The Bull Speaks!

There are good ideas when it comes to teaching kids. There are bright ideas when it comes to how to discipline kids, too.

There are, however, NO good, decent, or bright ideas when it comes to segregation of kids in the public schools. None, what so ever. Segregation was a bad idea when we did it by race and it is a bad idea when we do it today by sex.

In my son’s middle school, Hankins Middle School of Theodore, AL, (a suburb of Mobile, AL), the principle has taken it upon herself – without any form of notice to the parents drom either the school or District offices – to segregate the students by their sex – males in one set of classrooms and the females in another set of classrooms. Moreover, Ms. Cheryl Wittner has the full support of the Mobile County School District.

Or maybe she only thinks she has… The District would not discuss it with The Bull save to say that in their opinion “children have no ‘rights’ and that it is entirely a school-by-school decision to be made by the principle of the school“.

OK, since when do Americans, middle school age or not, “have no rights“?

I know that there are plenty of folks that will say that students will likely study better without the distraction of members of the opposite sex sitting within arms reach. Some of those same people will say that discipline in the schools will improve if the sexes are separated. To those people let me answer with the following:

Looking back through the last hundred years I can find no evidence of American students failing to learn just because a member of the opposite sex was sitting nearby. In fact, let us not forget that that those non-sexually segregated students gave us all the modern marvels we use in our daily lives. They even sent men to the moon. Not a bad record. As for discipline, there is also no evidence that behavior failed during all of those decades. No, discipline failed when corporal punishment and strict parenting fell out of favor. It had nothing to do with the sexes being mingled.

All of this, of course, is merely The Bull letting off steam and no one will care. So let’s look more closely at this trend of sexual segregation.

In the more modern times, indeed, until the year 2000, such sexual segregation was outlawed in America. However, laws have been relaxed to allow the “experimentation” with this sad, out-dated mode of education. Since that date several states have looked into the implementation of sex segregation including Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and now Alabama.
(Do you see a geographical trend?)
The Education Department issued final rules in 2006 detailing how it would enforce the Title IX landmark anti-discrimination law. Under the change, local school leaders have discretion to create same-sex classes for subjects such as math, a grade level or even an entire school. The idea being “separate, but equal, education“, (We’ve heard that before here in America, haven’t we?), for all of the ghost-reasons listed above – and others that you won’t believe!

The problem is that the education received may be separate, but is rarely equal.

Enter, the ACLU, stage left. (…and it is killing The Bull to write this. )

Note: Folks, I physically had to leave the computer at this point for several hours. This entire subject, the ACLU, & the fact of just how liberal I think I’m sounding here made me physically ill. It is now after midnight and I will try again to made my case against this “new” idea in education. The writing here does not, and will not, live up to my usual standards simply because of how upset I am over the entire topic. No words can describe the disappointment I am feeling that my beloved Nation that struggled so long over segregation would so willingly start down that path again.

So, the Bush Administration opened the door to this horror from the past. (Not one of Dubya’s better moments, for sure!) But why? Why would anyone even consider such an act? Where is this educational horse-shyte coming from? Here’s a clue…

Charlotte Allen, (author of an op-ed in the Washington
(com)Post on Sunday, March 2, 2008) wrote:

The theory that women are the dumber sex…is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men’s and women’s brains not only look different, but men’s brains are bigger than women’s (even adjusting for men’s generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy.

Then we have Michael Gurian, (the author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, & founder of the Gurian Institute). He wrote in the Teacher’s Guide that accompanies his book:

Girls have difficulty learning some math, perhaps because they are not called on as much but also for biological reasons. Adolescent males receive surges of the hormone testosterone five to seven times a day; this can increase spatial skills, such as higher math. Increased estrogen during the menstrual cycle increases female performance in all skills, including spatials, so an adolescent girl may perform well on any test, including math, a few days per month.

What the hell? THIS is what we shall use as our guidelines toward training our young? We have just been set back several centuries in our gender roles. But wait! It gets worse!

A guy named Leonard Sax, a family physician and the founder of the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, states that biologically, girls’ brains perform worse under stress, while boys’ brains perform better, and thus girls should never be given time limits on tasks, while boys’ classes should be structured around competition.

As it was asked on an ACLU website: “Who do you think will perform better in a demanding work environment after receiving such a gender-typed education?”

Let me ask this as well: What about the social skills that are being lost? How can children learn to behave around the opposite sex if they are not allowed to interact in any way without threat of punishment, such as what is happening at Hankins Middle School? How will this play out in the future lives of these children? It is too big of a gamble in my book.

The ideas proposed by the supporters of this segregation of children are fortunately NOT without their detractors. Many studies show that it is much better for male and female children to be together during the educational process. Prof. Analia Schlosser, from Tel Aviv University, wrote that boys and girls may learn differently, but American parents should think twice before moving their children to sex-segregated schools. Let me quote from the AFTAU webpage on the topic:

“Being with more girls is good for everybody,�? says Prof. Analia Schlosser, an economist from the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. “We find that both boys and girls do better when there are more girls in the class.�? She investigated girls and boys in mixed classrooms in the elementary, middle, and high-school grades of the Israeli school system.

In an unpublished paper, Prof. Schlosser concluded that classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall. “It appears that this effect is due to the positive influence the girls are adding to the classroom environment,�? says Prof. Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next.

This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school.

Pulling out my best Master Yoda voice I have to say “Interesting, that last line was”.

It appears, from the research The Bull has done so far that most school districts starting sex-segregated programs today are doing so on the based entirely on these theories. The rest are using the simply stupid idea of improved behavior. There are a thankfully small number, (mainly in Canada), that are sexually segregating their students in order to conform to Islamic (Sharia) law. I pray that is never the case here. However, considering the attitudes in the Mobile District offices, who can be sure?

I wish assure my readers that it sickens me to have to agree with so liberal a bunch as the ACLU, NOW, and others. However, this idea of gender segregation is one that should be, must be, stopped. It is as vile as the idea of racial segregation and should be treated the same. To that end The Bull has contacted the ACLU of Alabama and have requested their help in this matter. I am now awaiting their response. There has been success in striking down this foolishness in other states.
I pray that this is squashed in Alabama soon.

Please, leave your comments and let me know just how far off-base you think I am. There will be follow-ups to this post. No doubt at all. Now I need to hurl…

Bull, out.  

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