{"id":1390207,"date":"2016-06-07T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1390207"},"modified":"2016-06-06T16:55:30","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T20:55:30","slug":"real-talk-i-almost-failed-a-bio-class-for-refusing-a-live-dissection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/real-talk-i-almost-failed-a-bio-class-for-refusing-a-live-dissection\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Talk: I Almost Failed A Bio Class For Refusing A Live Dissection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Even though science classes tend to be a lot more cumbersome and taxing than their liberal arts sisters, it’s the only discipline that really lets students get hands-on about their learning in wonderful (albeit sometimes really weird) ways. <\/span><\/p>\n

Whether it’s everyone joining hands for a chemistry tutorial on electrical conductivity or putting together a straw-balloon device that simulates human muscle movement, there’s a lot of interactive learning going on, which is a welcome break from the monotony of the yawn-worthy strict lecture structure for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, for the most part, I usually enjoyed the lab assignments that put fascinating life materials in my hands and let me play with them for the sake of ~education~. Even though these classes weren’t always a friend to my GPA, I was still totally game to tinker around with all the crazy tools and biological materials we had at our disposal because it was almost always pretty cool. Almost. <\/span><\/p>\n

Junior year, though, we reached a major moment of NOPE with my marine biology class. <\/span><\/p>\n

I could overlook the formaldehyde smell that permeated my shoes for a full month after the two-day dead frog dissection experiment in 8th grade. I could put aside my personal feelings about the pig fetus butchery that went down in 10th grade. But when our teacher brought in a bucket full of living crabs, a tray of scalpels, and a worksheet on how to dismantle the creature piece by piece, it was a hard pass for me. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dissecting a living animal? I couldn’t. <\/span><\/p>\n

While everyone else dutifully picked up their supplies and got to work, I wrinkled my nose and headed up to the front to have a little student-teacher pow wow sesh about what was happening right now. I didn’t wax philosophical and ask why this was necessary or even beneficial to students of this age, most if not all of which will never go into this field professionally (although I probably should have). I did, however, present my own moral objection to the assignment and was met with a sudden shock face that quickly turned into an angry-slash-annoyed one and was quickly told that this was absolutely required and that if I refused it, I’d be getting a big fat zero for it. Considering this was the major dissection project of the year and thus a major factor in the final grade, that was a pretty costly price to pay, but I didn’t back down. <\/span><\/p>\n

The thing was, this was a rinky-dink private school in a small town (one of the three I bounced around in through high school<\/a>), so they didn’t have the same kind of administrative recourse a public school might have. It was just me against the teacher on this one, but as I watched all of these helpless crustaceans squirming while their shells were being pride away to expose their innards (with their hearts being removed LAST, shudder), I had to fight it. I would not do this; I marched down to the principal’s office and plead my case, and she agreed to talk it over with the teacher. <\/span><\/p>\n

I spent the next week getting brow-beaten by her, even as she’d moved onto the next subject (which was, ironically, my favorite of the year\u2014a video-supported discussion on why the oarfish could be the Lochness Monster). The rest of the students, too, seemed pretty flippant about my on-going dispute, shrugging with the suggestion that I should’ve just done it and be done with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, the principal came through. Even though private schools don’t offer the same First Amendment freedom of speech protections that state schools do, she pegged the situation as a semi-religious objection and requested that I get an alternative assignment\u2014a hilariously difficult essay project\u2014to fill in the gap.<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn’t take down the practice altogether\u2014live dungeness crab dissections are still, unfortunately, a thing that people do\u2014but I did (or perhaps more appropriately, <\/span>didn’t<\/span><\/i> do) my part. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even though science classes tend to be a lot more cumbersome and taxing than their liberal arts sisters, it’s the only discipline that really lets students get hands-on about their learning in wonderful (albeit sometimes continue reading<\/span>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":440,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[325,11552,22346,5583],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390207"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1390207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1390207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1390207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1390207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}