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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 10:37 am
Psychology is not a required field in K-12 education across the United States. This, I think, is unwise and should be remedied. For discussion purposes, I have a few questions for you all in regards to the teaching of psychology at the K-12 level.
1) Did you receive any exposure to psychology before college and what was it? Was in through school? If so, was it a course in psychology or part of a wellness program?
2) At what grade level do you think it would be appropriate to teach psychology?
3) What are some potential problems and challenges that may arise in teaching psychology in the K-12 level?
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:46 pm
At first I thought you were aying it should be required curriculum for people traiing to be come teacher, but I get what you mean now.
I for one did have psychology introduced to me in Highschool. I had a section in my health class on psychology and even though it was poorly taught and grossly missleading (homosexuality still ocnsidered a disease, Multiple perosnality dissorder), it made me interested in the field. I took the class int he ninth grade and would have liked to learn more, which I had to wait until college to do.
I do think they should do some basic psychology in highschool and middle school. This is a difficult age for kids and not all of there problems are of the normal vein. It would be usefull for other studnts to learn about psychology so that students who are really strugling with such things as dipression can understand it and activley seek help. It could also be helpfull if students could learn to recognize some of these issues in thier friends, since younger kids are more likely to bring these problems to thier frieds rather then a potentially threatening authority figure.
The downside, of course, would be that the middle and highschool crowd are allready missdiagnosing themselves and claiming to have psychological issues becuase they precieve it as cool. We've had other discussions on this fad, but it might add fuel to the fire. Then again it could reverse this effect entirely.
That being said, the bennefits of the K-12 psychological education would seem that the bennefits far outweigh the costs.
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:05 am
I am possibly going to try and take Psychology 1 in 11th grade and Psychology 2 in 12th. They're seperate courses and Psych 1 takes up 1 elective and Psych 2 takes up .5 of a credit. As for what grade level, I think 9th would be a good grade, if sooner maybe 7th or 8th. We learned a little bit about personality disorders and eating disorders in health. As for problems and challenges, I'm not sure.
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Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 3:16 pm
I'm not a college student or grad; I'm a high school AP Psychology student. I've been reading psych textbooks in my spare time since I was in middle school. I don't think it would be appropriate for anyone below high school, though, because most elementary and junior high students are too hopelessly immature to absorb a word. They'll spend most of their time giggling over a few of the stranger Freudian concepts.
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 10:47 am
Looking back I wish I'd have had the time to take AP psych. It's about the only exposure you can get before college and then only if you have a decently large school. Small schools don't usually offer many AP courses. I'm kinda curious what state you live in, Crucify. Not many areas offer psych as a regular course.
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Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2005 1:16 pm
Starlock Psychology is not a required field in K-12 education across the United States. This, I think, is unwise and should be remedied. For discussion purposes, I have a few questions for you all in regards to the teaching of psychology at the K-12 level. 1) Did you receive any exposure to psychology before college and what was it? Was in through school? If so, was it a course in psychology or part of a wellness program? 2) At what grade level do you think it would be appropriate to teach psychology? 3) What are some potential problems and challenges that may arise in teaching psychology in the K-12 level? I took a psychology course during my senior year of high school. The way that class went, I think that 11th grade on is the most appropriate grade level. Any younger, and the kids just are not mature enough to deal with some of the topics. Now, if you excluded certain things, it could be possible to teach psychology at a younger grade level. I think it is an important thing to have at least some knowledge about. Things like multiple intelligences and learning styles could be helpful to student who are having difficulty. So in that way, it could be beneficial.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:08 pm
Lots of young kids pick up some psychology from books, etc., although usually it's just the really precocious ones. I believe it would be very beneficiary for 4-8 graders to learn about some mental disorders, and certainly about learning styles and multiple intelligences. I found out about both of those when I was in fifth grade and struggling, and it was very encouraging to hear that it wasn't that I was stupid.
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:53 pm
With all the pop psychology BS out there, I think it's particularly important that people have some good info on the subject. Psychology is one of those subjects were a little knowlege can be especially dangerous if used in the wrong way. Teaching about mental disorders can be useful, but also backlash and have kids 'diagnosing' their friends wrongly.
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:16 pm
I don't particularly agree with those who say that the younger kids wouldent be able to handle learning about psychology. You just have to gear it towards the age level of the students that your teaching. You wouldent bother teaching some of the racier theories becuase of the age and maturity of the kids you are teaching.
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:56 am
1. Yes I had Psychology my denior year in high school and sociology in high school. Im not sure what you mean by wellness..it was a elective that we could choose to take, we learned about the body, personalities, dreams, child and adolence development.
2. I think the elective should be available from 9th grade up. Psychology isnt that hard, its just difficult to understand sometimes, but none the less if you understand it, it is VERY facinating!!
3. The difficult terms and age appropiate matters.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:20 pm
I haven't had any teaching over it; however, I'm just now goign into high school and am planning to take it at one point or another. I really don' t think that kids should be taught it at all. High school is the limit since kids are just starting to understand things. Sure there are kids in the middle schools that could handle it, but thats a small number. And I think that you shouldn't teach kids about being mature and solving problems and what not. I truely think that alot of them wouldn't beable to think in different veiw points and get past certain barriers of thought. If that happened then the information would be usseless if not harmfull. People often underestimate the stupidity of kids. I mean I got a girl in all ap classes to think that penguines are exsticnt. Kids are not ready for it end of story. I guess that learning about some of the really basic stuff would be ok in middle school. But nothing to deep, dont want any brains exploding.
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 10:09 pm
when u ask if we were informed about psychology do you include theropy, or counceling... lol i do think they sould make it a requirment, it would help the whole world and reduce violence, once people learn that there are other ways of handeling the problems, maybe there should be something started to make it required
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Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:11 am
I took AP psych in 12th grade, and my school also offers general psych, but both classes are only open to 12th graders (because the counseling office is full of bastards). I really like the idea of having psychology in high school cirriculum, but I'm not sure about the younger grades. Freud aside, they might not take it seriously. Er, my psych teacher made a convincing argument for this that I'm sure I'm going to mangle, but I can't remember all of it and I have my own ideas to add, so just bear with me. In elementary school... Well, I'm having difficulty imaging elementary school psych material, beyond maybe teaching them about learning, memory, and a bit of social psychology, which might help them in school and life. But in middle school most kids are going through that stage where they think they're unique, and they're the only one going through what your typical adolescent goes through. That attitude makes it sort of hard to teach them how your average brain works because, of course, they're different. They would laugh in the face of the Stanford prison experiment. That sort of thing. I guess I'm generalizing, but I think that below 9th grade- hell, maybe below 10th- the best way to incorporate psychology would just be short units in health/study skills/etc that focus on the areas that students could directly apply to their lives. ...Did that make sense?
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:41 pm
I took psychology in 11th grade. It is only offered as a semester class and doesn't continue though. We did bried discussions of nature vs nurture, famous psychologists and what they were famous for, mental illnesses, and functions of the brain. I think this course should be available to juniors and seniors, or honor sophomores due to a maturity factor in general. It's too complex for some students and should not be required especially since it can be found extremely offensive to some religions. It's an elective and I think should remain that way, but you should be able to extend your studies for up to 2-3 years rather than half a school year.
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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:08 am
Yumi_Girl_Moo I took psychology in 11th grade. It is only offered as a semester class and doesn't continue though. We did bried discussions of nature vs nurture, famous psychologists and what they were famous for, mental illnesses, and functions of the brain. I think this course should be available to juniors and seniors, or honor sophomores due to a maturity factor in general. It's too complex for some students and should not be required especially since it can be found extremely offensive to some religions. It's an elective and I think should remain that way, but you should be able to extend your studies for up to 2-3 years rather than half a school year. True that psych does require a certain maturity level but there are some psych concepts that could be braught in that are digestable by a larger age bracket. A lot of it is about how you present the material more than what material you're covering. I think learning about judgemental heuristics would be a great thing to do with even elementary school students if you present examples of heuristics to them as questions. Once they answer them, then you can explain why their judgement was faulty in this case and why it is. I think young kids could grasp that concept, though you probably wouldn't try explaining the details of WHY we use judgemental heuristics.
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