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

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-activitst Meehan decided with two other mothers to create a new school based on social science and brain research about 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 journey to create a nrew 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.

Diana Meehan, Ph.D., is the co-founder of the Archer School for Girls and founding-director of the Institute for the Study of Women and men at USC. She currently serves on the Board of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, the Children's Action Network, and the Communication Consortium Media Center. Meehan is a founding partner of VU Productions - a documentary film company attached to Paramount. Among her award-winning productions are Women in War (A&E) and A Century of Women (Turner Broadcasting). She is married to writer-producer Gary David Goldberg.

by Dr. Diana Meehan
B.A. English 1966
Author, Educator, Presidential Advisor
Documentary Producer