In my time as a teacher I have been lucky. I’ve spent all of my time in a school where teacher professional development is highly valued. Because of this, I’ve had many opportunities to implement new programs and improve my teaching practice. As with most things we do, we have conversations to reflect. A lot of these conversations begin with “If I was to do that again I would…”.
This year, I’m in the position to be able to do just that. I am starting a new job at a new school where many of the programs I value are not currently running. Most of these programs will continue to be a part of my teaching and learning program and I will have the opportunity to start again with a clean slate. This is a real opportunity. It’s an opportunity because this time I’ll be starting with a much greater knowledge base. In order to not stuff it up it’s important to set some goals. So here we go for term 1.
Student Blogs: Starting again with kids blogging for the first time there are a lot of things I’d do differently. Less ‘cookie cutter / all do the same’ blogging and more of an emphasis on kids blogging from their interest base. I will work harder to help connect kids to ‘their’ authentic audience rather than purely tapping them in to mine. I will work harder to encourage regular commenting from families and attempt to buddy kids up with a blogger from another school. I also want to explore the idea of ‘quadblogging’. It sounds like a lot when you write it down!
Connected Learning: From a class perspective I plan to start the wheels rolling on at least one authentic learning experience that involves an expert from elsewhere teaching us something. I think this is a great way to show kids that learning shouldn’t be limited by the walls of the classroom. The bigger picture part of my job is to support teachers on their journey into connected learning. This will involve modelling and professional development based on the individuals needs of teachers. I want to explore Google Apps for students.
Single Sex Education: This is something that I feel passionate about. I have spent the last seven years teaching in a single sex program. This year my challenge is to implement these important practices in a mixed class environment.
As with every year, the first term involves lots of relationship building and I look forward to this part of the ‘job’. I’m excited about the year ahead and look forward to reflecting on these term one goals in ten week’s time.
I recently read this article by Lise Eliot titled “Should Single Sex Schooling Be Eliminated?”. It was an interesting read. The article was written in response to a debate (see video below) but was approached in a very one sided way. The article put forward arguments against single sex education, stating that there is no evidence to support benefits for academic outcomes, brain and cognitive development or even social development.
My initial response was to just yell things about this being ridiculous (ok.. maybe a little more colourful version of this) or to argue against each point individually. Not being a neuroscientist or even a researcher of any real depth I figure that my opinions don’t really bring anything credible to that conversation. All I can do is speak from my experiences at the classroom face of single sex education.
Over the last seven years I have worked to establish and develop a single gender program at our school. Starting with some initial small trials, the success of the program has seen us expand so that we now have a single sex class option, for both boys and girls, for students from year 2 through to year 7. Being involved in this process has been a highlight of my teaching. I totally and wholly believe in this program and feel lucky to be involved in something that has made a big difference in the way our school runs.
Our single sex classes are designed around the work of Michael Gurian, a gender education expert from the USA and also the work of Ian Lillico, an Australian expert in boys education. Among his extensive work, Ian Lillico has developed 52 recommendations for boys in schools. These recommendations are at the heart of our single sex classes.
We have based our program on data and research, but as one speaker in this debate said:
“When looking at enough data, advocates of either side can find vindication in the research.”
and she is right. When looking at the research you will find academic opinions on both sides of the discussion. The research isn’t enough to definitively state that single sex classes do or do not work. I think debate is healthy. As educators, it’s not ok to be so single minded about your practice that you aren’t willing to at least consider other opinions. We learn best by having our ideas challenged. In this vein, the hour long debate was worth watching. It challenged my thinking and made me consider what was being said and how that related to my classroom. The statement that bothered me however was this:
“It is a well-proven finding in social psychology that segregation of boys and girls in schools promotes and even exacerbates stereotyping and prejudice.”
I couldn’t disagree more. A big part of our single sex program at Hackham East is about challenging stereotypes. We explicitly look at what the stereotypes are and spend dedicated time challenging these. We work intensively with our boys to identify how boys and men are seen by society. We look at which parts of this are positive and which parts are not. We then take this information and look at what we can do to challenge the negatives and nurture a more positive view of boys in our local and wider community as well as the ideas that they have about themselves as young men.
The implication of this article is that single sex classes somehow promote the ‘boof head’ behaviours of boys rather than combatting it. Although I can only speak for our school I strongly disagree with this assumption. Our girls classes also look at stereotypes and challenge these on a daily basis.
Time and time again, we see the results of this around our school. In our school’s AFL football team we have 5 girls, all of whom are from our single sex girls class. Only two students from our school have ever been involved in the dance troupe for our local music festival. Both of them boys and both from our single sex boys classes. Our boys take on nurturing roles with our new reception students and in the past have worked closely with residents at our local nursing home that don’t get regular visitors. Our single sex boys class runs an annual charity event in an effort to play a positive part in the community. In this event where students shave their heads to raise money only a few girls are involved and, you guessed it, they are from our single sex girls classes. There are many more examples of this and will be many more examples created in the future.
“The argument that “boys will be boys” carries the ‘anti-male’ implication that we should expect bad behaviour from boys and men. The assumption is that they are somehow not capable of acting appropriately or treating girls and women with respect.”
Jackson Katz
In the end, the idea that “Single Sex Schooling Should Be Eliminated” is ridiculous. I firmly believe that they benefit students in many ways and should continue to an option that is available for parents to consider when choosing their child’s education.
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In my time as a teacher I have been lucky. I’ve spent all of my time in a school where teacher professional development is highly valued. Because of this, I’ve had many opportunities to implement new programs and improve my teaching practice. As with most things we do, we have conversations to reflect. A lot of these conversations begin with “If I was to do that again I would…”.
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