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  WHAT DO GIRLS’ SCHOOLS DO DIFFERENTLY THAN CO-EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS?
  • They create a risk-taking environment designed for teaching that, in the words of James Joyce, “mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
  • They counter mass-media influences on female students by giving girls strengthening havens where they can effectively navigate the troubling image of girls in today’s media with balance and self-assurance.
  • They support a can-do philosophy. All leaders, movers and doers at the school are female. Girls’ schools show their students that any girl can be president, any girl can play the drums and any girl can take apart and reassemble a bike.
  • They ensure that learning takes center stage without social distractions. Without the presence of boys, girls tend to display their intelligence and curiosity regardless of powerful age-determined notions of popularity, attractiveness or negative peer pressure.
  • They incorporate research indicating that team problem-solving works well for girls by providing extensive opportunities for collaborative learning.
  • They guarantee that math, science and technology education are integral curricular components. Girls are expected to participate fully in these areas and they do.
  • They focus on real life issues like career, work and money highlighting the importance of financial literacy for girls. This dispells the Prince Charming myth that they will be cared for by someone other than themselves. Most women will be in the workforce by choice and necessity and all women must carry from school the economic tools to be self-sustaining.
  • They promote athletic participation as a natural way to develop team play, leadership, individual talent, physical conditioning, competence and knowing how to win and lose.
  • They sustain a predominately female culture whose hallmarks are caring, challenge, collaboration, competition, connection in the interest of developing each girl to her fullest potential and to develop a moral context that will serve them all their lives. In so doing, girls’ schools honor women’s voices, their female perspective, and their female way of doing things.
Why Girl’s Schools? The Difference in Girl-Centered Education. Fordham Urban Law Journal. December 2001.

Comments of Alumnis:

 
 


Natalie, student at The Andrews School 2004/2005 wrote on 02.02.2006

Personal opinion on single-sex education (anonymously)