A high school teacher's attempts to teach sex education creates a furor.

Janet Sommers, a high school senior, is persuaded to spend the night at a rented beach house with her boyfriend, Dan Carlyle, because she is afraid of losing his affection. The next day at school, Janet suggests to Peter Gifford, the seniors' favorite teacher, that sex is the most important problem facing young people, and they ask him to give them the sex education their parents failed to provide. He suggests they write unsigned essays on the subject to read and discuss in class. The proposal causes an uproar among mothers active in the PTA, and Gifford is ordered by his principal, Mr. Morton, to destroy the papers. He is suspended when he refuses to comply. The students rally to his defense by going on a "silence strike," which reaches its peak at a basketball game; the entire gym is silent except for the sound of the ball and the referee's whistle. While the game is in progress, Janet reads her mother the paper she wrote for Gifford's class. Mrs. Sommers sees the wisdom of Gifford's efforts, and she aids in having him reinstated. The class resumes, and Gifford reads the first of the controversial papers.