Prompting this question was a thread in MPSIMS asking about high school biology and how it has changed since the 50s.
One of our regular subjects when I was in elementary school was “Health” – it had its own textbooks, tests, grade on the report card, etc. Health was essentially human biology (far more than it was, say, epidemiology or medical practices). One unit each on each “system” of the body – digestive system, nervous system, skeletal system, endocrine system, reproductive system, muscular system, etc. It was surprisingly advanced and detailed considering that we were in 4th / 5th / 6th grade. And the sex ed stuff in the reproductive system was pretty amazing considering this was the 1960s. Not a lot of details about appetite and arousal and orgasm and all that, to be sure, but basic plumbing and how babies are made, complete with menstrual cycle and the hormones and so on.
Who else had “Health” as part of their public school elementary curriculum?
We alternated P.E and Health in Jr. High (7-9). I’ve been working in public schools for nearly 15 years now at two different school districts. Both have health classes at both middle school and high school level. They are decidedly not the same as biology classes. The health classes are more about what to do to stay healthy. Maybe analogous to driver’s ed vs. auto shop.
I believe we had it more as a once-a-week or month thing from the beginning. In elementary school it went the range from personal safety crossing the street to some basic anatomy to lord-if-I-can-recall. I believe the grade was mixed in with PE but I would have to dig out my old report cards to be sure. (early 60s)
Personal health/hygiene/fitness topics were always separate from biological science. In my elementary (K-6) years hygiene was addressed occasionally, but not as a separate course. One day our home room teacher or science teacher might say “today we’re going to talk about brushing your teeth and flossing.” Sex ed was handled in a special session, separate from any particular class.
Biological science would just be handled under “science class.”
In junior high (7-9), we had a Health class for personal health and hygiene, nutrition, fitness, sex education, etc. Biological science was handled in “Life Sciences” (the other science topics were “Physical Sciences” and “Earth Sciences”).
In high school (10-12), we had a separate Biology class.
I recall ours was called “Life Skills”, and included a solid sex-ed portion (it covered contraception and “self care”, IIRC). This was early 90s, a private Episcopal school in Louisiana.
It was in my 7th grade Health class that we were taught by our lesbian phys ed teacher that a woman could only get pregnant if she and the man had simultaneous orgasms.
We had something similar in high school. I can’t recall if it was it’s own class or part of gym, but I distinctly remember the gym teacher doing one or two Sex Ed classes.
In grade school we didn’t have anything like that. They’d bring a sex ed teacher in that would do a few classes (that is, one or two classes per grade) each year.
Our science teacher was incredibly passionate about what she taught and had no problem filling in the blanks if we had questions. In fact, she may have even proactively brought it up when the sex ed teacher was making the rounds.
This was a very religious grade school and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were just doing it to fulfill a state requirement.
The science teacher also got in trouble for teaching us what evolution was. She even tried to avoid issues with the admins by teaching it as a thing that ‘some people believe…’ rather than fact, but she wanted to make sure we knew what it was.
They got rid of our health class in 7th, I think, and wrapped sex ed into biology. We got a really detailed, 8-week syllabus on hygiene, anatomy of the female and male bodies (with pictures!), plus the different types of sex, STDs and STD prevention. In high school, we watched several videos of live births. It was incredibly embarrassing at the time because it was co-ed and happened every damn day for 8 weeks, but I really appreciate it now that my kids go to a district with abstinence-only education in public school, something with which I have huge issues.
It’s amazing how much bullshit they learn because so much is left out they draw their own conclusions, most of which are worst-case scenario or just bizarre as hell. I’ve gotten both my kids age-appropriate books and have had to sit down with them and talk about hygiene and sex and masturbation as well as gender identification with my son, something they really don’t like chatting with their mom about, but that I consider as mandatory as knowing how to swim.
I think complete sex ed should be included in biology. I also think they desperately need kids to learn finance in school; half the high school graduates I know couldn’t balance a checkbook if their lives depended on it.
I had a semester of health every day in 1984 in seventh grade, I remember because I HATED the teacher. It included the STD flashcards. It was a mixed class. They did not address masturbation or orientation… or really ANY sort of sex issues at all beyond The Dangers of STDs, and it was almost all about nutrition except one section on procreation. The other semester was for gym. After seventh grade we had gym every day, every year until we graduated.
My eighth grader just picked classes for ninth through twelfth. An entire educational path is designed in eighth grade, which is required in our district now. There is one health class but it has a fancy name, something like “Lifelong health and development” but it’s essentially the same. If you take it in the ninth grade academy it’s divided by gender, which I think is a bad plan. My kid doesn’t feel comfortable with that being born female and expected to be in the female only class… but after ninth it’s a mixed class so no problem there. We can wait.
What blows me away is there’s no GYM class anymore. After eighth grade, which is just one 1 class per week, there is no more gym. You have one PE credit for the entire high school educational path but you can take a semester long “games and entertainment” class or be on a sports team. There is NO PE/gym class at all. Which I’m sure some kids love, but mine could use the physical education and movement during school time. I know she could get it after school but I mean to break up the sitting still for 7 hours, it would be nice.
I did not have any “classes” in “elementary school”, as at least when and where I attended school (NYC in the 1970s-1980s), “elementary” school was for grades 1-6 and it was a one-teacher, one-room type of thing. Except for Music/Art and Gym/Phys Ed., which had separate specialized teachers and rooms (or the gym).
I didn’t have to “travel” to different classrooms for different classes with different teachers in different subjects until 7th grade.
My own kids have had the same experience, except that now “elementary” school only runs through 5th grade rather than 6th, and grades 6-8 are “intermediate school” and 9-12 “high school”.
I do not recall learning anything under the heading of “Health Ed” until 7th grade, and “Sex Ed” was in 8th grade.
As for what was covered, well, I remember the whole reproductive system thing, there was talk about sexual activity, STDs (AIDS was a new and big thing then), birth control and their relative efficacies and uses, “barrier” methods that added disease protection, and also non-sexual health related topics like basic hygiene, various sports related injuries (like what a “hernia” is), and even CPR training, with a dummy and a test and certification and all that.]
Oh, and Health/Phys Ed were commingled under a single department.
You had to be there. Somebody would ask a simple question and he’d start sweating profusely as he shuffled through his notes and leafed through the textbook. And he wore his whistle.
Heh, no, but I went to two grade schools and a high school and the three dudes “teaching” health class were all close to my description, one, the most extreme, actually painful to witness. But give them a ball and whistle, and they were right at home.
