Vandy to offer gender-based classes

PARKERSBURG - VanDevender Middle School will offer sixth-grade gender-based classes in the fall of 2010, with all grades at the school having separate girls and boys core classes by 2012.

Teachers and administrators wrapped up a two-day training session Tuesday with Leonard Sax, an expert on gender-based learning and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE).

The group of about 20 school teachers, including Vandy's sixth-grade team and some seventh- and eighth-grade teachers, as well as the school's top administrators gathered for the training session at the Blennerhassett Hotel. The middle school has worked over the last several years to raise achievement scores for all students and is looking to gender-based programs as a way to help the process along.

"We have carefully examined the way we do things at Vandy," said Principal Stephen Taylor. "We've made a lot of progress, but we feel we're at a roadblock right now. We were very interested in this approach to the classroom."

Penny Tonelli, assistant principal at Vandy, said the group has been looking at the gender-based classroom model for a while and hopes to spend the next year learning more about the approach and training teachers on how to best approach single-sex classrooms.

The school will offer boys and girls classes for sixth-grade students in the four core subject areas: English, math, science and social studies. As that group of students progresses through grades seven and eight at Vandy, the program will grow as well.

"We don't want to change the things we've already done," Tonelli said. "We have been making great progress, and we want to build on that progress. This is another tool that we are going to use."

Sax, who led the teacher training session, said studies and his own research have shown gender-based learning works when coupled with the proper training and buy-in from teachers and parents alike.

"In 2002 we had 11 schools (nationally) using gender-based programs," he said. "Now we have 540."

Gender-based classrooms aren't just about teaching girls and boys in separate classrooms. Sax said how each group learns, what interests them and what drives them, can be very different.

For example, during Tuesday's lecture Sax spoke about different approaches to teaching science. Boys, he said, tend to be very hands-on and at younger ages find their interests captured by things that would be considered "gross," such as bugs, snakes and slimy things. They also thrive on technical descriptions.

Girls, by contrast, are very relationship driven, and will find interest in things through encouragement and group activities. They also look at larger themes and the reasons behind decisions and scientific principals.

There is some crossover between the two areas, Sax said, but how the topics are initially approached can mean the difference between an engaged student and one who becomes disinterested.

Sax said VanDevender must include parents in the process, explaining the concept of gender-based classrooms as they are developed.

"You've got to speak to your parents. You must answer those questions and doubts," he said. "Vandy is doing this the right way. They are being careful and thoughtful. They are doing this a year in advance so they can begin those conversations. When the program starts a year from now, your teachers are trained and ready."

"My hope is, in a couple of years down the road, I could come back to train the high school teachers," in gender-based classrooms, Sax said.

Vandy is not the first Wood County school to offer gender based classes. Several years ago Jefferson Elementary Center allowed girls and boys versions of a sixth-grade science and English courses.

"Those programs were very successful," said Principal Judy Johnson. "We saw improvements in discipline, in achievement. It was a very good program."

Last year most of the district's sixth-grade students moved into the middle schools while ninth-grade students moved into the high schools as part of a district grade shift.

"The (gender-based) program ended because the two teachers who taught the classes moved with the sixth-graders over to Vandy," Johnson said.