Dissection: Support a Student's Right to Choose

I keep running into topics that really gets to me these days..

Here is another one, and I put it here because it has to do with ethics:

"Once upon a time, the muckity mucks of curriculum design thought it would be a good idea to teach biology, the study of life, by having students participate in dissection labs that ranged from mutilating dead worms to rats, cats and fetal pigs, among other creatures.

The animals that end up on lab tables can come from a number of sources. Some were taken from their habitat in the wild, while others are byproducts of the meat and fur industries. Still others may have been someone’s former pet who had the misfortune of being bought from a shelter or stolen by a Class B dealer, or animal broker who finds and sell dogs and cats to schools and research institutions for a profit.

Dissection is yet another way to fuel these businesses.

Students have come forward to express their discomfort..."

Seen from the perspective of the children, I personally I think it way to early to go into that kind of thing!

On top of that, I can just see a child with a cat at home being asked to dissect a cat - it could amount to abuse of the worst sort.

Seen from the angle of the animals, it is a huge waste of lives for no reason. (Every year high schools go through about 6 million vertebrates alone, while the numbers for elementary and middle schools and colleges are unknown, according to the American Anti-Vivisection Society.) The ones who will study biology later will get to it, the rest can learn from dravings.


http://www.care2.com/causes/animal-w...ght-to-choose/

High school and younger students can use video resources, before long 3D video for as close to a real experience as they will need. Other than smelling the formalin, of course. College biology and especially med school students need to experience the physical manipulation of the tissue, since so much of what is done is by feel, rather than sight. I for one want to have physicians who have practiced on someone else first!

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Originally Posted by Snark

High school and younger students can use video resources, before long 3D video for as close to a real experience as they will need. Other than smelling the formalin, of course.

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Ok, but that is not what they are doing, apparently. And wouldn't alot of children still hae very negative reactions this that?

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College biology and especially med school students need to experience the physical manipulation of the tissue, since so much of what is done is by feel, rather than sight. I for one want to have physicians who have practiced on someone else first!

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Well yes, but not many of them actually end up being physicians. It is just a normal science course. At least if it is the same as here in UK.

Follow the money and you will find why they are still doing this at the highschool level.

Hmm, Interesting that they are fighting for a law at the state level, when you can already decline those courses as a matter of Federal law. Makes me believe that there is a lot of money to be made working for these "Non-Profit" corporations.

Cheers
Twisted

Just throwing this out there: I'm a huge animal lover, have had a dog or cat in the house since before I could talk. However, dissection was the most interesting, and down right fun section of biology for me. I volunteered to dissect a pregnant cat and was enthralled with it. Now that may just be my personal fascination with figuring out how things work, but I loved it. In all of my high school level classes there was always an opportunity to opt out of dissection or just be a passive observer, rather than actually doing the cutting. It seemed to work well for the more squeamish of the class.
Despite how well I think of dissection and it's influence as a learning tool, the method of procurring fetal pigs is somewhat horrific. (kind of a long explanation, I'd suggest looking it up if you're interested in how it all goes down) However, I wouldn't give up the opportunity to dissect for anything, I feel as though it has been invaluable to my education.

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Originally Posted by karley

Just throwing this out there: I'm a huge animal lover, have had a dog or cat in the house since before I could talk. However, dissection was the most interesting, and down right fun section of biology for me. I volunteered to dissect a pregnant cat and was enthralled with it. Now that may just be my personal fascination with figuring out how things work, but I loved it. In all of my high school level classes there was always an opportunity to opt out of dissection or just be a passive observer, rather than actually doing the cutting. It seemed to work well for the more squeamish of the class.
Despite how well I think of dissection and it's influence as a learning tool, the method of procurring fetal pigs is somewhat horrific. (kind of a long explanation, I'd suggest looking it up if you're interested in how it all goes down) However, I wouldn't give up the opportunity to dissect for anything, I feel as though it has been invaluable to my education.

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it is in fact interesting. But did you ever wonder where that cat came from?

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Originally Posted by karley

Just throwing this out there: I'm a huge animal lover, have had a dog or cat in the house since before I could talk. However, dissection was the most interesting, and down right fun section of biology for me. I volunteered to dissect a pregnant cat and was enthralled with it. Now that may just be my personal fascination with figuring out how things work, but I loved it.

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I didn't like disection, it was several kinds of ick, but I wouldn't have missed it. You can learn just so much from books and pictures, then you have to study the real thing.

But I did learn to worry about the morality of sacrificing animals just to be studied. Later, in University, one of the things that convinced me I could never be a research biologist was when we had a practical involving muscle respiration: so we were supposed to go to the tech counter and say "One rat please," and the tech would take a rat from a cageful, whack its head on the edge of the bench and hand it over. Just so we could disect out a postage-stamp size slip of diaphram muscle and study it in a test tube. That was about twenty rats killed that day so we could do our experiment, and it felt wrong.

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In all of my high school level classes there was always an opportunity to opt out of dissection or just be a passive observer, rather than actually doing the cutting. It seemed to work well for the more squeamish of the class.

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My son is supposed to be allowed to opt out of disection - watching as well as doing it - but the teacher sprang a surprise session on them because a cow heart had become available, and wouldn't let him leave. He was sick, so I think she'll be more considerate next time. Study is important, but it should't be an emotional ordeal.

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I wouldn't give up the opportunity to dissect for anything, I feel as though it has been invaluable to my education.

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It's true that there is far too little hands-on experience in modern education. All sorts of cool science experiments and craft projects are now only done by the teacher while the students look on, becasue the safety culture says they're too dangerous for students. But we did them and survived somehow.

I am curious, for those who have said they have learned alot from disection:

What specific knowledge did you obtain by disecting an animal?
and how has that has been useful in your life?

I am curious, for those who have said they have learned alot from disection:

What specific knowledge did you obtain by disecting an animal?
and how has that has been useful in your life?

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Originally Posted by TantricSoul

What specific knowledge did you obtain by disecting an animal?
and how has that has been useful in your life?

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Disecting small animals (cats, fetal pigs etc) has helped me get a general idea of practical anatomy. For me it's all well and good to learn something from a book, but actually seeing and touching what you've been talking about is the best way to learn. As far as usefulness goes, I'm a pre-med major so disection has a two-fold purpose for me. As we continue disecting more and more complex animals it shows me that I will be able to handle myself when I go to disect a cadaver. It also builds a strong base of practical knowledge that I can draw on. Not everything will be the same, but seeing the similarities will be very beneficial.

<<worked as a vet tech while doing her RN pre-reqs, and then later worked on people.

Disection was very valuable, we had automatons to work with too in RN school but they didnt hold a candle to the real deal. Those of us who came from backgrounds working on human cadavers and animal flesh and in my case living animals, had a hudge step up on the others who had never done so.



Just like with anything, including BDSM, practical experience beats online theory hands down.

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Originally Posted by TantricSoul

I am curious, for those who have said they have learned alot from disection:

What specific knowledge did you obtain by disecting an animal?
and how has that has been useful in your life?

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A hands-on perspective, seeing the body parts as they actually exist, with mesentary and connecting tissues, where the various ducts and tubes lie, helped me, as an amateur, process food animals for my personal consumption. I've done rabbits, pigs, sheep, goat... and assisted with cattle. (They're too heavy without a true winch-lift to do solo.)

Though not a necessity per se, it's comforting to know I know how should that change.