As expected--I hate Forensics

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I was given a section of Forensic Science to teach this year despite NEVER expressing an interest in it. I know nothing about it. The only thing I can confidently speak about is DNA fingerprinting because that is actually something connected to my subject (biology). The students were working independently today to get some stuff done so I used the time to start prepping for the next chapter about crime scene evidence collection. I read the chapter. I researched the OJ and JonBenet Ramsay cases. And I just don't care about mapping out a crime scene or the difference between "scanning" a scene and "seeing" the scene. (still haven't figured out the difference) Back when I started teaching 21 years ago the No Child Left Behind Act had just been passed and teachers had to be "highly qualified" to teach their subject. I'll never forget what my supervisor said to me back then when he met me when I started at the intermediate school: "oh thank God I finally have someone who actually knows their subject. They usually give me football coaches." They would just randomly shove coaches into middle school teaching positions and he had no authority to reject them. Back then I had been teaching for only 3 months and I was the ONLY middle-school science teacher that was considered to be "highly qualified". I had a degree in science and not elementary education. How sad is that? A 24 year old 1st year teacher was the only highly qualified science teacher in the district middle schools? Others had to take standardized tests and/or take college courses in order to become highly qualified. Interestingly people with degrees in English Literature somehow wound up becoming highly qualified in science but that is another story for another day. My teaching certification is very narrow: Teacher of Biological Sciences. I can competently teach biology as that is what I know. The trend now though is to create courses that don't fall into a particular certification category. For example the Earth Science course has been renamed "Environmental Earth Science" and there is no certification for that. Anyone with a science cert is eligible to teach it. Same with Forensics. I know absolutely nothing about crime scene evidence collection, hair analysis, blood spatter patterns, or ballistics but apparently because I have a degree in science I am able to teach the class. So much for that "highly qualified" thing. I'll be working on my planning for the class this weekend but I won't be happy about it.