Revisiting the Topic of Using Haunt Jaunting as a Teaching Tool

A while back Jason Stromming from The Occult Section wrote about how a community college cancelled its ghost hunter course. The course was called “Paranormal Investigations: Communicating and Cohabiting with Spirits” and was among the “fun” courses the college had to cut. (Due to budget issues and needing to focus on workforce training classes. Employment’s tough right now, but just try to get a job as a ghostbuster!)

Jason lamented “I have no problem with educating the public on paranormal phenomena, but I wish someone, somewhere would put together an actual serious and scientific course.” He also admitted he’d taken “an actual accredited class on the paranormal. It was mainly to debunk, but still, that’s a step in the right direction.”

A couple of years ago I wrote about using haunt jaunts as a teaching tool. (Meaning the doing of, not the blog. Although, it has been used that way, which I’ll get to.)

History, geography, science & technology, religion & spirituality…those are just a few of things that can be learned through paranormal travel.

Some teachers are embracing ghost hunting as a teaching tool. In “Ghosts, GPS, and Learning” I wrote about a school that instituted an Augmented Reality program. The school purchased GPS units, required the students to read The Ghost Cadet, then they took a field trip to the New Market Battlefield.

Using the GPS units, students answered questions based on the book to find envelopes with puzzle pieces. The pieces formed a watch, which played a part in the book.

How freaking cool is that? English (reading the book), History (learning about the Civil War), Technology (geocaching with the GPS), even P.E. (walking around looking for puzzle pieces)… If you want to multi-task with the education, it almost doesn’t get any better than that.

Another teacher wrote me at the end of last school year to say she’d used Haunt Jaunts the blog as a teaching tool. She’d used the Find Haunted Places page for history lessons. She said it made it fun and the kids enjoyed it.

I was a fairly good student. However, I also had great teachers who knew how to make the lessons interesting. They seemed to understand if kids could relate to a subject matter, put the knowledge to use in a practical way, and get excited about it, they’d not only have less trouble learning, but want to learn.

One of the lessons my parents taught me that stuck was just because you get out of school doesn’t mean you ever stop learning new things. I’m constantly learning all kinds of things via my haunt jaunts. (Which I’ll write about in another post.)

But Jason inadvertently sparked yet another idea for a HJ book. Art, history, architecture, reading, navigation, technology…do you realize just how much you’ve probably absorbed about different subjects when you’re ghost hunting, investigating, traveling, or however else you choose to experience the paranormal?

Courtney Mroch

Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.

Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.