Girl, 16, forced out of anatomy class

Baltimore Sun ^ | 9-25-2002 | Jonathan D. Rockoff

[Cagey]

A 16-year-old student at Kenwood High School who refused to dissect a cat was forced to abandon her honors anatomy and physiology class Monday, even though her mother offered to buy a computer alternative.

Jennifer Watson, an A student from Essex who cares for a pet cat named Fluffy, resisted dissection as inhumane.

The girl wanted to remain in the class, and her mother proposed buying software for performing simulated dissections on the computer, according to the girl and her mother, Maria Watson. But the teacher threatened to fail the college-bound student if she didn't participate in the dissections.

[TightSqueeze]

So what kind of "progress" is to be had by...

Who can know the answer to such an open-ended question? I can only respond by asking, what type of knowledge can be by gained employing Draconian teaching methods that excludes the students natural love of learning. We ain't talking remedial math here, we are talking about a gifted student of higher than average intelligence seeking knowledge for knowledge sake. The teacher is a fool who seeks to strain every student through the same sieve, yes I agree we all need to know some of the same basic knowledge but when someone is questing to expand their sphere they shouldn't be thwarted by conventionality.

[spunkets]

4.3 is extra points above and beyond the basic credits to graduate that count as college credit, or it's out of 5.

[agrace]

I stand corrected (I did before I got to your response to me) - I posted knee-jerk. Blame it on the cat thing. Mine right now is sitting next to me on the desk. :)

Anyway, you're absolutely right - it's an elective, it involves advanced dissection (we only got as far as fetal pigs in regular HS bio and the stink of formaldehyde stuck for weeks!) and if she is taking it, she must be headed somewhere besides Votech. So she should suck it up or opt out of the class altogether and give her future plans a second thought.

That said though, I personally still wouldn't dissect a cat. But then again, I couldn't cut into a human being either so wouldn't need the elective for med school I'd never attend.

[ofMagog]

My wife started out with sauropods in high school.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

College students DO DISECT humans! However, humans are very expensive and are hard to obtain. A nice cat is a good place to start.

[homeschool mama]

Thanks, spunkets. :o)

My nephew graduated with a 4.7 but it wasn't explained to me. Now I understand how the AP classes can figure in.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Honors classes are weighted differently. An A in a honors course is a 5.0 on a 4.0 scale.

[spunkets]

"How does one dissect a cat in a High School class when the mere act of accidently finding a kitchen knife in one's car..."

Anti-violence dissection tool

[better_dead_then_red]

I had a wild man for a biology teacher in high school We would disect whatever fresh kill he found by the road on the way into school...dogs, coons, cats. Heck my younger sister was lucky when she took the class and got to take apart a dead cow. Really very educational, but not for those with gentle PC sensibilities.

[Havisham]

Who among us didn't ignore a lowered grade knowing full well we'd receive as many or more inflated ones? The mom is teaching a poor lesson taking the school to court over her daughter's warped sense of fairness.

I doubt the other kids relished the cat dissection but they understood that opting out would necessarily affect their grade and their experience with mammalian anatomy.

More fundamentally, schools are not obligated to award honors status or full credit to students who do not meet the course standards.

[Havisham]

Who among us didn't ignore a lowered grade knowing full well we'd receive as many or more inflated ones? The mom is teaching a poor lesson taking the school to court over her daughter's warped sense of fairness.

I doubt the other kids relished the cat dissection but they understood that opting out would necessarily affect their grade and their experience with mammalian anatomy.

More to the point, schools are not obligated to award honors status or full credit to students who do not meet the course standards.

[Maigrey]

During my HS years (somewhat a time ago...) the regular class got to dissect worms and frogs. The Honors class (mine) got to dissect all of the above as well as the fetal pig. (hehehe Porky...) The AP Bio class got all of that, plus the cat. There was NO listing in the class listing specifying will be dissecting cats but everyone in the program knew that that was part of the class.

As it sounds, (and I am going on what was reported) she knew what the class demanded, and then caused a stink because she didn't want to do so.
Too flipin' bad. This was not a mandated class, and I find it funny as snot that she didn't know that the class involved cat dissection. Don't sign up for the course if you are not willing to do the work.

As much as you want to wail away on the teacher, I have to find fault with the student. If you are going to make a stand and not complete the work, then take the F for the project and test and try to make it up, since this is supposedly a case of morals.....

Sounds like another PETA child who doesn't want to take responsibility for her action or lack thereof...psychology traumatized.... horsepucky!

-Maigrey

[The Other Harry]

I disagree. If she doesn't want to dissect a cat they shouldn't force her to.

Fwiw, I agree. It's not necessary.

[Maigrey]

Can someone please explain a a 4.3 weighted grade point average? I went to school a long time ago, but 4.0 was the very top, and no one got better than a 3.99 because nobody's perfect!

At my HS, the honors classes were weighted on a 5pt scale, and the AP classes were worth 6 for an A. Therefore, the 4.3 meant that this person was (for 6 classes) 5 B's and an A, on average for all honors classes.

-Maigrey-

[Doe Eyes]

If she doesn't want to dissect a cat they shouldn't force her to be in AP biology... stupid little twit.

Exactly, its like a doctor refusing to perform abortions.

[white trash redneck]

Not necessarily. I can see how somebody might object to dissecting a common household pet without necessarily being a PETA clone.

When I was in medical school we used lawyers as experimental subjects, for a number of compelling reasons:

Law schools turn them out by the thousands every year

You don't really get attached to them, like a dog or a cat

The anatomy is very close to the human (except for the absence of a heart)

[sneakers]

I'm sorry, but I don't put dissecting a dead animal for the valuable knowledge in the same category as killing a living human being.

[discostu]

If she was of higher than average intelligence then how'd she miss the part in the catalog that said there'd be dissection? Or has average intelligence really sunk that low? I'm all for being flexible about this stuff in mandatory courses, kids should have a reasonable opportunity to not slice open an animal. But it's not a mandatory course. She chose to take it, if she didn't read the catalog description of the class closely enough to realize what that entailed then this is a nice life lesson for her. Later in life when she buys a car and doesn't do the math before hand and finds out a few months later she can't afford the payments her backout options are slim to none and most will cost her a fair bit (and possibly screw up her credit rating for a few years). That's how life works, make an illinformed decision pay the price, when I was a kid they said the goal of school was to prepare you for life, learning to read all the paperwork is good life preperation.

[realpatriot71]

I disagree. If she doesn't want to dissect a cat they shouldn't force her to.

It's an anatomy class. It's part of the curriculum(sp?). Not dissecting the cat is like saying, "I'm not going to write that research paper and no one should force me to".

[realpatriot71]

It's an anatomy class. Not dissecting the cat is like refusing to write a paper or take a test. It's core to the class.