Learning Like a Girl: Educating Our Daughters in Schools of Their Own

by Diana Meehan

Faced with a spirited eleven-year-old daughter, a concern about what therapists have called a ‘poisonous' youth culture— especially for girls—and a conviction that parents need powerful tools to help their daughters realize their potential, educator-activist DianaMeehan was disappointed in the selection of schools available. So she decided along with two other mothers to create one, based on social science and brain research on how girls learn best. The result, The Archer School in L.A., has in only ten years become a model for girls' schools nationwide. In this entertaining, inspiring book, Meehan describes her obstacle-ridden journey to create a new institution to serve girls first and foremost, while laying out through vivid stories and examples what girls need to thrive. She explains why co-education so often doesn't serve them (just as it doesn't serve boys), takes sides in the controversy over male/female learning differences, and advocates for schools' role in giving girls tools to navigate through our sexualized, materialistic culture. She also visits other schools around the country—private and public—to show how single sex education works, and how every girl everywhere can benefit from having a classroom of her own.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction, Parenting, School

352 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Windy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is really just a memoir from a woman who decided that she wanted to put her daughter in an all-girls school, and when none of the existing options fit, opted to found her own. Still, I would have liked to see a deeper examination of same-sex schooling... beyond rather weak assertions that girls prefer to work in groups. Then she congratulates herself and the school because a group of girls can build a robot!

I really started to lose interest when Meehan described in fair detail her efforts to secure multi-million dollar donations from Avian-drinking neighbors and then made rather passing reference to their poor hiring practices. To her, it was far more important to put her daughter in a makeshift school comprised of only girls than to ensure she had quality teachers.

Yet I kept reading until I got the to kicker at the end: She throws in a chapter dedicated to boys' schools and suggests that schools for boys should include some good female role models. You know, to make sure boys learn to respect women. Yet in her girls' school, she preferred to have no male teachers or administrators. It seems she just wants to isolate her girls from "rowdy" boys who will steal their voices. As she reflects upon a graduation ceremony in which the girls solemnly cut from a cake, she even suggests that boys would have summarily destroyed the cake in their boisterous male need to move and make noise.

[Courtney Dunham · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's little to no valid research presented, but rather sweeping generalizations/stereotypes that are for the most part infuriating. This is more of a self-congratulating account of how the school was started and less of why the school was started and why certain decisions were made along the way.

Meehan presents herself as a strong feminist, but her writing says otherwise. She argues that same-sex schooling prevents girls from being distracted by dating, which is painfully heteronormative. She also unnecessarily uses the term 'anorexic' to describe a woman. I wasn't sure if this was a joke about how thin the woman was or if she actually felt the need to point out her eating disorder; either way, it was distasteful and distinctly anti-feminist.

[Katia Cuevas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected "more". I have a young daughter and was really looking forward to reading this book, only to get bored not long after I started. I wanted to read more WHY all girls school are a better fit for our daughters not HOW she got the school started. I was looking for more than girls work better in groups and girls are more emotional, which really burned my bridges because that is not always the case and she did not provide many resources to back up her statements.

[Yasmine Haddad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learning Like a Girl by Diana Meehan is the story of how Archer was founded. In 1994, Diana Meehan was looking for an all-girls school to which to send her rising sixth-grade daughter. Since Harvard-Westlake combined there were no girls schools left on the westside of Los Angeles. Diana visited the Winsor School in Boston, MA, Castilleja School in Palo Alto, CA, The Hockaday School in Dallas, TX and Emma Willard in Troy, NY. After visiting all of these schools she teams up with Victoria Shorr and Megan Calloway to create the Archer School for Girls.

My favorite quote from the book is when Diana Meehan meets Pythia Lazarre, the director of the Westside Affiliation of Seminaries and Preparatory Schools. “‘Eastern Star?’ Pythia scoffs. ‘Every school in the city has tried to get Eastern Star. You won’t get it.’ Her manner betrays very little: there isn’t enough skin around Pythia’s eyes to make expressions, certainly no wrinkles, yet around her mouth is a network of lines from constantly pursing her lips - it’s a small mouth that resembles a hen’s ass.” (Meehan, p. 38)

I selected this quote as my favorite because it shows how hilarious Diana Meehan is. She has an incredibly creative way of describing people.

I would definitely recommend this book to a fellow classmate. The first two hundred pages are sometimes inspirational, hilarious and suspenseful even though we know that Diana Meehan, Megan Calloway, and Victoria Shorr were able to successfully establish the Archer School for Girls. The first 200 or so pages were very interesting. The rest of the book was a little boring because it talked more about why all girls schools are good for girls.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really made me reconsider my stance on single-sex education. I had been slightly opposed to it because I felt that parents did their daughters no favors by not exposing them early on to the challenges and difficulties of working and collaborating with boys (and later, men).

I now think that single-sex education might be right for some girls, though parents should do their best to ensure that their daughters are still socializing with boys through after-school clubs or sports. I think girls and boys learn to appreciate each other's diverse skills when they work on projects together, act in plays, or compete in quiz bowls or science competitions.

[Jillion Weisberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would be interesting to anyone living in Los Angeles and interested in Archer. It gives detail as to why they founded the school and their goals. I very much enjoyed it and was surprised by the negative reviews. There are a lot of interesting books about single sex education and this is not really an argument for single sex education. If you are looking for a book about the benefits of single sex education try Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. This book is a description of how and why the formed the school and I enjoyed it.

[Hashi]

I lost interest in this book half way through.

[Jenn McCowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Includes fascinating research about how girls function in classrooms, both co-ed and same sex.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads more like a memoir than I expected.