She Burned Them In a Fire.

Shane came home from school one day and blurted, “One of my teachers killed a bug today.” He was visibly upset by it – which is the way he gets whenever a bug is killed.

I started to say, “I know, Honey – sometimes that happens.”

And he said, “But she didn’t just kill the bug. She killed a lot of bugs. And she didn’t just kill them, she burned them in a fire.”

“She did what?” I asked, incredulous.

“We were doing this experiment in science with fire, and we were supposed to put this white powder in the fire. I think it was flour or something? But there were bugs in ours, so we told the teacher. And she came over and just grabbed a big handful with bugs and everything, and threw it right into the fire!”

I imagined the little bugs being burned alive. I wanted to vomit.

Shane didn’t seem any too happy about it, either.

I realize that many people consider bugs “just bugs.” But I’ve raised Shane to be kind whenever possible. That doesn’t mean we don’t kill anything – we slaughtered an entire ant colony just last month. But if it’s not absolutely necessary to destroy something, we simply won’t do it.

Shane’s science teacher apparently believes that saving a few bucks on a new bag of flour makes burning those bugs worthwhile.

Shane and I had a long talk after that, about how even good people can do things that aren’t very nice. And that doesn’t make them bad people – it just makes them different.

Next year, Shane will be expected to dissect a frog – the most loathsome school assignment of all time.

And, like his brother before him, Shane will do his dissection on the computer, far away from the last gasps of the poor creatures who will give their lives, literally, for science.

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