Schools find single gender classes work well

ANDERSON, S.C. - Education minus hormones equals focused students, according to teachers at Starr-Iva Middle School, one of two Anderson County schools separating boys and girls during core academic classes.

Single-gender classes are used primarily in middle schools, but at Nevitt-Forest Community School of Innovation, an elementary school in Anderson, they are offered to first through fifth grades to meet varying learning dynamics. Kindergartners are excluded from single-gender classes to allow them to transition to a school setting, said Principal David Pressley.

For at least five years, parents have chosen between mixed or separate classes for their sons and daughters, he said, and many are pleased with the latter.

Test scores have improved and confidence has bloomed.

"Our parents really appear to enjoy the experiences their children have gained," Pressley said.

Getting used to middle school requires similar adjustment to what can be an awkward time, said Starr-Iva sixth-grade math teacher Lynn Grice. Dressing for, talking to and trying to impress the opposite sex can make it even more so. Grice has been teaching for 26 years, but this is her first year instructing genders separately.

Male and female students are as different from each other as night and day, she said.

"My mornings are very rowdy," she said, laughing. "My afternoons are calmer."

She has seen both groups regain focus because teachers can tailor learning techniques to their strengths. She emphasized that while every child learns differently, her experience has taught her significant distinctions between genders.

"Boys need more movement," she said. "Lots of times girls can sit and take notes, and they're basically quiet."

When you put them together notes pass, long looks are shared and boisterous attempts to show off steal the attention from algebraic equations.

"If I had a lot of boyfriends and girlfriends in the same class, I felt like there was a huge distraction," Grice said.

At Nevitt-Forest, learning techniques play to each gender's preferences. Teachers toss colorful foam balls to male students to answer questions, Pressley said, a practice that keeps their attention and fosters the competition they crave. Female students who seem to thrive on encouragement write positive notes to their classmates.

Principal Barry Jacks, who began at Starr-Iva this fall, watched Palmetto Assessment scores at Wright Middle School in Abbeville County improve with single-gender classes so he brought the idea with him. "It was a very favorable thing," he said. "It was a just a clay mold of our past experience, and it worked there."

Gaps in maturity are most apparent in junior high, he said, and separating genders makes classes run smoother.

"It does make a difference," Jacks said. "Middle school kids are nothing but big elementary school kids. At that age, it's a different kind of peer pressure than even at high school. They do more silly kinds of things to try to get attention from one another that even high school kids would not do."

Time may change their minds, but some Starr-Iva students do not like being separated, namely from their crushes.

Mykeal Cordtz, a sixth-grader, said he misses learning about girls' personalities during class.

"You can see which girls are smart and wise," he said. "It's sort of like a prison, girls in one cell, boys are in the other."

Grice said that even alone each gender is uniquely entertaining.

"A boy is going to instead of drop a piece of piece of trash in the trash can is going to shoot it," she said. "And that doesn't bother me. That's just them."

As she spoke, a line of sixth-grade boys trudged down the hall as she spoke. Some fidgeted. Some marched. Some sauntered, their fauxhawks pointed skyward.

In Mia Pinson's seventh-grade English class, a sisterhood has formed.

"There's no drama in the girls' class," she said. "There's no competition and there's no showing off. They're focused."

Just then a group of sixth-grade girls walked down the hall clutching books, hands at their sides.

"See how quiet they are?" Pinson said. "They are here to learn. Imagine that."