Biological instruction concerning public health

Science class as clinic: Why histories of segregated instruction matter for health equity reforms today

“…This lens displayed pupils' health as depending on out‐of‐school factors, such as ascribing to some “races” a “criminal carelessness” toward home sanitation (Downing, 1923a; p. 622). Science education journals published eugenic score cards, home surveys, and neighborhood mapping tools (G. Hunter, 1924; Nabrit, 1944; Whitman, 1920), which promised to help teachers oversee unhygienic habits, identify diseases of local importance, and study the “contrast in living conditions in the local slums and the more healthful [city] sections” (Bingham, 1938; p. 27). Similar tools circulated between ‘Indian’ boarding schools and U.S.‐run schools in the Philippines (Paulet, 2007), as reformers posited the classroom as the only place where “Indian” or “Filipino” children would learn “care of the body” (Reel, 1904; p. 24) and “simple rules of health” (Theobald, 1907; p. 217).…”

“…622). Science education journals published eugenic score cards, home surveys, and neighborhood mapping tools (G. Hunter, 1924;Nabrit, 1944;Whitman, 1920), which promised to help teachers oversee unhygienic habits, identify diseases of local importance, and study the "contrast in living conditions in the local slums and the more healthful [city] sections" (Bingham, 1938;p. 27).…”