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.

[Cagey]

No, not too harsh at all because you said "maybe not necessarily cats".

Where do they get these cats? Are they cats that are euthanized at animal shelters?

[I_be_tc]

I graduated Catholic school in 1970, and we dissected a cat for a couple of weeks. The stench was unreal and it was hard, but it was Catholic school.

TC

[realpatriot71]

Do you know that the girl signed up for this class knowing she would have to dissect a cat? It used to be frogs.

No, I can't say I know this for sure, but it makes sense because frog anatomy is quite simple. I've dissected eveything from earthworms, squid, pigeons, rats, to humans. If this course was looking for application to human anatomy, and I'm guessing it probably was, then one needs to dissect something on a higher order. She probably knew, but if she didn't, then I'd cut her some slack.

[realpatriot71]

Are they cats that are euthanized at animal shelters?

That would be my guess. I never had to kill my own disection. They always came dead and pre-pickled.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Given all the insane antics public schools engage in to please various special interest groups, letting this kid substitute a computer modelling of dissection for the real thing, at her family's expense, doesn't seem like an unreasonable request. However, I tend to agree that taking it to court was a little over the top. If it had been my daughter, I'd have told to her to stay in the course, work her butt off, take the failing grade, and be sure to get a 5 on the AP exam. Then any college would be happy to accept her explanation that the failing grade was due to conscientious refusal to participate in the dissection.

[Sungirl]

Why not a DOG....a german shepard....how about a seeeing eye dog? Would it be wrong then? Well..it must be ...since they use cats....I'd like to see high schools use dogs ..... if using cats is so necessary. Hypocrits.

[GovernmentShrinker]

One really cool thing we did: get one of those big eyedropper thingies (it's got some technical name but I forgot it) and we put them down their throat then blew in the other end and inflated their lungs. Can't do that in a computer simulation.

What a beautiful illustration of my point that dissections at the high school level are a waste of time. What can we infer that the students learned from this exercise? That air entering from the mouth and going into the lungs causes the lungs/chest to expand? Anybody who hadn't figured that out by kindergarten is a lost cause, academically.

[spunkets]

"Alot of goof offs learn on cadavers..."

Yea I know, but they don't evoke an image of the mall crowd, or the local hooligans.

[GovernmentShrinker]

How come people always think I'm a Mr.?

[Doe Eyes]

Perhaps I'm misreading this, but I thought the girl had a problem disecting a cat, not complex animals in general. I know a lot of people with emotional attachments to cats and dogs. This being the case, perhaps the choice of a cat for a high school class might not have been the best of ideas.

[jackbill]

I design computer based instruction for a living. I have seen some pretty neat disection simulations.

And I've seen some very realistic computer simulations of battle. But, know what? Ain't the same. No way, no how.

[Amelia]

Kids ideas of the "highlights" of a class rarely correspond to the most important components from an academic standpoint.

Nope, the "highlights" just keep them interested for the rest of it...but I guess you'd know more about that than I do.

[realpatriot71]

Probably the reason they use cats is because they are smaller. I wouldn't have a problem using dogs either. It takes a lot of care to keep a disection in good condition. The materials need to keep, say a few 80-100lb german shepards, in good condition would cost a lot more money.

Is your problem here that "companion animals" are being used, or the disection itself?

[realpatriot71]

This being the case, perhaps the choice of a cat for a high school class might not have been the best of ideas.

I can go along with that. In fact, rats are probably the best disection for application to human anatomy.

[discostu]

There was a cute girl in my bio class that liked to wear mid-riff shirts. I horribly scarred her (emotionally). Doing our potato core lab (doing various things with tobes of potatoes extracted with a coring thing about the size of a pencil) I snuck up behind her, yelled "human core" and pressed a pencil eraser against her back. For the rest of the year I oculd freak her out just mumbling "human core". Ahh, youthful stupidity, she was cute (and my age bracket unlike the teacher) there were much better things I could have been doing with her exposed back ;) Then there's the time I taped 8 test tubes together, filled them with varying levels of water and did an immitation of Zamfir. Science classes always were the most fun, though rarely for the appropriate reasons.

[TJFLSTRAT]

Yes sometimes cats do indeed die, and doing an autopsy on them is a good thing, this child is obviously devoid of these facts.

[spunkets]

"I don't buy for a minute that cat dissections are an important part of high school biology"

While there's a lot of inflated claims for learning accomplishments nowadays, this is still an advanced anatomy/physiology class. There are some that get a tremendous benefit from doing the exercise. It all depends on their motivation, prior knowledge and the teachers skill at leading them through the exercise and commenting on what's important to note.

You're right to consider it a useless task for most, but for some in AP biology it's worth it.

[realpatriot71]

Here's my main concern in this case: most students taking an honors or AP course in anataomy is probably thinking medicine or research. While I think it's important to remember these people are still just "kids," I also feel it's important for these students to "get used to the idea" so to speak, especially if they are planning careers in the areas I described. Anatomy is learned through dissection. Perhaps a "cat" is too much for some high school kids, but they need to be cutting something.

[realpatriot71]

Sorry, but I don't buy for a minute that cat dissections are an important part of high school biology

See #178

[GovernmentShrinker]

You sound as if you've bought into the currently fashionable educational theory which holds that schools and teachers have a duty to entertain students. I have not, and believe that students will do much better in the long run if they learn that work is work and play is play, and that work needs to be done diligently whether one finds it interesting or not.