Should middle schoolers get single-sex lunch periods?

Schools in Kansas have found a way to put an end to traditional middle school lunch side dishes like teasing, rough-housing, and flirting: Separate lunches for boys and girls. Three middle schools in Wichita have instituted a gender-segregated lunch system, and principals says it's helping students eat and behave better. Is separating the sexes at lunch really a good idea?

Yes, it's calmer and less wasteful: With the separate lunch, kids are actually eating, rather than chattering away and fretting about impressing the opposite sex, says Michael Archibeque, a principal at a middle school with separate lunches, as quoted by Reuters. That means less wasted food, better behavior, and fewer hungry tummies later in the day. "It was sick [before] to watch kids throw away whole plates of food."

"Kansas schools try separate lunches for sexes"

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And the kids seem to like it: Strange as it may sound, it seem the kids actually like having these separate lunches, says Ben Palosaari at the Kansas City Pitch. One principal even notes how she tried to use co-ed lunches as prizes for fundraising and the students weren't interested. "Kids today, I tell ya! They might be eating their lunches, but they'll surely be dateless in their freshman year."

"Wichita kids would rather eat with their own gender, thank you very much"

Wait, kids need to socialize: I can't get behind this, says Jeanne Sager at The Stir. Schools are supposed to prepare our children for adulthood, "both academically and socially," and this sort of segregation "has no application in the real world." The idea that kids aren't chattering away and socializing at lunch doesn't seem like a good thing to me. "It sounds clinical," sad, and "socially retarding." After all, "it's in the teen years when male/female interactions begin to take on real meaning."

"Segregated school lunch today, 40-year-old virgins tomorrow"