Pondering the virtues(?) of single-sex education!
I attended two co-educational schools upto 8th grade and subsequently attended an all-boys school as a boarder. It does merit mention though, that we did have *limited* interaction with our sister school - at the biennial "socials"/ball, church(!), etc. I was pretty shocked when I recently heard that the St. Joseph's Boys School in Bangalore - with whom our school has been fierce rivals for over a century - has decided to admit girls. I'm on the fence when it comes to whether co-educational education is better than single-sex (Harrow has an interesting page on the virtues of single-sex education!), but I will admit that it will fundamentally change the character of a school to admit members of the opposite sex, after being single-sex for 150 years. It'll be interesting to see if the Joseph's *experiment* yields positive results. Do any of you have strong views on the benefits of one form over the other? Do you co-eds rebut Harrow's argument? :)
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On the subject of my all-boys boarding school, one of my distinct memories was of all the boarders aggregating in the tiny TV room and the collective "oohs" and "ahs" that would resound in the dormitory corridor whenever an appealing actress/performer graced the grainy 21-inch telly screen! So imagine the effect when an attractive young Vanessa Mae emerged from the sea in a dripping figure-hugging red gown working her bow on her violin with furious pace, in the video of her smash-hit debut, quite appropiately called "Red Hot"! Though the raunchier video "Ooh ah, just a little bit" of a certain Gina G was probably more memorable for most of my fellow boarders(!), some of us (including yours truly) were hooked by Mae's prodigious talent and her fusion-classical work. I subsequently bought three of her albums and was delighted recently to get the opportunity to watch her perform live in Delhi! It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening (the free wine did raise the spirits!). Mae had awesome stage presence and tried in vain to get the stodgy Delhi audience to let their hair down and dance to some of her pop numbers. My only grouse though, is that she didn't perform "Red hot", that number that had started my journey as a fan of her's all those years back!
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On the subject of my all-boys boarding school, one of my distinct memories was of all the boarders aggregating in the tiny TV room and the collective "oohs" and "ahs" that would resound in the dormitory corridor whenever an appealing actress/performer graced the grainy 21-inch telly screen! So imagine the effect when an attractive young Vanessa Mae emerged from the sea in a dripping figure-hugging red gown working her bow on her violin with furious pace, in the video of her smash-hit debut, quite appropiately called "Red Hot"! Though the raunchier video "Ooh ah, just a little bit" of a certain Gina G was probably more memorable for most of my fellow boarders(!), some of us (including yours truly) were hooked by Mae's prodigious talent and her fusion-classical work. I subsequently bought three of her albums and was delighted recently to get the opportunity to watch her perform live in Delhi! It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening (the free wine did raise the spirits!). Mae had awesome stage presence and tried in vain to get the stodgy Delhi audience to let their hair down and dance to some of her pop numbers. My only grouse though, is that she didn't perform "Red hot", that number that had started my journey as a fan of her's all those years back!