Showing Children Where the T-Bone Comes From

Is it possible to graduate from high school without knowing exactly what part of the steer yields a porterhouse steak?

Yes . . . but is that a good thing?

I’d never pondered the question until last week, when the news (sometimes we define the word loosely) broke that students at Carbon Canyon Christian School in Brea took time out from their normal studies to see a steer named T-Bone killed, skinned and gutted before their eyes. Initial reports didn’t say if the demonstration came before or after lunch.

Slaughtering steers once was witnessed only by rough and tough stockyard workers--the idea likely being that the rest of us would ruin the cattle industry by becoming vegetarians on the spot if we watched the process.

Today’s students, apparently, are cut from hardier stock. After everything they’ve seen on TV and movies, maybe it’s pretty tame stuff to watch a steer take a shot from a stun gun and then be eviscerated. Besides, any student who wanted to witness T-Bone’s final moments needed parental permission.

The students’ psyches may survive the demonstration, but how about us adults?

In the aftermath of the reporting on T-Bone’s ultimate contribution to science, proponents on both sides reacted with righteous indignation.

Animal-rights activists got wind of the demonstration and tried to block the guest butcher from doing his thing. Police told the protesters to move along.

One activist told the media that schools “should be encouraging children to be kind to animals, not to kill them.”

If that argument were carried to its logical extension, we would be a nation of vegetarians. I don’t scoff at the notion as much as I once did, but it ain’t gonna happen in our lifetime.

However, the school’s argument also has some holes in it.

What they’re probably dying to say is that they run a private school and can do whatever they want and the rest of us can buzz off. Fine, but slaughtering a steer at school makes me wonder what other stuff goes on over there that we don’t hear about.

What school officials said for publication, however, was that the demonstration was educational. The principal said the procedure let students see up close what they’d been reading about during the school year.

Hard to argue with that. But if the intent was education, why not require all students to watch it? Schools don’t let students take a pass on algebra or world history just because they can’t handle it.

So once it was determined that instead of turning to page 56 in their textbooks, students needed to see actual entrails, couldn’t some have been brought in? Was it really necessary to reenact the slaughterhouse on the school grounds? Are there really students who needed a live (at least, temporarily) steer to verify that meat comes from inside the animal?

In short, gentle reader, were the students educated or sort of perversely titillated?

I grew up in the country and have actually set foot on farms, so I’m aware that livestock and poultry are killed for food. It doesn’t make me squirm, nor do I seek absolution for eating dead animal parts.

Still, I wonder why the Carbon Canyon Christian officials didn’t foresee the unease this would cause in some quarters. And I’m not even talking about Brea city officials, who said the killing might violate some zoning ordinances.

I’m talking about the propriety of gutting a steer in front of schoolchildren--volunteers or not--when there doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to do so.

It’s one thing to teach that mankind has dominion over the animal kingdom, but quite another to “process” an animal in front of youngsters.

In the end, is it anybody else’s business if parents at a private school want their children to watch a steer slaughtered?

In all honesty, probably not.

Maybe we all should get educated.

One school official, tiring of the post-mortem questions, says he wishes he’d invited the media to the demonstration.

No doubt, he meant the camera crews too.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.