Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
My friend recently introduced me to a very interesting and controversial novel titled Girls of Riyadh which is the English version of Banat El-Riyadh by Rajaa Al Sanea.
The book gained a lot of heat from across the Arab world due to the fact it revealed a lot of hidden activities young people, especially the girls, hid as they lived their lives under the heavy Islamic ruling of Saudi Arabia. Ms Al Sanea's book is similar to what I reveal of youth issues such as under-age smoking, under-age driving and contact between the sexes. But, in essence, the book has seriously opened my eyes even more widely than they already were.
On the one hand, the stories of the four protagonists of the novel were really touching and one who has lived under the influence of closed-minded people can really relate to them. On the other hand, the issue of segregation of the sexes has led me to question the level of what people perceive as segregation in our educational system not only in Bahrain but around the world.
I would not know how it would feel to be a student from a segregated school where his peers, teachers and counselors were all of the same sex. I have been in a mixed-sex school ever since I started my academic career.
However, many religious and conservative individuals judge me in the wrong way just because I share a class with a bunch of female students.
Just because I share my knowledge, education and wisdom with the opposite sex does not make me the kind of person who should be considered 'bad' or 'wrong' in my community.
There are those who say allowing children to mix with the opposite sex during school hours is bad for them because they will be distracted and this will lead to a drop in their academic performance.
Excuse my anger but I have to say those who say this are making an inaccurate physiological analysis of us who choose to study in mixed classrooms.
I have not seen a drop in my academic performance for a long time and neither have my classmates. Just because a pretty girl sits next to me in class, it does not necessarily mean that I will flunk my lessons.
On the contrary, it can be even more dangerous for those who study at segregated schools because they may feel isolated and isolation in teens normally, but not always, produces trouble and confusion. Like the girls in Ms Al Sanea's novels, many girls and boys tend to mingle with the opposite sex through inappropriate means, such as using the World Wide Web in order to seek companionship. Segregated students may then go off to college but not know how to deal or work with peers from the opposite sex.
I am and will always be against segregation in schools and many schools have proper monitoring and guidance in place to check that 'boy meets girl' never advances further out of the interest of education.
Email me with your opinion of segregated education. Who knows? We might just start a debate.
