Blog Post: Single-Sex Education

Several people have blogged about single-sex education, and I thought I would touch on this because I attended an all-girls high-school myself. I understand that it is natural and logical to come to the conclusion that single-sex education would lend itself to stronger gender barriers. However, what I found throughout my high-school experience was that the all-girls environment actually had the opposite effect. The motto of the school, "Women Learning; Women Leading," encouraged and inspired me to cultivate my interests and passions as a young woman and do it "as well as the boys," so to speak. The classroom environment was comfortable, intellectual, and open, and the absence of boys, if anything, made me less self-conscious about expressing my opinions and fostered in me a sense of confidence that I continue to carry with me now, as I take part in co-ed discussions. 

One may think that transitioning from a single-sex to a co-ed school would present a dramatic shift and require a student to make the effort to blend in or set gender biases aside. However, I'd like to think that I am the walking evidence of the positive effects of a single-sex school: instead of perceiving males-in-the-classroom as foreign, I simply see them as my peers and feel prepared and confident to engage in normal academic conversations with them. In a sense, the all-girls high-school was perfect in helping me "blossom" (as clichéd as that may sound) and developing/expressing my individuality before entering the "real," "co-ed" world. Single-sex education, if done right, can therefore be empowering.