Spies in Sandals [Book Four]

BONUS POV: Change Blindness

Hey guys!! Long time, no write - but for real, it's been ages and I've been so busy. I started college at Notre Dame, and it's been fantastic but very busy. I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving! I hope you've all had a good couple months. Though I haven't been writing, I've been working, meeting people, playing and watching lots of football, and oh yeah homework. Also I recently got hooked on Hamilton, the musical, and it's amazingly talented. The composer is so young too, he's literally goals. Anyway, here's a bonus POV (Patrick's!) that I wrote cuz I needed to write something. I think I'll be writing more next semester because I'm gonna take a class on fiction writing! Excited.

Okay, so yeah this is Patrick's POV and it takes place a couple months after Spies in Sandals. Enjoy! Gracias <3 Monica

BONUS CHAPTER: Change Blindness

*Patrick's POV*

"Change blindness."

I swiped a dramatic line underneath the words I'd just written on the whiteboard, and it was in that moment that I realized I had become a teacher. Or maybe it was because of the blank stares of the students in front of me as they pretended to pay attention to what I was saying.

"Anyone know what that is?" I asked in vain hope.

"Blindness to change," intoned some smart-ass from my right. Jer hadn't informed me that classrooms around the world were all the same, no matter the subject matter.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded calmly. "Yeah, basically. It's a psychological term that refers to the tendency of people to disregard the change of a stimulus in their perspective if it still fits into their schema."

Surely someone would double-check what a schema was, I thought. Then again, if they didn't have to, that meant I was doing a boss job as a teacher.

"Does anyone know why this is important to us?" Yup, didn't think so. "Well, I have a series of photos that we're going to take a look at in order to experiment with change blindness. I think it'll be a good measure of where we're at in surveillance right now."

A flash of red caught my eye from the back of the classroom near the door, and almost immediately I felt my spirits lift. Keeping a straight face, I gestured to the student sitting by the light switch, and after a second of "huh?" he reached up and shut it off. Using my clicker to navigate to the correct slide, I directed the class' attention to the photos projected on the whiteboard and explained the exercise to them.

"All right," I said when the series had finished and the lights came on again. "As the photos flickered, what changes did you notice in their schemas?"

Reluctantly a stream of answers trickled in. I restrained myself from calling on students randomly – if they didn't want to participate, that just reflected the score they wanted to receive for that class. Maybe they hadn't known training would involve classroom settings, but they had to learn that at some point.

"Good, you guys did pretty well on this." I pressed the off button on the projector so that their focus was at least supposed to be back on me. "You missed about thirty percent of the schema changes, but that's still above average. Don't look too pleased," I added dryly as a few students in the front smirked. "That thirty percent's what'll get you killed on an assignment."

Watching students' faces as I flattened the mood made everything worth it.

"For instance," I went on, warming up to my favorite part of the class, "how many of you noticed the change in the schema of this classroom, our current schema?"