Hi Sheila,
 
  PMFJI but I thought I'd add my unsolicited 2 cents worth :)  By way 
of a quick introduction I'm a father of four (all girls ages 6-16), 
currently teach both freshmen and juniors at North Dakota State 
University (Air Force ROTC), and did my graduate work in HR (cross 
cultural counseling focus).  I've always been interested in how well we 
prepare our children for "the real world" and consequently the area of 
life skills has always interested me.  The discussion of same sex 
classrooms sort of falls into this area in the context of preparing 
young people to handle themselves in various social settings.
 
SK> Hmm. Well, there probably are individuals for whom their performance
SK> would not change, whether in a single-sex of co-ed classroom. But th
SK> are students for whom this is a big distractor. Adolesence is not on
SK> time of hormonal imbalance, but also a time when young people are
SK> learning social conventions and learning about themselves, their own
SK> self-concept and how they relate to others. You can't expect kids in
SK> classroom to just automatically stop thinking about things things in
SK> classroom and focus on the course subject matter without giving anot
SK> thought to the other persons in the room. And if the opposite sex is
SK> a kid's mind, I can see where removing persons of that sex from the 
SK> might very well take some of the distractions away and enable them t
SK> devote more of their attention to the subject matter at hand. I can
 
I do believe that while there can be many "distractors" present in a 
co-ed classroom, that it is important for the student to learn how to 
deal with those distractors.  After all we are preparing them to work, 
live and survive in a co-ed world.  Understood that teens face an 
incredible challenge dealing with all the physical and emotional 
changes that accompany adolesence, but wouldn't it be great if we could 
teach them skills to help them handle these situations?  I feel that 
the classroom instructor can use various experential activities 
throughout the academic term to focus on self worth, communication, 
team building and trust to help the students work with each other and 
get past the giggly-note passing stage.  The outcomes could be a better 
understanding of who they are as people, who their classmates are and 
how they can rely upon each others strengths.
 
Part of the problem with this is that there are still too many 
instructors that are more teacher focused then student focused, and 
toss off some of these classroom exercises because they don't directly 
contribute to the "teaching of chapter X".  There's too much core 
material to teach and they don't have the time to do the "fun" stuff. 
Understandable and a definite challenge for the instructor--too it's an 
added load for the instructor to be able to process the activity and 
somehow tie it into the lesson, either directly if it fits, or 
indirectly by showing how it helped to develop some interpersonal 
skills or teambuilding skills--and why those are important.
 
I've facilitated small group exercises where the gender mix was a 
definite inhibitor to the process, and you should have seen the look 
in the eyes of the students as we processed it afterward!  Pointed 
questions such as "How effective was your team in solving the problem? 
What were some of the barriers you encountered? How can you eliminate 
those barriers? How might these barriers affect you if you were on a 
project team at IBM or [*fill in the blank* company]."  You won't take 
the adolescent out of the kid (and we shouldn't try to) but we can 
enlighten them in a safe, low-threat environment.
 
Oops! I was just going to add my 2 cents worth and I'm well on my way 
to a novel. :)  On a closing note, I've had the opportunity to see how 
some of the products of the all male military schools interact in a 
co-ed training environment and it is rough.  A great many are 
testosterone time bombs waiting to explode and they are ill prepared to 
deal with females in either a social or a work environment.  To me that 
is both sad and preventable.  But hey, that's just me :)
 
Thanks for listening,
 
Dale, Sysop
The SPECTRUM BBS
captain.scarlet@spectrumbbs.com
--- TriDog 10.0
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