is also the Patron of Osteoporosis Australia and is a member of the Sydney Symphony Council.

Honours:- The 1998 Walkley Award for Broadcast Interviewing for her work on Lateline.
1999 Logie Award for Most Outstanding News-Public Affairs Broadcaster
A 2003 Centenary Medal for contribution to Australian journalism
2003 Magazine Publishers Association named her Columnist of the Year

Quotations :-
1. "People have a nervous collapse when I've actually broken through and got someone to say something honest. It is either regarded as a gaffe, or people say they must have been drunk, or publicly musing aloud, or they didn't realise the tape was running, or I must have had oral sex with them under the table. I find it absurd."[8]

2. "Women do give up something. It's biology..... Let me tell you what I gave up. I wanted my career. And so I never had children." (Quoted in Jack Welch's 2005 book, Winning[9])

 

[goldilocks]

Poor Bob Hawke & Kim Beasley, overcoming their "set backs" in going to government co-ed high schools in Perth, and somehow reaching the heights in Australian politics.

And Nancy Pelosi, mother of 3, becoming the Speaker of US House of Reps! How could a MOTHER be the third most powerful person in the US? Why, if Bush & Cheney were assassinated, SHE would be President.