Fifties biology

I remember when we dissected a daffodil bulb (presume it was in biology). Being me - a rebel who easily got bored in lessons - I decided to eat mine!! Can't remember what happened next sadly...........but I lived to tell the tale and I'm now nearly 80

I took GCE biology in 1969 and did the obligatory dissecting a frog and an eye as well as growing a bean on blotting paper. I remember drawing a heart repeatedly to memorise everything about it for the exams. I think we did the reproductive cycle of rabbits but no human sex education (possibly why I became pregnant at 16!!) Our teacher was a fairly young woman though and well liked - particularly by the boys in the class 😄

We had a drop dead gorgeous science teacher Mr Chilton, don’t know how I passed my “O” level ‘cos I spent every lesson fantasising about him.
The one thing I have always remembered about stalactites and stalacmites was
“As the mites go up, the tights come down”.

We had 2 films in my grammar school on reproduction
Growing girls which was about female development featuring Mary age 13 riding a bike was about periods with diagrams showing the womb during a period and breast development.
The second was called preparation for parenthood. All diagrams showing sperms entering womb, ovaries releasing eggs, baby growing in the womb and exiting during birth. Nothing at all on contraception, or the sexual act. Nothing for boys either. Nothing on STDs

My first lesson on physiology was disection of sheep's eye. I was 11 yrs at the time. I never returned and suffered lack of science subjects in future life.

AuntieE- still waiting to menstruate at 15- the shame of being last girl in the class to get there and grow hair where others had it. Life can be so cruel at that age.

butterandjam

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.

My mother and aunt, her older sister, were at a provincial girls' grammar school in the fifties and all the teachers bar one were middle-aged unmarried women (first world war generation). My aunt told me that biology had only recently been considered suitable for impressionable young ladies - up till around two years previously, botany was considered more appropriate. One day a very red faced teacher rushed through reproduction in a rabbit finishing with: "and humans do something similar!"
I was at school in the seventies and early eighties (O levels taken in 1981) and the approach was much more enlightened. I think one of the best ideas, which was still relatively new, was when I was in the third year of the juniors in the autumn term, so children aged nine and ten. We had general health and hygiene lessons, and one day, all we girls were taken into the hall by ourselves. A nurse had been invited to the school and told us about what to expect as we grew up - in particular, about menstruation, why it occurred and how often. We were shown a sanitary towel and passed it round and left with a booklet called Very Personally Yours, which was published by Kotex.

Sex was simply not talked about in those days (and still isn’t in some cultures). It was like the present taboo on talking about death.
In the future people may say, ‘No lessons on dying at school? How did you find out about the end of life and euthanasia? Didn’t your parents talk about it, back in the 2020s?’

Flutterby345 - I expect we had papers from different exam boards... mine was London. My friend did the Oxford and Cambridge which was different.

I'm amazed nobody seems to have done the same as me for 1956 O level biology as part of general science. Anyway my final guess.
Ambulation
Respiration
Reproduction
Alimentation
Something that covers the senses, sight, hearing taste etc.
We waited whispering for a whole term.that were going to Do Reproduction. It did involve a rabbit I think but was I know a total letdown in the end. No recollection. The anticipation was quite fun.

Science has certainly moved on a lot since school in the 50s ad 60s. I have a degree in applied biology, then trained as a science teacher. Some of what I learnt at university is now part of GCSE science. They no longer disect animals in schools, just hearts from the butchers and lots of students refuse.

I did one year of Biology at grammar school, and gave up all the sciences when I chose my O level subjects.

We had one biology lesson a week on a Friday afternoon and was bored to tears, and my abiding memory is of reading Daphne du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel under the work bench. I was never caught!

I too remember disecting a bull's eye, fascinating, but I was not able to include Biology in my O level choices as I was doing Physics and Chemistry. Some of the Biology lessons took place at the same time as those.

As this post seems to have branched out into Sex Education, I will mention that at 14 (1962 in my case) we had "Relationship" sessions with a member of the Marriage Guidance Bureau, discussing vital issues such as "holding hands in Public". For more detailed info one had to buy a leaflet " 15+, the facts of life" (2/6d) which included a sketch of a naked girl and boy with the proper names of the "parts". The 14+ free leaflet didn't.

I had to save up my 1/- a week pocket money as I knew my mother wouldn't give it to me and of course, I could not ask my Dad. That would have been completely taboo back then. They weren't even supposed to "officially" know we had periods.

Mum was quite shocked when she found the leaflet - but it was actually Dad who (secretly) refunded me the cost - and ruled that I was allowed it.

O-Levels in 1966 for me. I did Biology but there was no cutting up animals until you did A Levels.

But we had a Biology lab full of bottled creatures which looked like picked gherkins. It was like Frankenstein's laboratory. The worst thing of all was an actual bottled foetus. In fact there were a few of them at different stages, one being fully formed. You simply wouldn't believe it. I sometimes think I dreamt it but I didn't. Can you imagine that today, well you just can't. 😔

I remember dissecting a star fish and a bull’s eye! One time a local hospital sent down a set of lungs with smoke damage for us to examine. A couple of girls in the class were excused practical lessons as they were liable to faint.

At my convent school in the late fifties the only reproduction taught in biology was that of the amoeba

O-level in 1956. Definitely The Rabbit. Dissections and diagrams. Also Mucor the Mould and Mistletoe the something else. All quite personable. But no sex Ed.

I later studied anatomy as part of a dance degree. We had Humphrey and Harriet, real skeletons, in the anatomy lab. Dear things.

And.....circulation......I think!

60's for me too, but only the bottom ("Domestic Science") stream actually did much Biology. The rest of us had just six weeks as we mainly had to study Physics and Chemistry which was considered more useful.

I'm astonished, never heard of that before.

60's for me too, but only the bottom ("Domestic Science") stream actually did much Biology. The rest of us had just six weeks as we mainly had to study Physics and Chemistry which was considered more useful. The family joke that my lack of biological knowledge explains why I have four children - the only things I remember are the amoeba and how holding starchy water in the mouth turns it to sugar!

I passed O level biology but never heard of Bowman and was never asked to dissect anything other than an earthworm and even that I managed to avoid. Also never had any sex education at school or at home.

I did biology separately, I remember nothing of that, but can still draw an eye.

Interestingly, as an invigilator, a couple of years ago I was called on to read for a candidate, and one of her questions was to label and eye drawing - I did always wonder if she got better marks because I could spell aqueous and vitreous when she dictated them

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! ‘ 😂

Our biology teacher, married to the maths master was pregnant, and would not do our compulsory lesson, so our form tutor, a single lady in her 60s was "volunteered". This is the sixpence lesson - If you are anywhere private with your beau (yes she did actually use that word), you put a sixpence between your thighs. If it should fall, stand up and make him a cup of tea!

Google AI can tell you anything now. It's astonishing. I Googled your question and this is what it said.

In the 1950s, the primary physiological functions, often termed the "basic processes of life," were generally categorized as:
Organization: The condition of being structurally composed of cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems working in cooperation, with each component having a specialized job.
Metabolism: The sum of all chemical reactions in the body (both catabolism for breaking down substances and anabolism for building up) necessary to utilize energy.
Responsiveness: The ability to detect changes in the internal or external environment and react to those changes (irritability).
Movement: The ability to move, which includes movement at the cellular level (e.g., molecules, blood) and the shortening of muscle fibers to move body parts or the entire organism.
Reproduction: The formation of new cells for growth, repair, and replacement (cellular reproduction), as well as the formation of a new organism (organismal reproduction) to ensure the survival of the species.
These functions, along with related processes like growth, differentiation, respiration, digestion, and excretion, were considered essential to the survival of the individual and the continuation of the human race.

I did biology from 1965-1967. The first thing we learnt IIRC was the SEVEN functions of living things. As I say, I'm not quite sure it was that and I have spent many a sleepless night trying to remember them all.

Respiration
Reproduction
Digestion
Growth
????