There’s a reason why the brain works the way it does, and the psychology class at Fauquier High School (FHS) delves into just that. Taught by Anslie Bogart, this class is both exciting and engaging for her students.
Bogart, being a history teacher, saw the opportunity to teach psychology and wanted a fun elective for students to take. Bogart explained, “[Psychology] is the study of why people behave and act in certain ways, and how the environment impacts us.” She enjoys knowing that students chose that elective because they want to be there.
Students are engaging in various activities and projects to broaden their learning experiences in psychology. From keeping journals of dreams and analyzing them to projects based on “Inside Out,” which explains how the main character, Riley, experiences her emotions in the movie, this class explores the minds of both oneself and others.
Senior Khloe Poole is currently enrolled and taking Bogart’s Intro to Psychology class. What attracted her to this class was wanting to learn more about how the mind works. Pool expressed, “It's a really fun class, and I…think it's interesting to learn about different topics.” Students enrolled in this class appear to have similar insights to Poole’s. One of whom is Junior Nathan Swartz, also currently in psychology. He wanted to learn more about how people work and the science behind that. Swartz described some things students learn about taking this class: “You learn pretty much everything about how people work, the science behind the brain, how it develops, how children develop themselves, and how we learn the things that we learn.”
When it came to deciding which unit everyone’s favorite was, Bogart and her students had different opinions. Bogart’s favorite unit to teach is the cognition unit, which focuses on memory. “People feel like their memories are so concrete, they remember things so distinctly, but we make up a lot of memories,” Bogart shared. “It teaches you how to study and learn in school,” she explained.
Pool’s fascination with psychology lies in its developmental part. “My favorite thing… [is] how we just grow as individuals and how our mind processes things,” Pool shared. With Swartz's response being a little different, “Child development [is probably my favorite], all the different things that kids learn throughout their lives and how different things can impact them,” Swartz commented.
Psychology at FHS teaches students a range of valuable skills that they can apply in their own lives. Students find this social science elective to be super fun and engaging.
