"Mr. Giffard,
If you disagree with my comment it is appropriate to offer your opinion
hopefully in a way that further elevates the discussion. I feel your
comments to me were offered not to advance the conversation, but to
rather attack the conveyer. I do not believe this is in keeping with
the intent of this discussion group and I would ask that you leave the
personal attacks out and focus on collegial conversation."
I would like to thank Susan McKevitt for this honest response. I have
been reeling from the reactions to my posting of two days ago from H. Furbrow
and from members of what appears to be his/her camp. I still don't know what I
said that prompted their attack response. I feel like I thought I was in a
tennis game, exchanging information, and found out I was really in a war. I
don't feel wounded, just confused. Perhaps it is the nature of this forum for
discussion, where all we have is words and where it is too cumbersome to do what
it takes to have a meaningful exchange among people coming from a variety of
directions. It's hard to ask participants what they mean, which is often
necessary in order to continue a real discussion and understand where the other
person is coming from.
As many have already said here, nothing in the discussion so far is hostile to
males. On the contrary, I have read a lot of soul searching about where we go
from where we are in getting **all** our children educated. To move forward
with this discussion then: what prevents the country from allowing or what
prevents us from accepting single-sex schools and programs and classes as one
choice among many, so that parents could, with their children, consider this
option in deciding what schooling situation is best for them? In other words,
why doesn't this choice "go without saying"?
After all, for example, the majority of women in leadership positions in the
U.S. went to single-sex schools. Jan Gray, could you answer this from the legal
perspective? Ellen Wahl and Karen Humphrey from the research and practice
perspectives? (Deborah Brake is gone now). And any other participants with
thoughts on this.