Fifties biology

I remember very little except for dissecting a frog.

It was the 60s here, but I still remember Bowman’s capsules - the minute things that filter out waste matter from your kidneys. And photosynthesis. I was shocked a few years ago to realise that dh - who has a science degree and prof. letters after his name, and attended a very elite and academic boys’ school, had never even heard of it! 😱

I don’t remember much else, except that there was virtually no sex education. Our biology teacher once offered an anonymous Q and A session - one Q she eventually read out was asking about contraception.

The very decided answer was, ‘This is something no NICE girl needs to know about until she’s married! ‘ 😂

My only recollection is disecting a rabbit and schoolboy sniggering about reproduction
Chemistry and Physics were my subjects

No sex education whatsoever but it didnt take long to catch up.

I loved Biology in the 50/60s, but cannot help with the 5th and 5th processes. Didn't ever learn there were 5. I did get O level Biology. Odd bits of info I remember pop up every so often.

Sometimes even in University Challenge. If can answer them quickly enough.

Long Biology lesson one afternoon a week, I too can only remember dissecting a frog and a white rat, apart from one hot summer day, what with the constant smell of bunsen burners, I fell off the tall lab stool in a faint, was carted off to the nurses room and (happily) missed the rest of the lesson.

Dissecting an animals eye disgusting I refused to participate. The only discussion about reproduction was the birds and bees.

Sorry, I did Chemistry and Physics. But please don't ask.

Redhead56

Dissecting an animals eye disgusting I refused to participate. The only discussion about reproduction was the birds and bees.

I seem to remember having to dissect a bullock’s eye in physics!
No wonder it was never my favourite subject.

We had a brilliant science teacher at my convent grammar school in the late 1950s. Unfortunately, she limited her skills to teaching the science VI Form, who every year won places at top universities. Very rare for girls to even be taught science well at school, let alone excell. The rest of the time we were palmed off with any available member of staff and got taught, mainly biology.

Needless to say I was not of that inner circle. I was a humanities girl through and through, history, especially, history and English my strongest subjects. So I learnt little or no science at school

I think the circulatory system was one of the topics in my Biology O level in 1968

I remember doing the reproductive system of the rabbit and having to draw a great many drawings of plants. I always got poor marks for my drawings until I hit on the idea of labelling them as diagramatic representations. It was the only science I was good at.

Wasn't the fifth euphemsistically termed elimination? It dealt with the functions of kidneys, bladder and bowels.

I went to a girls' school. Our biology mistress was so embarrassed when she had to discuss human reproduction with us, that she faced the blackboard the whole time whilst discussing menstruation (that ship had sailed, as we were fifteen at the time, so we knew what it was), and the development of a foetus in the uterus.

No mention was made of the male part of that process - which it would have been a good thing to inform fifteen year old girls about!

Witzend

It was the 60s here, but I still remember Bowman’s capsules - the minute things that filter out waste matter from your kidneys. And photosynthesis. I was shocked a few years ago to realise that dh - who has a science degree and prof. letters after his name, and attended a very elite and academic boys’ school, had never even heard of it! 😱

I don’t remember much else, except that there was virtually no sex education. Our biology teacher once offered an anonymous Q and A session - one Q she eventually read out was asking about contraception.

The very decided answer was, ‘This is something no NICE girl needs to know about until she’s married! ‘ 😂

We did a little on reproduction, learning first about rabbits and their development in the womb, then humans but were never, ever told how the baby got into the womb in the first place. Oh no! Far too much information for girls in those days.

We did a General Science but the boys at the Grammar School did separate sciences, very annoying, not that I enjoyed Physics much but may have chosen Biology as an A level.

Our very staid biology teacher, hair severely pulled back into a bun, long grey skirt and twin set,
was asked about sexual feelings.
She said when you go to bed and check under it to see if a man is hiding there and feel very disappointed when there isn't!
She was actually very matter of fact about human reproduction.

I passed Human Biology O’level. Our teacher was Sir Barnes Wallis’s niece. When she returned to school after the summer holidays (and her honeymoon) we brazenly asked her what a clitoris was. I think she told us to look it up.

I did O level Biology in the fifties. It was one of my favourite subjects, and one of my highest marks - odd, because I was very much an arts person. I remember doing the structure of the eye, the digestive system, and quite a lot about fish. For reproduction I think we studied rabbits - or was it mice? - but we used to say “What about humans?”, though we all knew.

I remembered ambulation, respiration and reproduction and another one was about the digestive system, nutrition? The fifth?

Movement (ambulation)
Respiration
Reproduction
Digestion …

Metabolism

Digestion and Metabolism result in … Excretion

Also Responsiveness and Growth.

Our sex education was based on the fruit fly ?

I did O level biology in 1960. I was deeply interested in natural science and wildlife so loved biology.
But sex? It was never mentioned at my girls’ High School except in the cloakrooms. I think it was assumed that your mother would tell you, but of course many didn’t.
No sex education, no contraception, no wonder so many girls had babies in their teens.

AuntieE

Wasn't the fifth euphemsistically termed elimination? It dealt with the functions of kidneys, bladder and bowels.

I went to a girls' school. Our biology mistress was so embarrassed when she had to discuss human reproduction with us, that she faced the blackboard the whole time whilst discussing menstruation (that ship had sailed, as we were fifteen at the time, so we knew what it was), and the development of a foetus in the uterus.

No mention was made of the male part of that process - which it would have been a good thing to inform fifteen year old girls about!

Elimination, yes. I was fascinated to learn that urine and sweat were exactly the same thing and you were eliminating the same stuff via pores or bladder. BUT as I remember this was part of respiration, blood and water and oxygen and stuff circulating round body clearing out stuff you needed to get rid of. Not really anything to do with the bowel. I hope someone is going to remember what I was taught but maybe in those days the teacher had more leeway in how it was presented so nobody here will have had the same experience.

We did respiration first (plants then mammals)
Next came Reproduction. (This was our only sex education)

Our Biology teacher was Miss Groser, a prim older unmarried lady, it was an all-girls school. She said

"Girls, today we are going to study reproduction. We have a choice. Either we will study reproduction in the rabbit, or reproduction in the tulip. To avoid embarrassment, we will have a silent blind vote to decide which . Close your eyes. Hands up for tulip reproduction . Hands up for reproduction in the rabbit. "

The rabbit won so we learned about the Female rabbits reproductive organs. Miss Groser drew them on the blackboard and we copied the drawing into our excercise books, labelled the parts and coloured them in while Miss Groser got on with some marking , until the bell rang.

She didn't teach us anything about the male rabbit, or sex. Or tulips.

Our Biology teacher was pretty good. It was a girls' grammar school and when we were about 14 she told us she was supposed to tell us about sex "But you probably know more about it than I do" The only dissections we did ourselves were Dublin Bay Prawns and Dog fish. I've never forgotten the smell of Formaldehyde. She was away for some weeks because she had to have a hysterectomy and when she came back she said it hadn't been to bad, but they kept using her for tests and samples "Because you're a Biology teacher and you'll understand and you won't mind" She said actually she did mind but they carried on any way.

I've never forgotten the smell of Formaldehyde.

One year our form room was the Biology lab.
Trays of frogs in formaldehyde all around the room. 🤮

We had the joys of dissection too - frog, rat and an eye that I remember. Most of our biology was about locusts which were kept in the lab. One day they escaped so that lesson was spent rounding them up again!

We were most impressed by our teacher’s finger tips which she declared were preserved by formaldehyde as she had done so many dissections without gloves. She was an ardent sunbather so the rest of her skin was leathery too.