Sex
and science made memorable in classroom
By
Dylana Foy
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Some classes are so famous and outrageous students talk about them after they
graduate, namely Chemistry 100 (Chemistry & Today’s World) and Health
Science 425I (Human Sexuality & Sex Education).
What makes these classes special? Is it the subject? Or is because the professor
was able to rap about science or pass a vibrator around the room?
“
I teach a chemistry class for students who have to take it,” said chemistry
professor Tom Gufrey.
He said he tries to approach the subject in an “innovative, relevant
and fun way to everyday life.” His goal is to uncover everyone’s
hidden love of chemistry.
One day, Gufrey said he attended a chemistry lecture that was long, boring
and made him want to fall asleep. He soon realized it was his own lecture.
Gufrey started teaching at Cal State Long Beach in 1977. Around the mid-to-late ’80s
he decided to “change things up.” He started to include poems,
songs and outrageous science experiments in his lectures.
“
Humor goes a long way,” Gufrey said. He said students will learn more
and want to come to class if it is interesting.
In the one 200-student section of Chemistry 100 he teaches, he feels he needs
to keep his students interested.
One way Gufrey keeps eyes open and ears attentive is by singing. Some of the
artists Gufrey uses include Louis Armstrong, Christina Aguilera, and Tone Loc.
He invites students to sing and write songs for the class as well.
Gufrey sings his own version of Louis Armstrong’s “A Kiss to Build
a Dream On,” called “A Class to Learn Chem in,” which he
sings to his students.
He also changed the lyrics to Christina Aguilera’s song “A Genie
in a Bottle,” to his own version of “Bacardi in a Bottle,” which
is a science experiment including a Bacardi bottle that “blows across
the room.”
Gufrey also does impersonations. He sings for his classes in voices of former
president Bill Clinton and the cartoon character Goofy. He also lets his students
perform songs for extra credit. This semester two students collaborated on
a rap song about chemistry.
Gufrey also gets his class to respond using poetry. One poem he wrote, “An
Ode to Crap,” talks about density and teaches students about unhealthy
foods. Gufrey wants to get students laughing.
“
It’s rewarding for me to affect people in a positive way,” he said.
On www.ratemyprofessors.com, students rated Guffrey as the “best, strangest,
most interesting teacher on campus.”
Another class that gets a lot of buzz is human sexuality.
Natalie Nothern, a student of human sexuality at CSULB, said on the first day
of class she walked in to find “breasts, vagina, penis and testicles
written across the board.””
The class was supposed to find other”similar words. The class came up
with at least 20 words for each body part on the board, such as tits, boobs,
Johnson, etc. This activity demonstrated society’s obsession with sexual
body parts.
There’is usually one word for nose, ear, or toe, but anything sexual
has many different slang words, Nothern said.
Human sexuality professor Natalie Whitehouse-Capuano, said the class’ popularity
is due to’“a lot of guest speakers.””
Whitehouse-Capuano brings in guest speakers from a sexual assault agency, the
Long Beach Police Department, the Huntington Beach Community Clinic experts
and sexual enhancement people from places like Condom Revolution.
In her classes she has had speakers who brought vibrators to pass around, as
well as dildos, massage oils, condoms, lubricants and bubble bath. She brings
in people to talk about sex toys.
“
I know a lot, but I don’t know everything about everything,” Whitehouse-Capuano
said.
That is why she brings in guest speakers who are transgendered or transsexual.
“
I don’t feel that way. I didn’t go thorough the process,” she
said of speakers”who have come in while in the process of changing gender.
White-Capuano does exercises in her class to let students open up and feel
comfortable. One game she likes to play is battle of the sexes, where girls
and boys compete to see who knows more about sex.
Another exercise she does is let a student put a condom on a dildo. She tells
the student to come put a condom on as “if you’ve never put a condom
on, and walk us through it.” She instructs the rest of the class to stop
the student if they see him or her making any mistakes. Common mistakes she
sees are the student not checking the expiration date, or checking to see if
the condom is torn or compromised in any way.
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