Educational Alternative

RE: “It’s Better Together,” “Call off the Gender Police” editorials, March 15

To the editors:

Having attended both single-sex and coeducational schools before coming to Harvard, I found myself disappointed by both the staff editorial and dissenting opinion on this topic.

First I was upset that both pieces began with attacks against their opponents rather than addressing any arguments. Supporters of single-sex education are not “cootie-phobic,” and supporters of coeducation are not “the gender police.” Education is such an important issue, and Harvard students, the people who unfortunately might very well be making the decisions about it in the future, revert to juvenile name-calling tactics.

The author of the staff editorial needs to learn that not everything misaligned with his or her political ideology is malicious. Single-sex education is not about segregation or sexism. Single-sex education is not about replacing the gender-integrated system; it’s about providing an alternative that some students find more fitting.

Furthermore, neither of these articles deals with how students of single-sex education feel about it. If the students love it, why take it away? If the students hate it why have it? Experience is more important than ideology.

Finally, the claim that single-sex schools don’t prepare students for the world beyond school is actually a criticism of itself for failing to realize that single-sex students are involved in the world beyond their school. Do the critics really believe single-sex students do nothing other than attend single-sex schools? It’s narrow-minded to say that single-sex students will not have sufficient interaction with the opposite sex and will somehow lack cooperative or social qualities. It also assumes individuals don’t develop after finishing single-sex schooling.

I wouldn’t trade my single-sex education if given the chance, and the majority of people I’ve met who’ve attended single-sex schools would agree with me. Maybe The Crimson should conduct a poll.


JUSTIN LANNING
Cambridge, Mass.
March 16, 2009