Sunday, March 2, 2008

how appropriate

today's nytimes had so many great articles. or at least, nytimes.com did. i'm not even sure of the dates of the 3 articles that i thought were so great but here they are:
teaching boys and girls separately
as someone who went to a coed public school i really dont agree with separate sex teaching, but part of this argument was very convincing. dr. sax is taking a biological approach to why students should be separate. to me this sounds too much like how science has been used from so many wrongs in the past, the biggest one is the reason to enslave africans. on the other hand, ann tisch, who founded the "young women's leadership school of east harlem," feels that their are more social reasons for girls to be separated from boys, which i can appreciate but i'm still not sold on the idea. neither approach seems to deal with children who may not fit the "norm," what about boys who actually like to sit and chat or appreciate the warmth of feminine behavior that supposedly only girls want, or girls who want to get up and run around or like to talk loudly? or young homosexual or transgender boys or girls who may not feel comfortable around their own sex? and one of the reasons that i really feel that coed is the best way to go is that i think it is necessary to recognize that students may be a distraction toward each other (especially as they hit puberty) but learning to interact with each other regardless of differences is the only way to get through life.
how do you prove you're a jew?
after yesterday's post i wanted to make it clear that i view jewishness as a religion only, and not as a nationality. after reading this article, i think it helped me to see how jewishness is tangled up as a religion and a political idea.
and
the emerging minority
i am about to fall asleep on my keyboard from exhaustion, i cant say much more other than, people should stop assuming people are going to act/think/vote a certain way because of their gender/class/skin color/sexual preference/other.

No comments: