Gregory’s False Good Idea

Gregory Charles recently got into jazzing aloud about education during a recent interview with my colleague Alexandre Pratt¹. His observations had the effect of a thunderclap, even sparking speculation about a possible political career for this multi-talented artist.

First, I want to say this: it is clear that Gregory Charles has been thinking about education for a long time. He went beyond the clichés of the school-is-the-basis-of-everything type, which no one disputes.

The artist started a discussion about education, I give him an A+ for that. I dream that we discuss as often – and as intensely – education as we discuss identity, in Quebec.

That’s the flowers.

There isn’t really a pot, but there is a huge caveat to Gregory Charles’ views on some of his statements. I will only discuss here his certainties on the separate classes, the guys on one side and the girls on the other…

It is a false good idea, even if intuitively, one can think that it is a very good one.

The idea of ​​returning to gender-separated classes, beyond everyone’s opinions, has been shattered by the data.

One of the most cited studies on this subject is the meta-analysis by researcher Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, which in 2014 analyzed 183 studies involving 1.6 million children in kindergarten, primary and secondary, in 21 countries².

Observation: there are no clear benefits, in terms of academic results, with single-sex classes. And there are marked disadvantages, particularly in terms of reinforcing boy-girl stereotypes.

Yes, boys do better in single-sex classes, noted the researcher. But in the United States, parents who choose single-sex education tend to be better educated and wealthier than average. However, the level of education of the parents and their level of income constitute one of the recognized markers of the academic success of their children. What makes these students successful? We cannot say that it is the single-sex class.

In 2013, I wrote about an experience at Collège Reine-Marie, in the east end of Montreal. This private school was reserved for girls until 2012. When we opened the doors to boys, we did so on the following basis: single-sex classes, mixed school life.

Principal Marc Tremblay wanted to adapt the teaching to boys and girls, according to their respective needs, according to their respective challenges. Intuitively, it’s an idea that makes sense, it’s an idea that seemed really fertile to me: guys are struggling at school, being overrepresented in school dropouts, for example.

But concretely, nine years later, the director made the following observation: it was a false good idea.

First, he explained to me, it’s a huge challenge for the teachers who have to modulate their approach, say, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for the guys, then, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., give the same course for girls. More difficult than it looks.

Then the results just weren’t there. In the end, “we haven’t noticed a big difference in the results of the guys, with the experience of the single-sex classes,” says Marc Tremblay. The gap in results between boys and girls has remained wide, which can be explained by several reasons”.

Ten years later, at the Collège Reine-Marie, the classes are all mixed.

Originally, the administrators of Collège Reine-Marie believed that, naturally, boys and girls would socialize in school life, outside of the classroom. This was not quite the case: “In the cafeteria, for example, the guys tended to stay with the guys, the girls with the girls. We imagined that they would end up rubbing shoulders, but it is not so true. At the prom of the first cohort, the boy-girl bond was not there. It confronted us,” said director Marc Tremblay, who is retiring in June.

And, nowadays, another issue: in a school with single-sex classes, what to do with students who identify as neither male nor female? Marc Tremblay: “This notion of non-gender has appeared and we have to deal with it, it’s present in a school that wants to be current. »

I come back to Gregory Charles. Interviewed by Paul Arcand³ the day after the publication of the chronicle of Alexandre Pratt, the professor of Star Academy saw another advantage to single-sex classes. That of removing girls from the gaze of teenagers, those who have “broil hormones”, which would be very distracting…

My answer: removing girls from teenagers’ vision in the name of their good concentration in chemistry class is another false good idea.

Women are part of society, period. Guys have to learn how to deal with women, teenage hormones or not.

I quote director Marc Tremblay, again, who includes gender relations in his observation of the failure of single-sex classes: “There is a nasty challenge to gender relations in Quebec. They need to be improved. We have a duty of education, as for the guys, in their relations with the girls. And not just at 17 when they come out of high school. It was part of our concerns: the guys have to deal with the girls, the girls have to deal with the guys. »

I seem to be rebuffing Gregory Charles, but that’s not the intention, not at all. On the contrary, I am delighted that someone of his stature is on fire about education in Quebec. If he advances answers that are sometimes obsolete, several of his questions are very valid and too little discussed, especially on the success of boys…

The singer has been initiating heated discussions about school since Sunday. It’s not nothing. I hope they will continue (although I doubt it). If Quebec had discussed education with the same passion as it has discussed the place of religious symbols in our society since Hérouxville, I think the problem of dropping out of school would already have been resolved.