News

Teachers to visit Columbia for training in single-gender education

March 5, 2008

COLUMBIA – More than 300 teachers from South Carolina and other states will visit Columbia this Saturday for some schooling of their own – a day of intensive training aimed at helping them run more effective single-gender classrooms.

Nearly 30 workshops will be offered during the professional development day, which will be held at Dent Middle School and sponsored by the Office of Public School Choice at the South Carolina Department of Education. The training workshops will include:

Girl Power! Lessons and activities to engage the female brain.

Boys Rule! Lessons and activities to engage the male brain.

Girls connecting with math and science.

Effective math classroom strategies for African-American males in the middle grades.

Real men read.

South Carolina has been portrayed in recent national news reports as a pioneer in single-gender programs. State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex, who wants to expand curriculum choices within public schools, created the Office of Public School Choice and hired David Chadwell, the nation’s first statewide single-gender coordinator, to help local districts get started. About 90 South Carolina public schools currently offer the option to parents, and 100 additional schools are expected to do so next school year, many as partially autonomous operations within existing schools.

Girls and boys in South Carolina’s single-gender classrooms say their experiences have increased their confidence, class participation, desire to succeed in school and ability to succeed. When more than 1,700 students responded to a recent Education Department survey, three out of four agreed that the single-gender approach was helping them in school.

“South Carolina students and parents are showing that they like this approach,” Rex said, “and schools are responding by offering it. Training workshops like next Saturday’s are one way that the Education Department can help schools become more effective.”

Rex supports legislation designed to increase the number and variety of choices available to students and their families. A bill sponsored by Lexington County Republican Ted Pitts would create public school choice committees in the state’s local school districts, each charged with creating new curriculum choices at the elementary, middle and high school levels within two years.

Current curriculum choices across South Carolina include magnet programs, schools-within-schools, alternative schools, virtual schools and charter schools. Some of the state’s public school choice programs include single-gender initiatives, middle college/early college, Montessori Education, evening high school, language immersion, academic academies, arts integration and international baccalaureate programs.

Last week Rex announced his agency’s hiring of a statewide Montessori coordinator, and he believes interest in that curriculum option also will be considerable.

The TimesandDemocrat.com
By T&D Staff