Yesterday, Ben and I shadowed a Classical Conversation Challenge A class. We are considering Classical Conversations for next year and wanted to get an idea of what it was like.
Ben was very excited to find out the class would be dissecting cow eyes, and observing the dissection of a sheep heart and brain, too. I have one word for cow eye dissection — yuck!
The class was taught by Dr. Jeff Omer, a local internal medicine doctor (and homeschool dad) whose wife, Kerrin, teaches the class. His lecture on the overview of the brain, heart, and eye was excellent.
One of the students in the class, Brittany, was kind enough to let Ben be her lab partner, and of course, I grabbed a few shots with my iPhone, so we would remember.
This is what the cow eye looks like right out of the package from Home Science Tools. The kids were charged with cutting away as much of the tissue around it so they could isolate the 4 muscles that control the eye. They all found this part a bit challenging (and I found it a bit nerve-wracking with scalpels in each hand, but thankfully, no one was injured!).
You can see Brittany trying very hard to cut away all of that fascia, while Ben looked on, waiting patiently to get his hands on that thing.
Once they were able to cut away the extra tissue, they dissected the eye superior to inferior, so that they could observe the front of the eye where the lens could be seen, and the back of the eye, where the cones and rods are housed.
Ben popped that lens right out.
This is the back of the eye. It was really beautiful — iridescent.
Can you see Ben’s eye?
Once they students finished their eye dissections, Dr. Omer showed them all the parts of the sheep’s brain, very much like a human brain.
And lastly, he dissected a sheep’s heart, also quite similar to the human heart. He was able to show them the chambers and major valves and blood vessels.
Ben was never interested in doing dissections before. But this has sparked a renewed interest in studying more about the human anatomy in him, and I think he decided it might be cool to do some more dissecting (a boy after my own nurse’s heart). I suspect I’ll be placing a Home Science Tools order soon.
We really enjoyed our afternoon with this Classical Conversations class. Thanks for having us, Kerrin!
P.S. Dissections are cool.