Single Sex Education

By Elder George

The March 2, 2008 edition of The New York Times Magazine contained a cover story entitled Teaching to the Testosterone, which reported on the small but rapidly growing trend of a return to single sex education. This article filled me with elation for I have championed single sex education for 15 years, and those who have checked my website or invested in my information booklets will have noticed that the mission statement of Men’s action to Rebuild Society calls for the conducting of single sex youth education programs.

According to the article, scientific research and educational studies (Western man is in a continual process of conducting studies because he knows so little of the nature of the universe) reveal that girls and boys learn differently. They have not yet come to the conclusion that men and women are different—a realization that will require considerably more investigation by Western sources.

In my lectures and on my website I indicate that women are noun people and men are verb people. The article explains that in single sex art classes girls use bright colors and draw still lifes, whereas boys use darker colors and draw active situations. That should not have been a revelation; nouns don’t move—verbs do. Noun people accept conditions and adapt to them; verb people change conditions. These are gender characteristics, not learning abilities.

Ignoring these characteristics creates problems. The article explains all that happens when you take a toy gun away from your son and give him a doll instead is that you tell him, “I don’t like the person that you are and I wish you would be more like your sister Rema.” The continual comparing of behavioral characteristics of one sex to another creates confusion and the ultimate need for medication. It is better to teach in accordance with natural gender differences.

In single sex classes, girls are not told to stop talking; instead they do a lot of meeting in circles where every girl can share something from her own life that relates to the class. Instead of telling boys to sit still, their energy is utilized. Boys are given physical representation of number lines, relay races, and ball tossing during discussion. Females naturally sit and talk; men naturally stand and move. The approach to single sex teaching takes those characteristics into consideration.

To the West these ideas are revolutionary if not enlightening. To the rest of the world they are natural. Muslims have conducted single sex education in madrasas for centuries. Aside from catering to natural gender characteristics, single sex education avoids the sexual tension that develops when the age of puberty is reached.

The feminist drive to subvert the family in the Muslim world consists of telling the women Muslim practices regarding gender and education reflect a middle-ages mentality. Little do the feminists realize that the genderless values that they try to propagate are pre-historical—of a time when society did not know the purpose and meaning of life; when family and a God-consciousness had not yet developed.

The relationship of the Sun to the Earth, of the electron to the nucleus of an atom, and the relationship of a man to a woman are governed by the same fundamental principles. Men and women respecting each other and working in harmony together produce what is necessary to sustain themselves and grow in God’s love. That is the purpose of gender differences, characteristics, and attributes.

Elder George’s website is www.mensaction.net and he can be reached at 212-874-7900 ext. 1329.

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