This week’s Shiplake Spotlight focuses on psychology and the approach we take at Shiplake in teaching this fascinating subject. Mr Sam Shaw, Head of Psychology has always been interested in finding out how the mind works and why we behave in the way we do…
Like most people who choose psychology at A Level, I chose it for three main reasons. Firstly, it was new and different, secondly it seemed interesting (at least from what I’d seen on TV) and finally, because like many teenagers, I was selfish and wanted to know about myself.
Psychology is the study of the mind and behaviour. If you’re hoping to read minds, or be able to tell if someone is lying, you’re likely to be disappointed. However, you might understand why people lie and how the ability to see something from someone else’s perspective and consider their motives is an ability you don’t develop until around five years of age, and that some people may never develop this ability at all. All things considered, you’ll learn a bit about everything. I’m passionate about psychology for just that reason. Perhaps I should caveat that... You won’t learn much astro-physics, but you’ll learn why people do learn it. Humans get involved in everything, and arguably no other subject is about humans as much as psychology is. As I’ve mentioned humans are quite self-obsessed, even the really nice ones… so by relating the subject to your own life helps you understand and remember it.
Psychology is increasingly permeating our lives, and most of the time we don’t even notice it. Of course many of us know the psychology that becomes pop culture, Freud, inferiority complexes, positive reinforcement (though we may not know what they are) and the list goes on. What we may not notice is the psychology in everyday things like postcodes. Postcodes were developed by a team of memory experts and 92% of people in Britain remember them more than their children’s birthday (66%)! We also see psychology repackaged in other terms - the idea of algorithms and IT programmes using artificial intelligence is only possible by understanding human intelligence, and to advertise with an algorithm you first need to know what humans get persuaded by, and how much you bombard them before they are oversaturated.
In psychology we need to know not only how people behave, but the best way of studying behaviour. This might seem obvious, surely you just watch and see what people do? But how can you watch memory? You could see how much people remember, but you can’t say how or why that’s happening, therefore you need to design research which changes how we remember things, to see what we can and can’t do in order to understand the processes behind it. In our data driven world research and data skills are more important than ever, and that’s why we put a lot of emphasis on research methods in psychology.
At Shiplake we believe the best way to teach psychology is to use psychology, and as such we apply evidence-based techniques in order to get the best out of our students, an example of this is a mastery approach to research methods. We also encourage our students to take part in their own research and present these in our Psychology Society. Engagement is hugely important and so we aim for a balance of gravity, especially in topics such as mental health, but also humour - humans are often illogical and biased and it’s important to recognise that a lot of human behaviour is funny, and you also tend to remember funny things.
Psychology is rigorous, broad and interesting, it has shaped the way we interact with the world and how we understand and work with others. I can’t think of a subject which better prepares students to understand both academic research and people skills.
About Shiplake Spotlight
Shiplake prides itself on the huge array of subjects and co-curricular opportunities available to all pupils. There really is something for everyone to ignite enthusiasm, passion and creativity. At Shiplake, we encourage pupils to find their ‘thing’. The thing they can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning to do, the thing where they set themselves challenges and goals to get better, the thing that motivates and inspires them.
Each week, we will be bringing you a spotlight on an individual subject or co-curricular activity from our teachers, who for them, this is their ‘thing’. We hope their insights will spark some passion in you to learn something new, or simply find out more about what Shiplake has to offer.
