Tamsin

NEW DRAFT OF GENDER ESSAY:

People say that boys learn differently than girls. They say that boys don’t do as well as girls in school because they have female teachers. They say that the odds are stacked against them from the moment they step inside the doors of their elementary school. There are countless stereotypes about how kids will perform when placed in a particular school system. It is thought that once a child is put in an all-boy or all-girl school, then they will perform better than they would if they were put in a school system that has a mix of males and females. But is this actually the truth? Do boys actually have the odds stacked against them, or is this all just a single misconception? What //is// the truth is that everyone learns differently. If everyone learns differently, then it doesn’t seem possible that someone can take everyone and set the boys and girls apart, and say that the boys learn one way and the girls another. It just isn’t logical. Perhaps it’s only that boys don’t want to work. That statement of course also applies to girls, because people do better when they try and there are plenty of girls who don’t want to work, either. And perhaps people feel more pressure to do better when they’re surrounded by their own gender only. For instance, in the documentary //Raising Cain//, there’s a boy named Rueben. His adoptive grandmother moved him to a new school that was all-boys. After failing one of his classes, he felt obligated to do better, and he did. Moving to a school that was boys-only didn’t actually make him do better, because in fact he did worse. On the other hand, there are countless stories of kids that go to a single-gender school and do infinitely better. As a generalization, people usually think of single-sex schools having one of two effects: the first being less distracting because there’s no other kids of the opposite gender, or the second being more distracting because you have kids of all the same gender, who are all your friends, therefore being more distracting. It just depends on who the kid is and what they find distracting. There’s no statement that applies to all people, so there’s actually no way of making a school system of learning that will suit each individual’s style of learning. The one thing about Rueben’s case is that it happened in the U.S., in New York City’s Lower East side. Is it only U.S. schools that have this problem, or is gender also a problem in other places? The latter, it appears is correct. My father went to school in England. When he was eleven years old, his parents sent him off to an all-boys boarding school: Winchester College. The first time he ever went to school with girls was when he went to college at Cambridge University. He had the experience of being distracted by being with boys only. He tells a story in which he and his friends snuck out one night (having ignore curfew), scaling their building and carrying a bathtub. They created a makeshift boat out of the tub and sailed it in the river nearby. My father tells more stories about getting in trouble than about how well he did. Although, in the end, like Rueben, he did well, ending up at the top of his class. So this begs the question, which is better for kids, to separate them by gender or to keep them all together? Another problem with the separation of kids by gender is the fact that they are bound to end up together in the end. When the separation is enacted, it makes a bigger deal of the gender issue, emphasizing its affect on people. The action of putting boys in one class and girls in another is usually done “for their own good,” but is it really better? It doesn’t seem realistic because when two groups are gender-specific, it begs the idea that it’s the way the world works. However, the world does not work like that, because people will definitely interact with the opposite gender. It depends on if people look at the long-term or the short-term. Having looked at the short term, one might say that a mixed gender school is better, because children are less distracted. One also might say that a single-gender school is better because in the long term, they appear to do better. All in all, gender plays a difficult role in choosing schools. Is it better to pretend that boys and girls are always separate and different, or is it better to prepare kids for what’s up ahead and mix them all together? The reality is that it’s up to the parents and the way they were raised to think about gender. The basis of separating children based on gender is a problem. Splitting them apart will not enhance the way they learn. When a school is created to serve a single gender, it focuses on stereotypes of that gender, not thinking about how to teach the kids the best way possible that suits their learning style. The best way to teach kids is to not focus on their gender. It’s what’s best in any situation. Don’t focus on the way they look or what they are, but on who they are. It’s the only way to ensure success.

I liked how you brought in many examples for your piece, a thing to work on is a title that will be a good lead into your essay. (Micaela)

I liked how you brought up the questions and how you left some for the reader to decide. I also think that you should add evidence to your introduction. (Madeline)

I like the conclusion. It brings the piece together and states the point. I think you should try and use they less. (Nicole)

I agree with Nicole on the conclusion. But I think you should add more names. (Jordan)