ignore that comment - i meant to hit the reply button -- fariz you should make it so that i can delete shit that i accidentally post

I too dissected a variety of animals in elementary school and middle school, and I wouldn't change that at all. In my opinion, the goal of elementary and junior high education (and, arguably, high school) is to introduce students to a variety of academic subjects so they have enough background experience to make an informed decision to pursue a particular career area in college. If I didn't have experience doing dissections, writing stories, studying foreign languages, etc. I would have been nowhere near as informed about the various subjects when it came time for me to make a life decision.

Furthermore, I think the idea of virtual dissections is complete crap. I know plenty of people who would have enjoyed clicking a mouse and watching the layers of a cat peel back for them. They might enjoy it so much that they decide to pursue biology at a later point in education - late enough in their education where they would get to dissect a real animal. I can only imagine how flabbergasted they would be having smelled formaldehyde and cutting through the various fleshes for the first time. They would probably puke all over the place, feel completely embarrassed, drop out of school, and be a whore like the people at that place fariz visited last week. I don't know about you, but I think that would definitely suck.

Sorry for the rant – but really, virtual dissections is a bad idea. How about instead of sending kids to Paris, Rome, London, etc. as part of their senior year trips in middle school and high school, we just put them in front of a computer and let them look at pictures so they don’t waste our precious resources flying across the globe destroying the planet. I’m sure they would appreciate walking on the same cobblestone pathways as Napoleon, would understand how many lives were lost in WWII as they look over the beaches of D-Day in Normandy, or share the sadness of visiting a concentration camp. Yep, I’m sure they would feel the smell of the ocean in Normandy or the fear of being locked in a concentration camp from pictures on a computer. Hell, I’m sure they would appreciate getting wasted in the Latin Quarter and pissing on some French guy’s front door as he yells at you from the third story window. Yep, let’s do virtual trips – nothing beats getting wasted in front of a computer looking at a picture of France and then being electrocuted as you piss all over the CPU.