Ever wondered how forensics can transform your classroom into a hub of attention-grabbing intrigue? Well, join me as I recount an unusual college experience that opened my eyes to the captivating world of classroom forensics. This adventurous tale will unfold the possibilities of using forensic classroom ideas not only to train future law-enforcers but also to make your lessons an unforgettable experience for your students. I'll be discussing how unexpected scenarios can foster an environment that pushes students' boundaries and encourages attentiveness and critical thinking.
Ever wondered how forensics can transform your classroom into a hub of attention-grabbing intrigue? Well, join me as I recount an unusual college experience that opened my eyes to the captivating world of classroom forensics. This adventurous tale will unfold the possibilities of using forensic classroom ideas not only to train future law-enforcers but also to make your lessons an unforgettable experience for your students. I'll be discussing how unexpected scenarios can foster an environment that pushes students' boundaries and encourages attentiveness and critical thinking.
I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it was close to 50 years ago. I was in one of those big auditorium style classes In college, probably 150 students in there. The teacher was doing their thing and all of a sudden there was a side door on each side of where he was standing. A student runs in one side like he's scared to death, runs across everybody's kinda and I'm really screaming, but kinda concerned. He's running across like he's in trouble, runs to the other side, the door reopens, here comes a security guard chasing after him. They both leave through the outside door and we never heard another word about what happened, sort of what on earth does that have to do with today's episode? I hope you're in the mood for some unusual ideas today that have had a, I was gonna say, outstanding effect on the students that I have tried this on. It will make you a memorable substitute teacher. Alright, greg Collins. Substitute teacher's lounge. Hope you're having a good week off. If that's what you were into this past week, that's what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, I got kind of a cold, so it wasn't as enjoyable week as I had hoped it would be. We did have one voluntary volleyball practice on Thursday. That not too many players showed up to because most of them were out of town. A lot of their parents have friended me on Facebook so I see the types of vacations they're taking and it sounds quite inviting, and I know a couple of my kids have taken their families on vacation, so it was just a good week to get away. Fall break, you know, we didn't have any fall break. I've talked to older people than me and they said they used to go summer round because of working farms and you did what you did. But I don't know why I'm mentioning all that, but nevertheless, greg Collins, substitute teacher's lounge, I would almost venture to say, even though there were well into the 200s as far as the number of episodes 229 to be exact. But here we are October I'm cutting my days because I'm recording this a few days ahead. I guess this is October 11, 2023 for all of you people listening to this in the future. It's Halloween month. It's all that cool stuff.
Speaker 1:I got this idea. It popped into my head the other day when I was in a classroom. It reminded me of that story. I told you Now the file name I gave to this particular episode in my for my purposes, I called it forensic classroom ideas. Now you know what forensics are.
Speaker 1:We actually have a college here in my area called Eastern Kentucky University that has a very highly regarded forensic type, police type training facility, and I do know enough to know that forensics is a bunch of stuff, but it's you know. The thing I think of when I hear them talk about forensics on TV is that you know if the bullets been fired and they find the. They find it and they can tell by the grooves on the side of the bullet that the barrel of the gun put there when it was fired. That's how they can trace bullets back to guns. Well, that's forensics, and there's other types of that.
Speaker 1:I read a great book it's been a couple years ago, I might have even it mentioned it on this podcast a couple years ago how a lot of times they will train people who want to be police officers. They will show them a picture and they'll tell them before they start we're gonna ask you things about this picture and it might be something as simple as just throwing up a picture of the Mona Lisa up there, but then they will ask them unusual questions, not about what the expression was on her face, but rather what was the shade in the lower right hand corner of the portrait? Things like that. And the point being, if you want to be an effective forensics person, you have to be observant all the time. You have to see the things that the normal people would not see, would not look for. I've watched enough I hate to bring it up because it's kind of an evil idea but Breaking Bad, the series I've watched it more than once and it's got a lot of stuff in there, especially with the DEA agent that's that's in that show about the forensics and how he's really good at seeing things that his subordinates didn't even think to look for. So that's kind of what we're talking about with forensics.
Speaker 1:How do we lose that in the classroom? Let's go back to my college story first, and here's the deal. Some of you, I'm guessing, already figured this out. But the kid that ran in the side door during that class and the guard that followed him I should have said unarmed. I didn't want you to think it was some kind of serious situation like that, but it was all set up by the teacher and we were in the room reacting to what was happening. But as in it was over. He said okay, that was just an act to see if you were paying, paying attention.
Speaker 1:Pull out a piece of paper. I'm gonna ask you questions about what just happened in this room and if you, you get five bonus points or something like that for every question that you get right. And it was remote questions. It was what kind of shoes was the student wearing? Were they wearing shoes? Things along that line. And it had such a meaningful moment for us because we're thinking, man, he's trying to teach us.
Speaker 1:It was a science, wasn't specifically for forensics, but it was a science type class. He was trying to make us realize how it's best in life to be always observant of your surroundings. Always look for things on the unusual side instead of always just looking for the normal things. It may someday pay off and help you, especially if you're going into a police officer type field or an investigator or something like that. You're gonna have to train yourself to do that. So how do we use that to our effect in the classroom? I'm gonna first of all say I'm gonna give you three examples of how we can use this approach in the classroom. It goes from very mild to one that I'm hoping to use in the next month, because I think I've got one of my volleyball students who is willing to do this and I'll save it for the end and start with two easier examples.
Speaker 1:Now. There's two things we should mention. If you're in a substitute teaching role right now either short term or long term but I'm guessing this would happen more if you were a long term If the teacher has given you, I guess, the right, given you enough freedom that she'll let you, on occasion, design things to give the students five bonus points that might help them with the next test, or something along this line, this works perfect for that, because you can set up one of these three procedures and after the fact, give the ones that were paying attention five bonus points. If you're not in that situation, just go out and buy some. It's perfect time to do this. It's Halloween month and you're going to be buying a bag of candy anyway. Buy an extra bag. Tell them, you know, when you first come in, say we're going to, I'm going to give away some of these skittles later and I'll tell you how we're going to do that in closer to the end of class, that type of thing, and then you know, just snack pack, something to that effect, or if you wanted to buy something bigger, like if you felt like you could afford some of those. What are they? Nerds clusters, those kind of things. It's really popular and maybe the table could share them and you can say we're going to do something here in just a moment and you all can give out that candy if you're the winning table.
Speaker 1:Here's what I'm talking about doing, if you want to, if you, maybe I should start with the most radical. I think I'm going to do that. I'm going to start with the most radical of the three and then, if you think that's just not something that is within your personality, it's perfect for my personality. But if you think it's something that's not within your personality, I understand. Then we'll back off a little bit and then we'll back off a little bit more. But, similar to what happened in that classroom that day, I'm going to try to get one of the volleyball players One day when I'm substitute teaching a class, it might even be after the seasons over.
Speaker 1:I haven't decided in what situation I want to do this. I'm going to have her knock on the door, I'm going to have somebody get the door and then I'm going to have her come in and start yelling at me from a standpoint of where do you get off, telling the head coach that I have a problem with, and then I'll some kind of whatever volleyball situation she wants to bring up, and then I'll respond to her. Maybe I'll raise my voice a little bit, which is already going to surprise the students, because they never hear me raise my voice. They hear me get loud sometimes if I just need to have them get quiet, but they don't hear me raise my voice as if I'm mad about something. So that could go back and forth for a few seconds and then that girl could leave and slam the door and you know, I could just stand there a little bit dumbfounded, like what just happened, and then walk over the door, open it, have her come back in smiling and show them that we just tricked them. I made them feel like a situation was going on that was just all for show. We just made all of that up. And then I'm gonna say, alright, take out a piece of paper and whoever does best on this, they get either their five bonus points, they get the bag of skittles, that type of thing. I am looking so forward to doing that and I've got like maybe three or four.
Speaker 1:I'll probably pick one of the older students to do this one that I think to keep a straight face without cracking up in the middle of class and just tell the students this was a way you can practice being as observant as possible and when something around you is going on who knows, you might be a witness someday and you might be questioned and you need to notice things like this. You I might ask him what shoes she was wearing, what shoes I was wearing, what's the first thing I said to her? Just stuff along that line, and I think it will not only entertain your students a bit, but I guarantee you they will remember you as a substitute teacher, because nobody has done that to them in the classroom. I jokingly joke, jokingly joke around with them all the time whereas I'll say something sarcastic and you know one of them, maybe two of them in the class, will say really, I say no, and they've gotten used to that. This would really catch them by surprise.
Speaker 1:If you're not quite the type of person that you think you could do that with a straight face, you can make it seem realistic. What I would encourage you to do is come up with a way to call the telephone in your room. Now. It's easy enough. You're just gonna have to figure out how to call the extension in your room from your cell phone and when you pick it up, just act like somebody's on the other end of the phone and they're chewing you out. And then you start chewing them out now, in this case, all the students can react to is what they hear you saying.
Speaker 1:Now, I guarantee you, once you get loud and once you get mad, act like you get mad to whatever pretend wise is being said on the other end of the phone. Like what do you mean? I'm not a good substitute teacher? Or what do you mean? You're not gonna pay me for this day because I didn't feel my paperwork outright, something to that effect. Then you could have the same effect. You hang up the phone. I guarantee you they're still going to be looking at you to see if you're still mad. Then you look out at them and smile and say get a piece of paper out. I've got some questions to you. That's how we're going to award five bonus points to you today, or that's how we're going to hand out some candy today. Let's see how observant you were about what I was saying on the phone.
Speaker 1:Okay, now the final one, the easy one to do, that anybody could do if they're up on sharing some of these radical or forensic ideas, whatever you want to call them. Maybe you don't think it's that radical, maybe you're already doing this, obviously, the teacher. I don't know how many original ideas I've come up. I've borrowed a lot of ideas, and I borrowed this one from a teacher from over 50, almost 50 years ago. The more relaxed version is, if you know, I like to wear Hawaiian shirts. They know that maybe I'll wear one in someday. Maybe I'll ask them the next day what kind of shirt I was wearing the day before.
Speaker 1:You can do it like that Maybe wear a pair of shoes. Maybe maybe you wear two different kinds of shoes, one on your right foot, one on your left. See who notices, and that will train them how to be observant. You can walk around for a while and then sit down and start saying all right, I purposely wore two different types of shoes today. Which one was on my right foot, which one was on my left foot? What Hawaiian shirt did I wear yesterday? You know, I talked about it. What did I say right at the beginning of class today that you've never heard me say before? Stuff like that, but unusual things like that.
Speaker 1:I guarantee you that is going to help them remember you as a substitute teacher the first one I mentioned, where you have somebody come in and start arguing with you. The only thing you have to be careful about that kind of thing spreads quickly. So there's a chance, if you do that in your first period, that somebody, by the time you get to sixth period, is already heard of what's going on. So you may have to address that. You may have to switch things up. Maybe you'll use something a little milder for one class than you did for the other class, all those types of things. But it's a fun thing to do.
Speaker 1:Try to catch those students by surprise, ask them questions and see how well they do. So I will be trying the one where the student comes in and argues with me and on a pretend basis. I will be trying that one in the relatively near future, in the next two weeks. So I will follow up and let you know how that went. Let you know how the students responded. I guarantee they're going to laugh about it. They're going to. Perhaps some of them will be mad because they wish they had paid attention more, but that's what this is for. So come up with your own ideas. I'd love to hear them if you want to put them on the Substitute Teacher Line Facebook group. But nevertheless, you've got some new ideas now that I guarantee you will make those students remember. Hey, did you see what that Substitute Teacher did today?