Dissection in Schools

As a science teacher, people are surprised to find out that I am against dissection schools.

It is an outdated practice. It is cruel. It does little to teach students the standards. Students learn to maim and destroy rather than appreciation for life. It is poisonous. It damages the environment. It is costly. It is wrong.

I was fortunate going through school as dissection was not much of an issue. Most schools understand that it is controversial and offer all students an alternative. I remember a “check the box” type of survey. Check that you want to dissect and you go to one room, check that you do not want to dissect and you go to another room. There almost always were more students in the “alternative room” because we got to see a dissection online while doing our own with a model. We then had the additional challenge of putting the model back together. Our room always had higher test scores than the dissection room, and we did not stink for the entire day!