Yeah, it always seemed a bit silly in the basic biology class to have dissection in the first place. The only real benefit I saw in it was, like you said, learning how to dissect in general. A useful skill for later on, but not something that taught anything preserved samples and good photography couldn't.

I mean it's cool to see how things connect, how the organs are shaped in reality, but it was a shit ton of time and resources for basic biology class where you could have spent the same resources for more general knowledge. Save the dissection for AP classes, or anatomy, or courses like that, where it's going to really be useful.

I would argue it's a great way to get a feeler for if you can hack it as a doctor or not. If you can't handle dissecting a preserved small animal, you'll never make it through med school. Honestly more of high school should involve mini job simulation beyond the standard "office peon" that most of highschool simulates.

Sure, there's a point to it in higher education, but you'd be working with an animal specific to the need.

I was only talking about the high school level, where frogs are the default "starter". Should probably have specified, but figured it was implied enough by context

My school actually didn't use frogs, they went with fetal pigs, and cats for the anatomy class. That's just as a tangent unrelated to the original post and discussion.