I'm a high school English teacher. I went to an all-boys private high school. I work at a very successful and effective school - both genders attending.
Boys do present behavioral and academic challenges that girls simply do not - statistically speaking. They do complicate the classroom environment. And girls are far more likely to read and do their homework, on the whole.
That said, I know I relate better to my young male students, and given my style, I don't have that many discipline problems in my classes.
It is worth stating that acclimating the sexes to each other is important. It's also worth mentioning that both genders dumb themselves down in efforts to be more attractive to the other. And THAT is perhaps one of the strongest selling points for single gender schools - the unburdening of students from all that counterproductive tension.
It's very complicated . . . and human. I enjoyed the article.
The people who got all upset about the article are imbuing it with far too much meaning or power. Ideas and facts and interpretations need not always be palatable, after all. It's not like this article is going to shift the whole paradigm and all the heterogeneous schools will close overnight.
