Fifties biology

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.

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.

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.

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

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”.

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 😄

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 did anatomy and physiology, taught by a very prim, unmarried, nurse tutor. We were taught about reproduction starting with the sperm making their way towards the egg. At no point did anyone dare to ask how the sperm got there.

Excretion??

Nutrition (or Feeding), Respiration, Excretion, Reproduction (or Growth/Reproduction), and Movement (or Sensitivity/Response)

jocork

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 would imagine animals could be dissected or studied with a 3D computer program now. No need to touch anything organic.

I remember it as GRIMREN:
Growth
Respiration
Irritability
Movement
Excretion
Reproduction
Nutrition

So seven, rather than 5.

At my convent grammar school in the late 50s/early 60s the top set did Latin and the second set did biology.

I did have one biology lesson - just the one in all of my seven years there - when one of our teachers was off sick.
I seem to remember it was all about amoebas(sp).

That's interesting Polremy, do you remember, at all, why it was amoebas?

I'm surprised that a top set did not do Biology and Latin.

Both would be required for a future career in any form of medicine at that time.

Mind you, although they were both taught at my Girls' High School any aspirations to aim for medicine as a career was discouraged. We were all meant to become teachers.

Thank goodness everything has changed since the 1950s/early 60s.

bonbons01

That's interesting Polremy, do you remember, at all, why it was amoebas?

Yes, I remember the first Biology lesson was about amoebas!

Ah, I see what Polremy meant now Allera, thanks. Not an acronym for body functions in human biology like grimren.

😀 There were others with more cells but I've forgotten their names.

We had to make careful drawings of them!

At my girls high school we did minimal science until A levels. The usual career path was nursing or teaching and very few girls got to university.
My family moved as I went into O levels and my new school was a small rural grammar. Basically girls there did English, French and History and boys did maths, physics and Chemistry.

I asked my Mum where my newborn Sister had come from. She said ...I got her from Marks and Spencers. Then I asked where I came from .....Oh...Woolworths was her answer !

My friend and I hadn't learned much about human reproduction at school, so when we were 15 we disguised ourselves to look older and went and bought a book about sex for engaged women. I think my friend even wore a fake engagement ring. Disappointingly it gave very little information about the act so we were left none the wiser.

At my small grammar school, we were given sex education in biology. How rabbits reproduce was explained quite truthfully, including "the male rabbit deposits sperm which joins with the egg" then eventually the final sentence "and it's a similar process in humans" 🤣🤣
Later we had a teacher from the teacher training college across the road who was probably on teacher practice, but gave us the full lowdown. Eyes out on stalks at some of her blackboard drawings!

Allira

😀 There were others with more cells but I've forgotten their names.

We had to make careful drawings of them!

When I was at boarding school ("for young ladies"!) from 1965 to 1972 I remember the drawing as the best part of Biology, but in the year of our O levels the teacher writing on my work something along the lines of "9/10, but this is the last time marks will be awarded for the quality of your drawings. If time existed in exams to do this all would be well, but it doesn't, so your time would be better spent revising"
Needless to say I failed Biology! I think we did learn a bit of useful stuff, science wise as it was the only "science" we did (e.g.refraction of light etc) and we did touch on sexual reproduction.
Our poor teacher in our O level year was a young man (27) in an all girls school and came in for a lot of ribbing.
When asked what subject we most wanted to revise we all chorused "Sexual reproduction please sir!"
He blushed very easily too but never shied away from answering any of our questions about sex, drugs, diet or whatever.
I'm sorry, Mr Connor, for how we treated you.
(e.g. one lesson came directly after a games lesson: "Oh sorry Mr Connor, did I forget to do up my blouse?" etc.)

In later years when I was working as a TA I realised how little I knew about Science in general and studied GCSE Science and got an A!

Another one was Euglena, I remember drawing that too.

My original "facts of life" talk when I was 10 came from my mother after we had visited several boarding schools and I asked her what the little brown bags with pictures of ladies in crinolines were for.
Mum always packed "STs" in my trunk every term "just in case" but by the time I started (14, and second to last in my class) she had to rush out and buy some more (luckily I was at home at the time!) as they had all been "borrowed" in emergencies by friends who knew I didn't need them at the time.
"The Talk" I obviously filed away in my little head as "irrelevant" as I had to be told again some years on, about 12 or 13?
I remember Mum asking me what I knew, saying I must have heard things from the girls at school to which I replied "Yes, but I don't believe them, that would be too disgusting!"
The first time I saw an erect penis was in some article in the Times newspaper which we were allowed to read in the common room at school and I was beyond shocked! - of course once the teachers realised what all the giggling was about it was swiftly removed!
I had two brothers, 3and1/2 and 5 years younger than me, so that was all the male anatomy I had ever seen at that point!