By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Faculty praised five criminal justice students of the Caribou Regional Technology Center last Thursday when they took a whirlwind of unfortunate circumstances in stride to put together flawless presentations for sophomores touring the center on March 7.
The five students had been charged with displaying the criminal justice program to prospective students from all over central Aroostook because their instructor, Reed Nonken, was busy downstate chaperoning Caribou’s DECA students (Distributive Education Clubs of America) club, who actually went on to place during the state competition.
But back in Caribou, it’s left a void in the open house schedule that Nonken’s students were more than happy to fill.
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| Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet Five students of the criminal justice program at the Caribou Regional Technology Center encountered a few major snags while trying to present their course to prospective students during a March 7 open house event, and the tech students were praised by faculty for their professionalism in overcoming each obstacle.. Students are, from left, Cory Rideout, Jason Haney, Tyler Morgan, Idella Thompson and Mason Sargent. |
The day started out a little stressful but otherwise fine for criminal justice students Jason Haney, Cory Rideout, Idella Thompson, Mason Sargent and Tyler Morgan; they had a PowerPoint presentation, an excellent guest speaker Sheriff James Madore and some great teamwork.
For the first half of the day, their presentations went off without a hitch.
Then noon rolled around.
And their afternoon guest speaker was nowhere to be found.
Turns out that their original guest speaker, Maine State Police Detective Adam Stoutamyer, had been called out for an emergency in Presque Isle involving a shooting incident.
With the students understanding that police work means schedule flexibility, the students adapted to their situation; while half the group went about their presentation, the other half e-mailed instructor Nonken seeking advice.
In the interim, students filled the presentation gap by describing the program that they all enjoy. They bounced criminal justice related dialogue off of each other until Nonken promptly sent the group a link to an informative video; the lack-of-guest-speaker problem was solved.
Until the laptop broke, that is. Once again, some students engaged their class of tourists with information and banter about the criminal justice course while other worked to reboot the laptop.
Their efforts paid off and the laptop kicked back to life … just in time for the projector to crash. Forsaking technology, the students went back to the good old educational technique of a candid verbal presentation.
And they nailed it.
Between the short afternoon window for presentations between noon and 2 p.m., the students adjusted to three curveballs so expertly that their school’s Guidance Councilor Tracy Corbin told them they’d hit their presentations out of the park. Eventually the technology began working, but the teamwork amongst the students was strong enough that they went on without it.
“We had in our PowerPoint presentation that you have to be flexible with police work, because you never know what you’re going to respond to and you have to be ready all the time,” Thompson explained.
“Perfect example,” Rideout said, referring to their circumstance, with the other four presenters showing agreement by giggling.
Aside from the real world experiences of thinking on your feet and keeping cool in stressful situations, students also shared their view as to what it’s like to be standing at the front-end of the classroom for a change.
“Sometimes it was really frustrating,” Rideout said. “I know the second presentation, we had a bunch of girls in the back of the room and they were on their phones and talking and texting — I was like ‘really?’”
“I kept mentioning how you need to be mature to take this class … and they just did not get it,” he added.
Corbin laughed as she told Rideout he’d used a classic classroom management technique.
Having walked a mile in their shoes of the teacher, Haney expressed that if he could say one thing to his teacher over the years, it would be an apology.
“It’s a lot different from doing a presentation in front of the class,” he said.
