Another one bites the dust.
In a battle against the boys club, Sydney’s historic Barker College has thrown open the doors to girls from 2018 – with plans to become fully mixed by 2022.
Principal Phillip Heath made the announcement at assembly on Friday that after 126 years of mostly segregated learning, the wall will be broken down.
In a win for common sense, Heath argued that your junk doesn’t determine what you do in life, saying “students once went into predictable careers in worlds that were generally unchanging. Now we know that the rate of change is vastly more than we could have ever imagined.
“We also know that gender is far less an accurate predictor of a student’s vocational choice and even career purpose.”
It’s the second school the principal has made co-educational, off the back of St Andrews in 2008, and Heath says he’s concerned about how kids grow up separated from one another:
“I have a growing suspicion that the way Australian culture is expressing itself, and it’s not only boys’ schools promoting machismo, but the lack of awareness informed through another experience is diminishing some of our young people as they move through to university, and they are missing opportunities to learn respect,”
The argument here is that by stopping kids of all genders from growing up around each other, we stop ’em from getting each other – potentially leading to domestic violence, misogyny and people leaving the toilet seat up. If it starts early, indefensible locker room banter is much more difficult to tackle later on.
Scientists say there’s basically no benefit to putting up a wall between guys, gals and anyone in between – calling the arguments for single sex schooling ‘pseudoscience’.
Educational experts have come out bloody cheering for the move:
Wonderful and welcome news @BarkerCollege @PJjHeath Bring it on!! https://t.co/wB3JBs4DQj
— Diana Drummond (@dianadrum) November 4, 2016
Wonderful news @BarkerCollege! Great for parents to have the choice of another North Shore Coeducational School.
— Redlands (@Redlands_School) November 4, 2016
So good on Barker College – if you’re keen, there’s an information session on November 16.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Photo: Barker College.
