wrt: out of curiosity, is there anyone here who supports single-sex education? but not this? . . .
and Would it be empowering to attend this school? Maybe until the student hits the real, unsegregated world ...
I think single-sex education has a distinct place in the world; my children are enrolled in a single-sex school. I'm undecided about this particular school (although as I wrote the following, I became more and more positive about it), but my first reaction is that I see little harm in it, and some genuine good is a real possibility. It's an experiment, first off: it's not going to take all gay kids out of all schools. Not even close.
So, I don't think its a democratic trying to make a perfect society by segregation (which makes no sense to me, as democrats were the staunchest supporters of bussing, which Republicans cried foul about). My question: Why NOT create a gay-dominant island in a hetero-dominant world--always _always_ with the awareness that it is but an island (no one will forget that, not in this country)? Is it possible that such an island may be a place where that group can get beyond simply defending their identity and explore more deeply human sexuality, from an angle unavailable other places, which will for the foreseeable future be hetero dominant, with the exception of a few bars and bathouses here and there?
Could such a distinct environment, devoted to education, create new "memes" that will come out to the rest of us--memes unlikely to be created in heterodominant environments and/or bars & bathouses? To say nothing of the fact that it may, in fact, help nurture strong gay adult leaders, because they haven't been forced to think about defending their identity during those 6 hrs a day during their formative years, and who can then help make the world safer for the others?
We all need nurturing environments in order to be strong enough to face the "real, unsegregated world." The wealthiest amongst us are probably the only minority that has the choice of never really dealing with that unsegregated world, i.e., in terms of wealth: they can manage their lives so that they never have to be around poor people who aren't in a state of economic dependence upon them (e.g., domestics, gardeners, etc.)
Other minority groups live in the dragon's mouth. In the case of gay kids, or kids perceived as gay, they may have no "safe house" in which to get strong enough, and have a sense of having allies.
This sense of having allies, of having a 'safe house' is invisible to many people in majority groups, who can't see their own dependence on a network in this "real, unsegregated world," that validates their existence on some level. So, when other groups say, "You know what, we need a space where the dominant group is not welcome," the majority starts shouting about reverse discrimination and/or making disparaging comments implying that the minority group is being namby-pamby victims who need to be tested by a fire that those in the dominant group never actually have to face...
(I did bring my soap box today, obviously. Now whale away at me . . .)
So while I don't think we should cling too tightly to group identities, which do become calcified and troublesome, I am not so willing to just say this is all bollocks. |
