• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Disturbed...

Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt

i loev cronsankes
We did a rat dissection today in science, and it really bothered me. We had dissected a grasshopper before, but it didn't hit as close to home because grasshoppers aren't on the same level mentally as rats. All I know about rats is that they are affectionate, intelligent, loving, and playful. So it was pretty hard to see one all cut up. But I could've dealt with that. It was the way kids treated the cadavers that shook me. They cut off the heads (which we were not asked to do) and showed them off around the room. They... "violated" the cadavers (both female and male) with their scalpels. One kid even skinned the entire face off of his groups cadaver and wore it as a finger puppet. All the while everyone was laughing at these things. I guess I just can't understand why. Maybe there's a disconnect with it because it's not human, but it's still a life that was lost so we could learn more about vertebrate anatomy... something we could've done virtually, frankly. I KNOW there are websites and programs out there that allow you to do a virtual dissection. Even the teacher was disturbed by how... "into it" some kids got every year, so why didn't she have us do it online instead? I mean, if we were working on a human cadaver, this would be some serial killer level stuff. I just don't even know why the school continues this practice if this is the behavior they expect from kids every year.
 
We always did our dissection on frogs...most people were grossed out. The others were mature about it. If people had acted like that, then I would have been seriously angry...
 
dionythicus said:
Why did the teacher allow them to do what they were doing? She should have stopped it.
Click to expand...
She gave them a warning to be respectful at the beginning of class, and once she saw the guy wearing the macabre finger puppet she made us throw everything away and do a study guide, but by then it had gone on for 15 minutes or so.
 
I've dissected various animals in my past (worm, frog, cat, shark, mudpuppy, starfish, rats, etc) and for the most part people were fairly respectful to the animals. I'd be creeped out by the finger puppet mouse guy, what the heck is that all about. Sounds like some kids that need to grow up. If I was the teacher I probably would have gave finger puppet guy an auto F for that portion of the grade.
 
Before I even got to the last few sentences of your thread I was thinking, "OMG this is what kids who grow up to be mentally disturbed serial killers do for fun and games!" Then you said your bit about serial killers. That is horrible. Some people will just do anything for attention I guess. Just remember what goes around, comes around.
 
I think you're going to have an even rougher time when you have to dissect a cat and maybe even a dog. Sometimes, people joke and try to make light of things to keep themselves from crying. I've had to learn that in my profession.
 
Susan said:
I think you're going to have an even rougher time when you have to dissect a cat and maybe even a dog. Sometimes, people joke and try to make light of things to keep themselves from crying. I've had to learn that in my profession.
Click to expand...

I would be crying if I had to dissect a dog or a cat. :( Hope I never have to do that...
 
I am so sorry you had to experience that. While I will make no effort to excuse the behavior of the students in your class, remember that what you know about rats is not the commonly held conception. Still, there is a line between making light of a situation and being completely disrespectful, and it sounds like you class crossed the line into disrespectful. I would guess however, that those students were extremely uncomfortable with the whole situation and were acting out in order to distract themselves from the discomfort. They have to live with themselves, and I bet that's going to be hard for them for a while.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top