by Michael Kellichner

Created on: April 30, 2009

Since the purpose of a high school education is to provide a well-rounded education to students and prepare them for their futures, psychology and sociology shoulddefinitely be taught and be part of the mandatory education for high school. On the surface, it will provide students with information into a wider range of topics. This will create students that are more widely educated and offer an early exposure to individuals who may want to pursue further education and/or careers. But even more than these possibilities, it also equips students with knowledge that will be more directly important to their lives than some other subjects in school.

Psychology teaches how the brain works and reacts to different stimuli. As teens are beginning to change mentally and emotionally, it might help a bit to learn about how their brains are working. Right now, the only mandatory class that addresses changes teens experience are health classes, and health classes focus on thephysical changes. Psychology offers another way to look at changes that teens are experiencing as they're experiencing them. It also covers such things as mental disorders. By learning about whatcauses things like mental retardation or depression can help students understand them and be more accepting of others that suffer from the conditions. Psychology also covers such a wide number of different subcategories that a psychology class could be tailored to cover any number of topics, from a general overview of the subject to something as specific as abnormal psychology or the psychology of relationships. These topics would not only be useful for developing minds, but it would also be interesting to the students.

Sociology partners nicely with psychology by covering what can be called the psychology of society. By learning how society works and interacts with itself, students will be better prepared to integrate themselves into the social machine. It will also teach them to think about things like how and why the society exists in its current forms. Rather than setting young adults out into society without any knowledge of how it functions, a solid sociology class can help the intellectual integration into society. And, sociology brings many common, accepted things under scrutiny, going a long way to break apart stereotypes and create a generation of individuals willing to look and examine society, and possibly change it for the better rather than blindly accept how things are.

These two subjects compliment each other and can help students, just as they are starting to become individuals and come into their own, learn about themselves and the society around them. Also, if high school is truly meant to provide a rounded education to help students discover what they want to do with their lives, the social sciences need a mandatory representation. As society desires people who will be able to imagine and implement change, knowing how people and their social structures function can go a long way to preparing the next generation for such a task.

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