Boys, girls and education

Re “Single-sex classes on a forward course,” Nov. 20

The most salient point that I found in the article was not what administrators said or what the teachers said about the separation of the sexes in the classroom environment. What I found most interesting were the comments of the two students, Ally Piddock and Reese Wexler. Ally commented, “Boys are a distraction because they goof around a lot.” And Reese pointed out, “It’s easier to pay attention in math when girls are not there.”

Those two comments beg the question about discipline in the classroom. Not that I am putting the blame on the teacher (I used to be one myself), but would not the ability to learn a subject be enhanced, no matter what the subject, when discipline is strictly enforced?

GARY MARC REMSON

Sherman Oaks

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I believe an option for single-sex education ought to be available to those who would like it. In the public sector, I would caution a move toward segregation that would allow for inequality of instruction for either girls or boys.

I am somewhat familiar with Marymount High School, the Catholic independent school for young women in West Los Angeles. Each student is accepted on the basis of whether she will succeed. The curriculum is challenging; the environment a caring one. I also know that Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary High School, a co-educational school in Montebello, serves its students well with a varied curriculum.

Success, however, in any school requires not only well-trained teachers, a demand for parent cooperation and equality in funding, but that students be given the tools to think and to learn and that they be expected to do so by all in the enterprise of education.

MARY LEAH PLANTE

Montebello