The theory is that by separating girls and boys - especially during middle school years typically marked by burgeoning hormones, self doubt, and peer pressure - lessons can be more effective because they are in unique classroom settings.
For example, Chadwell said, research shows boys do not hear as well as girls, so teachers of all-boys classes often use microphones. And because boys' attention spans tend to wander, incorporating movement in a lesson, like throwing a ball to a student when he chooses to answer a question, can keep them focused.
In one recent boys' class, a group of gangly seventh-graders sprawled on the floor around a giant vinyl chart, using skateboard parts and measuring tape to learn pre-algebra. In another school a few miles away, middle school girls interviewed one another, then turned their surveys about who is shy and who has dogs into fractions, decimals, and percentages. Classical music played softly in the background.
Teachers in all-girls classes say they have learned to speak more softly, because their students can take yelling more personally than boys. And the educators gear their lessons to what students like: assigning action novels for boys to read or allowing girls to evaluate cosmetics for science projects.
"Boys like the activities. They like moving around. They like something dramatic," said Becky Smythe, who teaches all-boys and all-girls English and history at Hand Middle School in Columbia, which launched single-gender classes this year in its sixth grade. The school plans to expand the program to seventh grade next year.
Chadwell, a Detroit native, had spent years in classrooms elsewhere, including teaching in a Quaker school outside Philadelphia and helping start a school in China, before he began teaching in South Carolina in 1999.
Five years later, aiming to create what he calls the "best middle school experience possible," Chadwell received permission from the state to launch South Carolina's first public, all-day single-sex program.
Then came new state schools Superintendent Jim Rex's push to expand single-gender education to give parents more options within public schools, and Chadwell seemed perfect to head those efforts. He took the post in July.
