A Cut Above

I have dissected a lot of organisms in my life. In college, as a student interested in medical anthropology and comparative anatomy, I spent many hours hunched over cadavers and a frozen vervet monkey (which my TA was supposed to have thawed before class), but years of biological curiosity began in the Moorpark Unified School District in sixth grade.

There, we dissected a starfish and a perch. I have to say, this particular adventure in science made me swear never to cut open anything again; especially anything doused with formaldehyde (or whatever “safe” chemical they used as a preservative).
In seventh grade, we dissected a frog. I had seen a lot of movies and television shows featuring students taking part in the coming-of-age ritual of dissecting a frog by the time I was 13 so I was prepared for the one I was working on to get up, perform a song and dance and then hop away. Therefore, I was surprised that, despite being the only female in my dissection group, I was the only one with a strong enough stomach to perform the dissection.

And what I saw was amazing. I was struck by the intricacies and neatness of a body. All of a sudden, I was sure I wanted to pursue science in high school and college.
Not much happened in the dissection arena in eighth and ninth grade but in tenth grade, my life was changed yet again by my amazing AP biology teacher.

That was the year of cat and pig dissections; our first mammals! The true moment of glory came when our teacher, holding a bag with a tail sticking straight up out of it, smacked the bag on the counter to show us rigor mortis, and that these preserved things had little in common with our dear pets fluffy and muffy. It was like a scene out of Man in the Moon Marigolds (a 1964 play written by Paul Zindel).

The first day or two of cat dissections was long and tedious (I won’t go into detail, but cats don’t have a handy-dandy zipper for internal viewing). When we finally were able to see the various organ systems, you could hear all of the groups murmuring, “Wow, that’s so cool!” and “Oh my gosh, that’s what it looks like!” We were overcome by wonder were and old enough to appreciate it.

 Truth be told, by 16, those who wanted to be doctors were well on their way to pursuing that dream.

My final MUSD-financed dissection series was in 12th grade physiology. We had the nicest, smartest, most progressive (alas, too progressive for this district) teacher, who had an infectious passion for science and learning. We worked on a sheep brain, a sheep heart, another cow’s eye (the first was in seventh grade health) and another cat.

This time, I got to help others with the dissection because I was a cat-dissection veteran. I wonder if that could be my official title? Maybe not.

The Moorpark schools provided me with an excess of educational opportunities that allowed me to explore my distinct interests over the years. Theater and physiology? No problem! The pattern remained through college: anthropology nerd by day, radio DJ and actor by night (or early Saturday morning if my luck wasn’t so hot).

As I hear more and more about the looming education crisis, I can’t help but be sad for the future classes of children who will come through the system with the bare minimum of education instead of the endless opportunities that I was given.