Single-Sex Schools

Going to school for most children and teenagers in the United States of America is a normal, expected routine. A big part of the school experience involves socialization with your peers. However, going to a single sex school deprives students from getting the complete socialization practice. Single sex schools also keep you from learning to compete with the opposite gender. These institutions even encourage what parents surely do not wish to be encouraged. Thus, because of these three major consequences single-sex schools are not a good idea.

            Socialization and communication is an extremely important skill. It is an ability that can get your name spread around and even land you a job. It is something you will use your entire life. At a single sex school you will, of course, only socialize and communicate with one sex. While you may learn to socialize well with this specific sex it serves of no purpose outside of your school. Unlike the single- sex school, the world is not made up of one gender. Going to a single sex school will not allow you to practice your socialization skills on both sexes. Being able to socialize and communicate with EVERYONE is what truly matters.

            In the case of an all-girl school, girls will be deprived of learning to work with one of their biggest competitors of the world, boys. One of the major arguments for an all-girl school is that girls learn better when they aren’t competing with or being intimidated by boys, who statistically get more attention in the classroom. Nevertheless a girl who wants to learn will learn no matter who is in the classroom. Learning begins with the desire to learn. Also if girls never face their intimidation of boys then life in general will be made much harder for them, because boys in the working world will not just one day randomly disappear. Keeping girls in a closed institution away from the competition of boys will only increase intimidation when the time to compete against a boy comes and in fact be a disservice to the girl and to the whole world.

            Single sex schools are a tricky concept because they can end up becoming dangerous, particularly at the teenage level. The teen years are years were a lot of curiosity is developed, especially about the opposite sex. Keeping teens away from the opposite sex during the eight hours of school and assuming parents do no let their teen child go anywhere they want to when they want to, can make teens resort to extreme measures to suffice their curiosity. Teenagers might be encouraged to sneak around just to hang out with the opposite sex. They might also be encouraged to lie to their parents to be able to go somewhere co-ed, such as a party. I’m sure parents will not approve of such encouragement of this particular behavior, but teens might feel that this is the only way. Overall the risk and cons that come with single-sex schools do more damage to a student than anything else. The focus should be taken off of single-sex schools and put on improving the co-ed schools we already have.