HOMETOWN OF MY HEART: TENTH GRADE BIOLOGY

🐸 Did you ever dissect a frog? I did, in tenth grade biology, a mandatory subject in Linden High. I loved school and all my teachers, but when it came to geometry, I faltered, and shied away from taking calculus or physics in my senior year.  I didn’t mind biology and could understand it well enough, starting with amoebas, but when I realized that lab would eventually involve dissection of various lifeless creatures sacrificed for the advancement of our education, I panicked.

🩸Ethel, my classmate, literally fell backwards in her chair straight to the floor at the mention of blood in our sixth grade Health class. She got excused from the requirement by the school nurse (it is a bona fide phobia and looking back, I’m impressed that accommodations were made, even in the backward 1950s).

Our biology teacher, Miss Yevich, was tall, pretty, and very smart. Fearless, in fact, when it came to handling biological specimens with her bare hands. Superwoman in every way, in my high schooler’s eyes. I wondered why she wasn’t married; she was so confident and well put-together, with long chestnut brown hair and pleasing features. Perhaps too formidable for the average suitor (my high school yearbook went missing long ago, so no photo).

Two students shared one specimen of the creature of the month. I performed the frog and fetal pig dissections, even a crayfish, carefully noting the results on my lab sheet and getting an A on my report card each marking period. But when the worm dissection was scheduled for a few weeks ahead, I obsessed and plotted how I could get excused. Ultimately, I couldn’t manage to fake being sick to miss a day of school. And it never occurred to me to ask my parents to intervene. School was my place, and I had to handle this on my own.

🔬When I walked into the science lab, I was confronted with the overpowering odor of formaldehyde emanating from huge open jars of one foot long worms stiffly afloat in vertical position – not your average earthworm seized by the backyard robin. We picked them out of the jars with tongs and brought them to our trays. Miss Yevich walked around the room observing all of us closely at our stations. I won’t go into detail, but we had to maneuver them, touch them, look carefully for certain features, pick apart insides, and then log in our results in detail. In those days, they didn’t pass out nitrile rubber gloves – we were on our own. I didn’t dare show any hesitation; I just knew Miss Yevich would try to spur me on to triumph over my fears, and I was not a customer.

My primary goal was to accelerate the passage of the hour, however I did that. Yes, I was relieved when the day passed, but I can’t unsee it, even now. I don’t recollect much of anything about the other dissection subjects, even the frog. Unfortunately for me, I vividly remember the one that I most want to forget.

I maintained my honor roll grades, but I would have gladly settled for a C or D instead of an A in Biology if it meant I could skip this unpleasant experience. Failure was not an option as I’d have to take it over again in summer school.

I didn’t know it at the time, but there were options that, in my state of anxiety, I did not think to exercise. I didn’t know how to seek support by asking any of my classmates if they couldn’t stand worms either. Even more courageous, what if I asked for a meeting with the teacher to tell her how distressing and nightmarish this was for me? Maybe she would have understood, and given me an alternative assignment. Remember Ethel in Health class, the girl with hemophobia? Her disabling fears were taken into account. I guess I didn’t believe that exceptions would be made for me, so I didn’t ask in the first place. I had no idea that a compassionate adult might care enough to help me get out of a jam.

🌿 When I got to college, the math and science requirements were still firmly in place, even in a liberal arts education (not sure they are now). I passed math, but did really well in Botany. What I didn’t realize until then was that photosynthesis was a complex process that took up an entire semester, but no matter, green living things were no problem compared to slimy dead things. I don’t even want to know the word for fear of worms or snakes, thank you very much!

If I had summoned the courage to talk to Miss Yevich, instead of just idolizing her from a distance, perhaps I would have seen another side of her. I can only assume now that there was more to her personality and humanity than I came to know, but I moved on without taking another science class – and had more growing up to do in many ways at my age fifteen. Maybe Miss Yevich was as beautiful inside as she was on the outside, and I have no reason to doubt that. But some things in life are no longer possible to do over, and we have to let them go.

[cover photo courtesy of pixabay.com]