VOALearningEnglish 2011.1.4---A High School Offers Single-Sex Classes to Top Students

I'm Alex Villarreal with the VOA Special English Education Report,
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Most American schools have boys and girls in the same classroom. But a public high school in the small, rural town of Boonsboro, Maryland, offers a special program. Top students in the ninth and tenth grades can attend single-sex classes for math, science, English and social studies. The aim is to help teenagers keep their mind on their work by keeping males and females apart. Rebecca Brown chooses the students for what Boonsboro High School calls the Academy.She says: "What we really want to do is take that top group of kids and take them to the very highest level they can achieve here, so that they're prepared for college."Placement in the Academy is voluntary. Students are invited after middle school. They need good grades, high test scores and strong teacher recommendations. They also need to be involved in activities.Almost three hundred fifty students have taken part in the Academy. It began as an experiment in two thousand four. Michael Bair has been at Boonsboro High for twenty years and directs the Academy. His ninth-grade English class for boys centers on books that he believes boys find interesting. One of those books, for example, is "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London. This classic story tells of a dog stolen from his home and sold to work as a sled dog during Canada's Klondike Gold Rush.On this day, the students are working in small groups. Two students explain why they are drawing pictures that relate to the story. Drawing helps them visualize the setting of the story and gets them to think more about the important events of the story.Morgan Van Fleet is a senior at Boonsboro High. She likes being in the Academy. She says boys and girls act differently when they are together in a classroom. She says it is easier to focus on the lesson and the homework in a single sex class. There is one activity that girls and boys in the Academy do together. At the end of the day, many of them stay and help tutor students who are having trouble in school.For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal. Tell us what you think about single-sex classes. You can comment on our website, voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find transcripts and MP3s of our programs. And you can find us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.

(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 02Dec2010)