Why would anyone consider sending their BOY to a coed private school?
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Anonymous
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I would never send my children (either girl or boy) to a single-sex learning environment. The pros of learning how to properly and respectfully interact with members of the opposite sex far outweigh the cons IMO. I have friends with kids at single sex schools and I have heard of too many stories of disrespectful behavior that boys have toward girls and, sadly, the low self esteem that girls have and lead them to make some really bad choices.
Of course, bad choices are made by all teenagers, but there is something much more disrespectful with kids from same sex schools. They simply don't know how to be friends with the opposite sex and that is so sad to me... |
Anonymous
I find the opposite. We have had boys in both environments. At the coed school everybody is talking about "dating" and " going together"... Boys and girls are not friends and are just another conquest. My boys have friends from the neighborhood for years so they are friends and they don't talk about "going together, etc". |
Anonymous
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Why would anyone send their boy to an all boy school? Different strokes for different folks.
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Anonymous
| Because someone has to civilize the little savages. |
Anonymous
| I am glad I went to an all boys HS. I was so anxious as a teen I can't even imagine what I would have done with my acne - and ripping farts after lunch in class. Girls would have made me very self conscious. Boys have a strange nurturing way when left to their own devices IME. |
Anonymous
| Amen to this post!! |
Anonymous
I have been very impressed with the grads from all boys schools that I have encountered throughout my life. Perhaps it depends upon which all-boys school one is talking about much like anything in life. I can't say that I would take the word of NCS girls as a final opinion on all-boys schools based upon their interactions with STA boys. It is a pretty narrow pool on both ends. In any event, I remember thinking most boys in middle and high school were pretty jerky and immature and I went co-ed.. It took them awhile to grow up. |
Anonymous
I can understand why certain women would despise her, but the mother of boys should put the best interests of her sons above politics. |
Anonymous
WHY do YOU care? |
Anonymous
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An all boys school is the best place for our son. The very best and, yes, that is STA. I love what my son is becoming. I see an independent (both in thought and actions), hard working, empathetic young man emerging, with a work ethic that, even I, an adult, admire. There is enough interaction with NCS (the proximity helps) for the boys to have a healthy relationship with girls.
We also see some of the men that STA has produced, the life long friendships that I do not see replicated in other environs. We love it. We know it is not perfect. Utopia does not exist anywhere. It is also not for everyone. YMMV and that's fine too. Do what is best for your child. |
Anonymous
Different poster here -- SAM2 phrased it well. Sommers has cashed in on fairly alarmist rhetoric ("the war against boys"). That sort of rhetoric has hurt her credibility on the issue, although I thought the Atlantic argument was fairly restrained and she did a good job of focusing on more verifiable trends (such as falling college and grad school attendance by men). I did not read the Atlantic article as specifically pushing all-boys' education, by the way -- that was the original poster's take. Sommers did highlight some successful vocational/technical programs, for example, and (in an echo of her more polemical writings) argue against them being shunted to the side in a fear that they favor boys over girls. She also argued for a style of education that recognizes that boys may need/crave more activity and competition in the classroom than the old 19th century "line up your desks in a row and be quiet and take notes model." With that said, I've seen the style of teaching at all-boys schools like St. Albans and Landon and Prep and Roxbury Latin (Boston), and co-ed independents like Maret, Sidwell, and GDS. Guess what? They look pretty similar by Upper School. Discussion-based classes, debates, lab-based sciences that are hands on, clubs (like robotics) that play to the tinkerer in the boy (or girl). Independent school education (at the high school level, which is my focus and area in which I'm more knowledgeable) does not oppress boys. So . . . nothing earthshaking here . . . it comes down to fit. Some parents like the "feel" of a school full of brothers for their sons, others want them to have an atmosphere more like what they'll experience at college and in the workplace. When it comes to all-girls education, I do think there is a difference. For social reasons, girls often defer to the boys by high school, and academically and socially girls will take the lead more (on average) in all-girls situations. (The research seems to support that the best age for all-girls is high school, for all-boys is middle school when they are wigglier!) But, there are social costs to that as well, and perhaps also educational (girls putting more pressure on themselves than they might in a co-ed setting). Lots of different options and ways to look at this. And to wrap up where I started, questioning whether one particular expert, in this case Ms. Sommers, has the right prescription or perhaps has biases that shape her judgment does not make someone a mother who puts her own politics or interests ahead of her children's welfare. |
Anonymous
| Um, if NO boys attended coed private schools, how could any girl attend a coed private school? |