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American Morning
High School Teacher Discusses Forensics Classes
Aired February 20, 2002 - 08:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: On to the subject of forensics and the discussion about whether or not it's appropriate fodder for high school students. They are teaching classes around the country in forensics this summer. The American Academy of Forensics conducted a seminar for 200 teachers on how to teach this stuff to high schoolers. The first story on this appeared in "The Wall Street Journal" yesterday, got our attention. The claim is that teaching forensics will get kids interested in science and math.
Educators say that the kids winged on television shows like the popular "CSI" over on CBS, forensics can be a strong motivational tool when it comes to teaching.
Jeanette Hencken teaches forensics to students at Webster Grove High School out in St. Louis, Missouri, and she joins us this morning.
Nice to have you with us Jeanette, welcome to "AMERICAN MORNING".
JEANETTE HENCKEN, HIGH SCHOOL FORENSICS TEACHER: Thank you.
CAFFERTY: What is it you hope to accomplish by introducing high school age children to subjects like blood spatter?
HENCKEN: I hope to teach them critical thinking and problem solving skills that they can use anyplace in their life.
CAFFERTY: What is it particularly about blood spatter that's more appropriate than other ways of approaching that task?
HENCKEN: Well I can tell you that in any subject that I teach, the question of what is appropriate for these students to learn, what are they capable of learning versus not capable of learning, and what are the things that are best used to teach this material always come up.
CAFFERTY: Sure.
HENCKEN: The forensics itself is a matter of having the students who are interested in a subject to sign up for it. I don't know that it's a subject that could be taught in just any science class. But I think there are ways to do a lot of things with forensics that don't deal with any violence or costumes -- they have questions about what they're learning. Anybody has probably had the experience of having a backpack stolen or their lunch money taken, and talking about how you can determine who had done it fits in many classes.
CAFFERTY: Are you getting any complaints from parents? I would assume that if not you personally, the school must be. There'd have to be people who say that, you know, the theft of lunch money very seldom involves spattered blood.
HENCKEN: No, I never had any complaints. This is my fourth year teaching it, and this year I'm teaching 150 students and for most of them their parents want to know if they can take the class.
CAFFERTY: OK. Those of us of an older generation remember, what was it, "Quincy M.E.", the medical examiner series. I can remember watching that as a kid, and it was fascinating stuff. You also teach ballistics, which is the science of bullets and firearms and the peculiar fingerprints, if you will, that are placed on bullets as they pass through the barrel of a particular gun. With the Columbine High School shooting in Denver, Colorado, with other school shootings around the country, help me out here. You know where this is, you know where I'm going with this. I mean ...
HENCKEN: Yes.
CAFFERTY: How do you reconcile one and then the other?
HENCKEN: The best example I can give you is that the day that the Trade Towers were attacked on September 11, it happened to be the day that I was supposed to do crime scenes in the halls with my students. They were going to collect events from the crimes that I had set up. And when it first happened in the morning, I decided that we probably should focus on what was going on at the time. But as the day wore on, I asked the students what they thought we should be doing.
Do you still want to be considering this? Do you want me to distract you with these scenes in the halls? And we ended up doing crime scenes. I did change them somewhat. I decided that it wouldn't be appropriate at the time to ...
CAFFERTY: Right.
HENCKEN: ... have blood spattered on the walls and out in the hall and considering the feelings of the other students in the building were important.
CAFFERTY: Interesting stuff. For what it's worth, if I were of high school age, I would take your class. I think the stuff's interesting on a personal level. I thank you for sharing your thoughts with us on "AMERICAN MORNING". It's nice to have you on the program.
HENCKEN: Thank you.
CAFFERTY: Jeanette Hencken teaching the science of murder to high school students in St. Louis, Missouri -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I would take that ... CAFFERTY: Yes it's interesting stuff.
COOPER: Yes.
CAFFERTY: Absolutely.
COOPER: I did terrible in science. It would probably have sparked my interest.
CAFFERTY: Yes.
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