Why Educational Psychology is important to a teacher (HZH)

Why Educational Psychology is important to a teacher

Psychology is the study of people's behavior, performance, and mental operations. In addition, it refers to the application of the knowledge, which can be used to understand events, treat mental health issues, and improve education, employment, and relationships. There are sub-areas of psychology, including: Sports, Education, Business, Media, Physical conditions and Human development. It also involves other areas of study, including humanities, natural sciences, and the social sciences. Psychology studies people—who and what they are. It looks into why they act and think the way they do and how someone can improve himself or herself. Therefore, everything a person does is connected to the subject. It can be said that psychology is a must for all people to study. Education is one of the most important components of human society. Teachers, parents and students, who are all crucial in education, are human beings. Therefore, they should all have the knowledge of psychology. Among them, it is teachers who spend most of time with students and also mold students into good or bad ones in education. Therefore, Psychology is one of the basic needs to become a teacher. Psychology specialized in education area is termed as educational psychology.

In the institutes of education and education colleges throughout the world, Educational Psychology is prescribed as a compulsory subject for all prospective teachers to study like Educational Theory and Methodology. As our teacher, Professor Dr Tin Maung Win always said, Educational Theory focuses on what to teach, Methodology focuses on how to teach and Educational Psychology emphasizes when to teach. When a work is done, it is important to be able to do it exactly at the right time. Otherwise, what we do and how we do it may be good, but it will never be effective. Similarly, it is more important to teach students at the right time, when they can absorb what is taught, than what is taught and how it is taught. Teacher is like a philosopher who guides his student. He is responsible to be aware about growth and development of the students. Only when he understands well his students’ growth and development, he can correctly choose what to teach at the right time. In addition, Educational Psychology studies various factors which have impacts upon students, which may include home environment, social groupings, peer groups, his or her emotional sentiments, and mental hygiene etc. In this way, a teacher can realize why teaching-learning process fails if he or she finds it fail. As a result, he or she will be able to fix his teaching-learning process well in time. Educational Psychology helps a teacher to know that how learning takes place and enables him or her to know that how learning process should be initiated, how to motivate, how to memorize or learn. Therefore, it is undeniable that the teacher who studies well Educational Psychology will help his or her students’ learning best. Moreover, Educational Psychology informs a teacher, about the nature of the learners and his or her potentialities, intelligences and aptitudes. For example, Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory claims that every child is special and they are differently good at different areas. As a result, any student cannot be recognized as idiot ones and teacher will realize that students’ performances should be assessed by using alternative assessments than traditional paper and pencil tests to polish students’ abilities right in the fields they are talented. As a result, students are less likely to be specialized in the subject they are not really interested in as they have to do in the here and now. In this way, productive citizens who are rightly good at their fields can be produced more and it will help the education of our country to become better and more reliable.

It is not enough to present why Educational Psychology is important to a teacher only in an essay. This is just the brief presentation which highlights that Educational Psychology is a must for a teacher. It is like a weapon which a soldier must use to win a war or like an oar of a rower. Without studying Educational Psychology, a teacher can never accomplish his or her teaching-learning process effectively. Therefore, it is vital not to let anyone enter to teaching career unless he or she has studied Educational Psychology yet. In conclusion, Educational Psychology is important for every teacher and each and every teacher had better utilize what they have studied in educational psychology to implement an effective teaching-learning process.

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