Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Opinion

Single-sex classrooms hinder growth

Reid Midgett 
Opinion Columnist

Public school. Oh, the horrors we faced as we walked down the halls of our childhood schools, hoping someday we would make it out alive. 

And we did. We graduated and proceeded to attend college or begin careers. Little did we know how much public school would affect us.

We learned to be socially capable after being thrust into a mass of diverse students from all ends of the social spectrum. 

If we learned anything valuable from public school, it was how to interact with different people.

And yet it seems public school's influence will be reduced as classes are becoming more stratified. 

In addition to the increase in de facto segregation of schools because of various economic issues, many schools in California and elsewhere in the United States are beginning to separate their classrooms by gender. 

Apparently, the youth of today obtain a better education when they are separated from those of the opposite gender.

Girls feel can feel repressed when they are in classrooms with boys, and boys tend to seek more attention when surrounded by girls. 

Of course, the only option is to split classes up by gender.

Yet the long-term repercussions of such segregation seem far more influential than the basic education students receive in public school. 

Despite decades of activists seeking equality between men and women, this country has decided to undo progress by once again separating the two genders. 

What better way to teach our children that men and women are different and that women cannot function as well in the presence of men than to instill such a philosophy in their minds? 

Such is the implication lawmakers are giving by making single-sex classrooms easier to instate.

But children need important social interaction -- such as the interaction between genders -- in order to grow and adjust well in the real world. 

Those who have had no experience dealing with those of the opposite sex will not be able to cope with a mixed environment as well as those who have dealt with the other gender their entire lives.

Diversity is a key to social growth, and single-sex classrooms inhibit this. 

Even if a child has only friends of the same sex in his or her early years, he or she is still able to interact with others and learn how to live with them. 

Erasing such an interaction will only lead to a misunderstanding of the opposite sex and an eventual lack of respect, as individuals tend to despise what they don't understand.

Think of how members of future generations will turn out if they never know what is outside their own gender until they graduate and are forced into interacting with the opposite sex. 

Boys and girls need to build relationships because those relationship are what will matter later in life. 

Math will be forgotten, history never thought about, English incorrectly used. But the knowledge of a world that consists of two genders will be used every day of one's life.

Midgett, a communication junior, 
can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu