Which brings me to sex education. I had an assignment the other day to photograph an elementary school teacher who is retiring this year after 46 years, god bless her. When I called to set up a day/time to meet with her while she was teaching a class, she laughed and said that that was right at the time that she was teaching sex ed. to a room full of fifth-grade girls. That was fine with me–since I couldn’t show the girls’ faces, at least the class would be interesting. First, I would just like to say that I’m really glad to see that sex-ed is still being taught in public schools. For some reason, I thought that it fell the way of the Yugo. So when I got to the classroom, I had to pull aside heavy curtains that were drawn across all the windows to get through the door. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to find in there and then suddenly I was transported back to 1977. There I was sitting in my first sex ed class, nervous and giggling while watching a cartoon video of a young girl growing pubic hair, growing breasts, and getting her period for the first time–eewww. I remember the strongest impact of my sex ed class for me was the lesson taught in hygiene. I was quite a tomboy at the time and didn’t really care about what I look liked. But that class turned on some sort of internal light bulb and all of sudden my grandmother was dealing with me wanting to shower and shave twice a day.

Anyway, fast forward to May, 2007. After the video was over, my soon-to-be retired teacher answered anonymous questions that were written up by the girls. One girl asked if you could lose too much blood from your period. No. Another asked what a blackhead was? What!? To only go back and not remember what a zit is! My favorite question/response was “How do you know when you should wear a bra?” to which my retiring teacher answered “if you’re running and your boobs are flopping up and down, you should wear a bra.” I couldn’t help laughing at that one. Other questions that were directed towards intercourse and abortions apparently can’t be answered in the classrooms until the sixth-grade (according to the district) but my teacher told the girls that if the questions were burning a hole in their head, to come see her privately after class and she would answer them. How great was that!? Every student needs a teacher like this at their school. I wrapped up my assignment just as the girls were preparing to watch the video on boys going through puberty. I can still hear the collective “eeeewwwwww”.