Single Gender Education

I went to an all girls school and a coed school. At the coed school, the girls spent all their time trying to impress the boys with makeup, mini-skirts and see-through shirts, whereas at the girl’s school it was much more relaxed with no need to impress anyone and more focus on academic work. This could be related to a difference in public and private education, which also comes into the question of how much students focus, and on what they focus on. When you’re parents are paying, there is often a lot of pressure to do well.

I really enjoyed the girls school that I went to, not having the boys around suited me. However, I am aware of research that shows boys benefit by having girls around, it helps them focus, whereas girls benefit from not having them around. Also, in Sydney at least, it seems problematic that private boys schools foster a lot of warped ideas about hyper-masculinity and encourage negative kinds of sexism in their enforced codes of chivalry. Whereas, in coed schools, relations between the sexes form and express themselves much more naturally and realistically. All I can say for sure is that I think primary schools should all be coed. I’m not sure about high schools.