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    dr. woodleAnna Merlan
    9/07/15 11:38am

    We dissected sharks in 7th grade. I remember what it smelled like, what it was like to cut the skin away from the fat, and I remember the claspers. That is it.

    My advice to kids? Become a vegetarian, say you can’t dissect, etc. due to animal cruelty, and get to do a flower collection instead of a bug collection in 9th grade biology. The more you know.

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      MsMymlandr. woodle
      9/07/15 11:40am

      We only dissected cows’/pigs’ eyes from the butcher’s leftovers. I think killing animals just for this purpose is illegal here. Another school got into trouble because they had their biology class train mice. They couldn’t use them for another class because they were already trained. When they wanted to get rid of them there were protests and they ended up giving the mice away as pets.

      Only medical students dissect whole animals.

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      *Malice in Blunderland*dr. woodle
      9/07/15 11:44am

      My mom told me she had to dissect cats in high school.

      CATS I TELL YOU.

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    ZeeniaAnna Merlan
    9/07/15 12:25pm

    ‘You will learn that Africa and Asia are places.’ Is this for real? I didn’t go to school in America. We learnt world geography in detail in middle school. I can still name most European capitals. This is a joke right?

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      Negasonic Adultish WarheadZeenia
      9/07/15 12:34pm

      American here, I took AP world geography in high school so I got to learn a lot about other countries. Many of my friends did not and have little to no understand about the world outside of of the US. Sure Canada is above us and Mexico is below. They know the “cool” countries like France but over all it’s a mystery out there.

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      JacksonQRabbitZeenia
      9/07/15 12:36pm

      Kinda sorta depends. That’s about the best answer you get. Most social studies teachers do a better job of covering Asia, and Oceania than in the past. Africa is covered usually in the large, coastal type countries, and very often there will be some type of World Fair, where each student picks a country to represent. Doing presentations for everyone kind of covers addressing those nations, but I’ve never met a SS teacher that ever did African capitals. Is it a failing? Uh, yeah, sort of. The biggest problem is the amount of time you have with the students, and the things you have to cover in that time, usually related to standardized testing. I say “sort of” instead of “absolutely” because, not to be an asshole about it, I have as much use for Chad in my life, as I do for trigonometry.

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    deerlady83Anna Merlan
    9/07/15 11:47am

    In almost every novel I read in high school at least one person or more dies. Jane Austen might have been one of the few novels where someone didn’t die. A lot of the novels were depressing before someone even died. I don’t mind reading depressing stories but I think my school needed to add some comedies to lighten the mood.

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      AltairaMorbius2200ADdeerlady83
      9/07/15 11:55am

      Yeah, high schools really make a HUGE shift on kids with no warning- they go from “Everything is fine! The kid who faced monumental odds is the winner every time!” to “Life is devoid of meaning” without much transition. YA books (intended for HS audiences) make for a better transition (they’re generally somewhat hopeful but have mixed results for main characters), but schools are only starting to teach them.

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      HelloSweetiedeerlady83
      9/07/15 12:19pm

      You would love Les Miserables. Not really.

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    SchemeHatcheryAnna Merlan
    9/07/15 11:57am

    My school was weirdly obsessed with the Holocaust but we only ever studied it in English class through novels. I mean... it was nice having some diversity in our fiction but history classes never seemed to cover WWII at all. I had very little knowledge about the politics of the war until I was an adult but knew age-appropriate novels to cite from about sixth grade up.

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      HelloSweetieSchemeHatchery
      9/07/15 12:17pm

      We managed to cover WWII in my history classes, but we always seemed to run out of time just afterward. I never got to learn about the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, or the Cold War. Every single year, we would run out of time. I always wondered why we didn't occasionally skip the redundant early stuff or maybe even start at the end and work backwards. It's got to be worse for kids now since there's even more history that they need to try to fit in the school year.

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      JessMarianoSchemeHatchery
      9/07/15 12:36pm

      For some reason we mostly studied the Holocaust in 8th grade, and our English teacher shaved his head every year during class to sort of pseudo-martyr himself. When I think about it now it makes me feel sort of sad for him. And a little sick.

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    KatMarloweAnna Merlan
    9/07/15 12:21pm

    But what about Old Yeller? He lives, right? I mean, he lived on a farm and it’s a fact that if your dog goes to a farm, they live forever. So, I know he’s just fine.

    Nothing bad happened to him, okay? Nobody contradict me.

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      JessMarianoKatMarlowe
      9/07/15 12:38pm

      Just saw him the other day. He was hanging out with the little girl from Bridge to Terabithia. Seemed like they were having a killer time.

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      goddessoftransitoryKatMarlowe
      9/07/15 1:34pm

      He is FINE.

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    *Malice in Blunderland*Anna Merlan
    9/07/15 11:43am

    Needs more Christopher Columbus and Algebra. The only thing I really remember about school is that we learned about Christopher Columbus every fucking year in time for thanksgiving.

    Seriously fuck that guy though.

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      midland*Malice in Blunderland*
      9/07/15 11:56am

      But without European exploration there would be no USA or Australia which would be...pretty great!

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      GrumpyEaglemidland
      9/07/15 12:11pm

      Yes, and unless you were a member of the royalty, you’d be making a wonderful living on the Continent as either a soldier or an inbred potato farmer.

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    Dr Emilio Lizardo (dogless)Anna Merlan
    9/07/15 1:08pm

    He’s not wrong about math, but most people still can’t handle his “Original Fab Four.”

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      jjdebenedictisDr Emilio Lizardo (dogless)
      9/07/15 1:56pm

      He is wrong about math, very wrong, but it depends on what career you choose.

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      deerlady83Dr Emilio Lizardo (dogless)
      9/07/15 1:56pm

      Fractions throw some people for a loop. I teach special ed and it’s a hard conception for some of my kids. Even kids who aren’t sped have trouble with it.

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    rumandgingerAnna Merlan
    9/07/15 12:02pm

    “...most of the main characters in the Great Gatsby....”

    The only characters that die in ‘Gatsby’ are Gatsby himself, Myrtle, and George. I find your arguments concerning the classification of of Myrtle and George as ‘main characters’ to be poorly thought out and your arguments to be unsupported by the facts.

    V. Poor, Ms Merlan. Can do better. C-

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      randilynisFINDILYNAnna Merlan
      9/07/15 11:34am

      *spoiler alert*

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        MsMymlanrandilynisFINDILYN
        9/07/15 11:55am
        GIF
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      NicoleAnna Merlan
      9/07/15 12:47pm

      Biggest thing I remember when I dissected frogs was the sound/feel of breaking the bones.

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