Kurma

Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

By ELIZABETH WEIL, Published: March 2, 2008, NY Times

On an unseasonably cold day last November in Foley, Ala., Colby Royster and Michael Peterson, two students in William Bender’s fourth-grade public-school class, informed me that the class corn snake could eat a rat faster than the class boa constrictor.

Bender teaches 26 fourth graders, all boys. Down the hall and around the corner, Michelle Gay teaches 26 fourth-grade girls. The boys like being on their own, they say, because girls don’t appreciate their jokes and think boys are too messy, and are also scared of snakes.

The walls of the boys’ classroom are painted blue, the light bulbs emit a cool white light and the thermostat is set to 69 degrees. In the girls’ room, by contrast, the walls are yellow, the light bulbs emit a warm yellow light and the temperature is kept six degrees warmer, as per the instructions of Leonard Sax, a family physician turned author and advocate who this May will quit his medical practice to devote himself full time to promoting single-sex public education...

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Bruce W. from Australia writes:

"Regarding Vegetarian Athletes: At the Top of Their Game

Wise words. It's worth noting that in the realm of AFL (Australian) football, team dieticians have for many years prescribed largely vegetarian high-carb foods for the players at the elite level, allowing only small servings of flesh foods. This is because in the late 80s it was found that 'last quarter fade-out' was due to meat consumption and its subsequent loss of stamina.

Savvy coaches then started to 'carb.load' their players with rice or pasta to give them the edge when most needed. Some might remember the ageing marathon runner Cliff Young, who won the Sydney to Melbourne event fuelled with mashed pumpkin and potato!"

Discuss Comment [0] Trackback [0] Last Quarter Fade-out