Why Psychology should be taught as a mandatory subject in schools?

What is psychology?

The scientific study of human behavior and brain functioning is called Psychology. Psychology includes the study of mental processes like emotion, intelligence, cognition, motivation, personality and perception etc. It helps to understand the interpersonal relationship and social interactions. Psychology is used in assessing and treating mental health issues. There are various fields where psychology is applied such as counselling, education, clinics, mental therapies, sports, media, forensic investigation and law.

Psychology is an ancient subject and has become more and more significant in modern life due to the raising gravity of mental health issues such as depression, lack of motivation and suicidal tendencies. Mental disorders need to be addressed as effectively as physical injuries are done and for that purpose, people should be made aware of the common human behaviors, reactions and mental functioning.

Schools should teach psychology pragmatically because it’s a subject that demands the practical understanding of various phenomena instead of mugging up theories. The study of psychology can be very experimental and collaborative and help the students develop various scientific and emotional skills for their holistic mental growth.

When students pass the school and start facing problems like the pursuit of the best career field, managing home affairs plus work stress, mental problems like lack of confidence and depression, maintaining relationships and keeping a healthy mind while doing all this, then the really important subject – “psychology” kicks in. There is no provision of teaching psychology mandatorily in schools despite knowing the fact that its learning can be proved to be beneficial in everyday issues faced by people.

There are various fields where learning psychology will give an edge to the students. Let’s look at them separately below.

Psychology in education:

Educational psychology is understanding how human learn in educational entities. What should be the psychological techniques for teaching and other psychological methods to make education more effective. It includes a better understanding of information and developing learning and study methods. There are some key theories and concepts understanding of which can lead students to capitalize on their knowledge and skills. Concepts like Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism can play a vital role in this direction.

• Behaviorism: it’s a concept in psychology which strictly focuses on the observable behavior and surmises that the behavior of a person depends on his environment.
• Cognitivism: It focuses on the cognitive processes through which people develop knowledge and integrate new ideas. These processes have a sequence and they collectively determine the ultimate results. Recognition, reflection, application and evaluation are the key processes in cognitivism.
  • Recognition: suppose you read a new book,
  • Reflection: you think about the idea proposed in the book and contemplate your thoughts on it,
  • Application: you apply these ideas in your daily life or try to experiment on them and,
  • Evaluation: you test the acquired knowledge.
• Constructivism: In this concept, you gain new knowledge based on your previous experiences. This is a famous technique that we all apply commonly.

Psychology for learners:

Students in schools are taught what to learn by reading and writing and now with the dynamic use of technology but they are rarely told about the ways how they should learn something. Primarily there can be three categories of these learning styles: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. People learn using all of these ways but they tend to have a specific strength in using at least one way. Applying and teaching these ways to students can assuredly bring the best outcomes.

• Visual learners: Drawing pictures, flowcharts, diagrams and highlighting the paragraph is a way of visual learning. Here the images and colours play an important role in storing a piece of particular information in the brain. Using a flashcard, learning from videos and rereading are few ways to augment visual learning style.
• Auditory learners: People tend to understand things better when explained by someone orally and such kind of learners save the videos for further listening when so required. They learn from listening to podcasts. They tend to read out loud so that the memory of the information becomes strong in their brain.
• Kinaesthetic learners: Such learner learn best from the hands-on activities and prefer experimenting with role-plays and other activities to learn and remember concepts.

Psychology in choosing a career:

Psychology helps people in understanding why people do what they do. Understanding psychology can improve decision making and in turn, one can make the best choice of one’s career. Self-analysis is one of the most significant techniques in psychology using which students can learn about their strengths and weaknesses and select their career fields accordingly.

The problem here is that these techniques aren’t taught during schooling when the students are still developing their interests and have scope to explore various options. This ultimately results in growing numbers of students who have picked a mostly picked stream/discipline in their high school and struggle making their way out of that particular field since they lack personal attachment and a keen interest in that particular subject. Such students feel astray and don’t perform well in their respective fields. Making them aware of their personality traits, intelligence, interests and strength can help them in developing skills that can offer them the career they desire. Career counselors apply psychological theories and methods to help students finding their suitable career options. However, it would be better if students during their schooling itself are taught about these techniques so that they don’t lose much time in the process.

Psychology for mental therapy:

Mental illness impacts a person in the same way a physical injury does. Nevertheless, in a country like India, mental health is highly neglected and then becomes the reason of raising depression cases in teenagers and women and suicidal tendencies in adults, hence, the need to make psychology a mandatory subject becomes more dominant.

Mental therapies like behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, interpersonal therapy and psychoanalysis can be used in tackling mental illness. Although these are the therapies used by professionals, their basic understanding at the school level can guide students in recognizing mental illness symptoms and then respond to resolve such disorders at their initial stages.

Psychology in building relationships and understanding society:

We think that graduating from schools and colleges is the real big thing and once we are graduated, life will be easier. But in reality, the actual shit starts after that. People facing problems in maintaining their relationships because of being laden with so many responsibilities is just one big thing after that along with many others.

Unfortunately, tackling such issues was never taught in schools and now we have to deal with it immaturely and this results in failed family relationships, more divorces and loneliness. The root cause of this problem lies in not giving enough importance in teaching social psychology which is a school of thought in psychology. Communication gaps, varying beliefs and bad attitudes are the key contributors to the failing relationships and they can be addressed in social psychology.

Social psychology is the understanding of how human beings think about each other and relate to each other. The societal factors like culture, social class, stereotypes, beliefs etc are responsible to cause the psychiatric disorders and hence understanding them can help in tackling them effectively.

Throughout the schooling, students are insisted to emphasize on their IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and kept aloof from EQ (Emotional Quotient). They struggle in explaining habits like why they procrastinate and why they act impulsively because they aren’t taught how to handle the situation or emotion that make them react in such a manner. They need to be taught how to handle extraordinary situations such as when they lose something by making them aware of how their emotions guide them to act in a particular manner.

Hence, Psychology is as important as maths, science and literature but its value needs to be recognized to extract the best benefits that this field has the potential to offer. This will surely increase the positivity in and productivity of students as they would be able to understand themselves and their environment comprehensively.