Single-Sex Classrooms

It’s October, and we are coming to the climax of the Iliad while the sun shines into West 7 and the fall breeze blows through the open window. We’re reading through the laments of Priam and Hekabe for their best, most beloved son, and since I’m reading aloud, I’m mostly paying attention to the words in front of me, until I hear a quavering voice: “Tissues, please!” When I look up, I see that nearly all the junior girls have tears streaming down their faces. Like Priam, and Hekabe, and all of Troy, they are in mourning for Hektor.

Sometimes I think about how free the girls must feel in order to weep openly during class. The tears imply a certain trust they have in one another. Their freedom comes out in laughter, too. Girls at Trinity are funny—witty, silly, remarkably un-self-conscious. And when they laugh, they really laugh. They’re just so comfortable in their own skin.

It’s good to see their tears (tears over beauty seem like a rare gift to me) and good to see their laughter. It’s good to see them ask questions and then keep asking, on the hunt for a better answer, not worried about what their classmates will think. Above all, it’s so good to see the understanding, encouragement, and forgiveness they offer one another as their friendships grow. Once, in a discussion about Aristotle’s description of true friendship, one of the junior girls said, “I can’t think of anyone in the class I wouldn’t call a friend in this sense.” She didn’t even know how lucky she was to be able to say this. Aristotle says a man is lucky if he finds one true friend. He might have trouble believing this girl had seventeen. But I believed her.

There are lots of things that make this freedom and friendship among the girls possible. Much of the good we see at school comes from their own goodness and talents. But I think part of what makes it possible is the classroom itself. A girl is much more likely to ask her questions in a group of all girls than she would be in front of boys. Ask most girls, and I think you’ll get the same answer. A girl is more likely to speak her mind, more likely to crack a joke, more likely to cry when a poem is sad, if she’s not worried about what the boys will say. Smart girls are free to be smart, and they help each other to be ever more keen on the chase—iron sharpening iron.

A few years ago, one of the seniors gave a sharing at morning prayer about the friendships she formed at Trinity. She encouraged the younger girls to pour their time into building friendships with the other girls in their class, and to persist in pursuing friendships even when it seems difficult. “You are all my sisters,” she said. “I know I’ll always have you with me.” The bond she described is visible and palpable. The girls at Trinity challenge each other intellectually. They learn to appreciate differences and find points of unity. They cheer each other on through difficulties and build each other up in Christ. Their relationships are a gift to each other and to all of us.