Human frailties and human strengths…

Welcome to our psychology blog…from Ms Bottrell, Ms Ind and Ms Green

The story of a psychology teacher who unwittingly caused one of her students considerable distress...
The story of a psychology teacher who unwittingly caused one of her students considerable psychological distress...

A traumatic but illustrative story:

A couple of years ago I took over a Year 11 class from Ms Ind. Naturally I was nervous, because I felt so uncertain that I would be able to maintain her high standard of teaching. It turned out that I was right to doubt myself. In my very first class, as I tried to interest my students in information about the nervous system, there was a crisis. One of my students suddenly became very pale and looked as though he was about to faint.

I knew my teaching was bad, but where had I gone wrong?

This simple story illustrates many of the topics of psychology.

The experience is deeply etched in my episodic memory. I shall never forget it, possibly because it caused me so much anxiety at the time.

My nervousness was probably associated with physiological arousal. In other words, several physiological measures would have indicated that I was in a state of high alertness; I was probably sweating and my heart was racing. Such symptoms can be useful in a crisis, but can also be counterproductive in everyday life.

The student nearly sank into an altered state of consciousness. Hmm, I daresay I provoke such a state in my students quite often, but usually it’s brought on by boredom rather than stories about brain surgery.

As you can see from the account above, the study of psychology is filled with human stories and with the precise psychological terms that can be used to describe them. The more you connect the experiences of everyday life with the language of psychology, the better you will cope with this subject and the more you will enjoy it.

We hope you will enjoy looking at the resources on this blog. We will be adding to them as often as possible. If you find resources on the web that are useful, let us know, so that we can add a link to those too. If you would like to ask a question or answer another student’s question, or simply make a comment, go ahead. Over time, this blog could become like an online bulletin board. There will also be opportunities to download handouts that you have missed.

By the way, the student who became so pale in my story above thankfully regained normal waking consciousness. My new class forgave me for my clumsy teaching and I gained new self-esteem from the experience.

Phew.rat pic 3

Kind regards and best wishes for your psychology studies,

Ms Green