Educating Girls in the 21st Century Learners
21st Century Skills
When you hear people talk about what we need to do – as a country, as educators, as parents – to appropriately educate 21st century learners, both girls and boys, so that they are equipped to be competitive in the next century, they tend to focus on what the skills the future will demand of today’s learners, the necessary content knowledge they will need, or the attributes that being successful contributors to the work environment of the next millennium will call for.
The Girls’ School Model of Success
There is an irony here for girls’ schools which for decades, because of their single gender nature alone, have been considered dangerously irrelevant. Yet, these educational institutions have been and are anything but irrelevant.
These are the very ones that have consistently focused on aspects of learning and development identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills – and have been doing so for years, far ahead of the overwhelming majority of their peers.
Record of Success
The good news is that there is clear evidence that girls’ schools are making a difference, closing the gap and creating a highly effective bridge to the 21st century. The National Coalition of Girls’ Schools sees first hand – and has research to prove – that girls’ school graduates have an edge when it comes to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
A peer-reviewed 2009 UCLA and National Coalition of Girls’ Schools research study identified the effectiveness of girls’ schools. The results showed the statistically significant edge girls’ school graduates have over their coed peers.
Compared to their coed peers, the study proved that graduates of girls’ schools have more confidence in their math and computer abilities and study longer hours. They are more likely to pursue careers in engineering, engage in political discussions, keep current with political affairs, and see college as a stepping-stone to graduate school.
What is particularly striking are the results related to 21st century skills:
- Ten percent more girls’ school graduates rate their confidence in math and computer abilities high at the start of college compared to their peers from coed schools.
- Girls’ school graduates are three times more likely than their coed peers to consider pursuing a career in engineering.
- Female graduates of girls’ schools are more likely than their coed counterparts to report that they frequently discuss politics in class and with friends; 58% compared to 48% in coed schools.
As the UCLA study points out, girls’ schools alums rate themselves more successful and engaged in exactly those areas in which male students have historically surpassed them – math, computers, engineering, and politics.
Focusing on More Than STEM
There is little doubt that when thinking ahead, STEM-related skills are key. As such, the Coalition applauds the hard work going on in all girls schools in this area. However, it is also important to remember that 21st century skills are not just defined solely by knowledge of academic content. What girls will need – and what we, as educators, parents, mentors, and role models need to reinforce--is broader, more subtle.
We want to unleash our girls, so that not only do they grow intellectually, but also socially and developmentally. We want to educate girls not just to be scholars, but also to be engaged leaders in their communities and in the world. We want to provide them with the right tools to be lifelong learners and problem solvers. Critical thinking is a difficult skill to teach. With girls, we can channel what we know they have – a desire to make the world a better place – and guide them, so that they can take a lead role in actually doing that.
The Power of an All-Girls’ Environment
We’re often asked why girls’ schools are necessary in a time when many girls are outperforming boys on standardized tests and when girls are going to college in greater numbers.
But, the truth is that while we’ve made great strides, women continue to be underrepresented in key areas of leadership. The corporate and political worlds continue to be led by men. Likewise finance, medicine, academia.
We’re also often asked how girls can be prepared to be out in the world with men if they are in a seemingly isolated environment. The truth is, they are far from isolated.
How could anyone be in such an interconnected world? And beyond that, for the time they are there, very often during years of critical personal and intellectual development, girls find a single sex environment actually fortifies them.
Betty White, the Head of Sacred Hearts Academy, captures this well. She says that the longer girls stay in an all girls environment, the more time they have to become stronger and more confident.
So, that when they move beyond school and make their way in the world, they are in a position of power to face the challenges which come their way.
History has proven her right. And the future, with all the new challenges that it will hold, will do the same.
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