when i was in junior high i stood up to my science teacher and refused to be a part of it. how many did similiar? what did you go through? my parents, for the first real time, didn't stand behind me. they respected my opinion, but felt i needed to be a part of the class project. some of my classmates tried peer pressure. did you want to stand up, but didn't? were their other's who stood up? i was the only one in my class.
I sort of did. I didn't want to do the actual dissecting but I took notes while my partner did it. The teacher let me take notes the whole time instead of switching half way through. I think dissecting can be a good way to learn, it's a nice visual. In my class we used animals that had already died because of diseases. I wanted to be a part of the experience so I stayed in the class, even though I wasn't 100% sure I was okay with the idea. There were a few people that refused to do it but I don't think it was because of their concern for animals...it was just a way to get out of class. I think it's good when people stand behind their beliefs but it's just lame when people make it up because the people who took that class 2nd semester had a much harder time getting an alternative assignment.
my teacher refused to hear my request for other options. (sadly the vocational school nearby uses the technology of dissection alternative thorugh video and interactive computer tech.) he told me he respected my opinion, but basically didn't care. i either did the asignment or took an F. i took the F. it was something i had questioned for a long time about whether i could participate or not. (part of te problem seemed his approach to te whole thing.) i tried to assimilate in high school over it. i ended up in tears, unable to conform, and praying to God for forgiveness, knife in hand. my high school teacher understood that i could not take death lightly.
Amazingly, in 7th grade my school had a very primitive version of the computer dissection program. So, I chose to do a virtual dissection and anatomy program in the computer lab while the other students dissected a frog. Dissection wasn't an issue again until late in high school. However, there were several science classes offered for the credit, and I simply signed up for those classes without any dissections (microbiology and environmental science). However, this didn't mean that I got away without encountering dissection at all. At my high school, the annual cat dissection in the senior anatomy class was treated like a twisted "event." Students carried dead cats around in the halls, played pranks with them in the commons, and gave them stupid names. Dead cats showed up on the in-school news broadcast and even a huge 2-page photo spread in our yearbook. (I complained.)
These days, there is so much concern about violence in schools, we have students being suspended for possessing nail clippers and butter knives. Yet dissection goes on each year without question. Just about anyone who has observed the social climate of a general dissection course in a high school or junior high can attest the feelings of disrespect, moral conflict, and even cruelty it breeds so easily. It's telling that when supervisors search schools for items which could promote violence and callousness, they overlook the dissection lab.
