90004_11672 Sex_Ed_Teacher
This ‘50s clip shows a woman teacher named Mrs. Baker explaining to her students facts about the male and female reproductive systems and human growth. The students appear to be in grade school, not quite high school, and they all appear to be curious and rather obedient and respectful.
Begins with the teacher showing a projected slide of the female reproductive system. With a pointer, she highlights one of the ovaries and fallopian tubes on the slide, and shows where the sperm cells or gametes must travel to meet an ovum or egg cell. The teacher asks for the lights on after answering her student Steve’s question.
The teacher then answers a question by her student Julie, who wants to know if it is normal for a woman’s body to bleed during menstruation. The teacher says yes, that some blood will leave the woman’s body when there is no need for the blood-lined uterus to nourish a fertilized ovum.
Other questions asked include the following. Do boys have anything like menstruation? What does it mean to be born caesarean? Why don’t all people have red hair? What happens if more than one sperm cell enters an egg? How long will it take before my voice changes? Are girls always bigger than boys at 12 or 13? Why do some kids grow faster than others? I’d like to know more about different kinds of hormones. Why do I have to look like my sister when I don’t even like her?
The teacher then breaks the so-called fourth wall by telling us, the film’s audience, that all the questions asked are excellent ones, and that she’ll be discussing each. She encourages viewers to discuss the same questions with their own teachers.
The students sit in the dark, watching a projected film; Mrs. Baker then asks for the lights to be turned on. She tells the class that the principles of growth discussed in the film they just watched apply to all human beings.
Mrs. Baker asks the class, “When does human growth begin?” One student says growth begins when a sperm cell enters an egg cell; if the sperm doesn’t enter an egg cell, the student continues, then the egg isn’t fertilized and dies in a few days.
The clip ends after student Steve asks: Why are there so many sperm cells but so few egg cells. The teacher says the question is an excellent one, and proceeds to use the projector to answer the question.