Revere High School’s (RHS) Advanced Placement (AP) Psychology class and Active Minds club learned about the history of psychology on a field trip to University of Akron’s Psychology Museum.
RHS counselor Emily Rion has tried to get this trip off the ground for around two years now. Once she got access to transportation in November, she could not wait to finally put it into action.
At the museum, there are many in-person examples of how the system treated those with mental illnesses. Lily Hoza, president of Active Minds and senior at RHS, explained why that was important to see.
“[It’s] obviously very outdated, we don’t do that anymore. It’s not treated with such a stigma. But it was just kind of fun to see how we’ve grown in that realm of psychology,” Hoza said.
Rion expanded on this aspect of the museum, further explaining the types of treatments they saw.
“It wasn’t so long ago that people were put in asylums, then in straitjackets. . . . So the treatment of folks who struggle with mental health obviously has come a long way, but to me it was such a . . . reaffirmation in the fact that there’s such a stigma about mental health and where that came from,” Rion said.
The stigma around mental health has progressively changed over the years. Eric Browne, RHS AP Psychology teacher and a chaperone of the field trip, talked about the mindset of mental health in the mid 19th century.
“Having those facilities, although by today’s standards they’re draconian, but at that time, that was pretty progressive, just recognizing that a mental condition needs to be treated like a physical condition,” Browne said.
Though all of the exhibits of the museum were popular, there were a select few that drew the most students in. Browne talked about some of the parts of the museum that appealed to the students.
“The Milgram shock generator, I couldn’t even get near it because everybody was in it. And then another thing was reaction time. They got to compare their reaction time to Babe Ruth, so that was a popular exhibit,” Browne said.
Rion has a long history with psychology at the University of Akron. She described her previous connecton to the museum.
“Psychology is a near and dear passion and subject to me. My undergrad is in psychology and I earned my undergrad in psychology from the University of Akron. Before the psych archives were in that building, I worked on the initial project to digitize all of the psychology donations that were given by all the famous psychologists that students were able to see there,” Rion said.
The last time Rion has visited the building was during her college years. Rion talked about her memory of the building, and how it has evolved since then.
“I knew about it and I had always wanted to get my students there and I felt that it was really a great opportunity for the AP Psych kids to see all the stuff that they have been learning about,” Rion said.
Rion talked about how it felt visiting the university again after seventeen years, and how she feels about sharing the experience.
“I think to myself how great that is that, number one I was a part of history but then not only that but what I actually studied and want and have wanted to be and do as my career. Fast forward I was able to share that with my students,” Rion said.
Hoza talked about Rion’s thought process in planning the trip, and why she decided to include the AP Psychology students.
“At first, Mrs. Rion just thought to do it for active minds, but then, because she’s been wanting to do this for so long, she wanted to spread the opportunity to AP Psych just because what they’re learning in that class correlates with what’s in the museum and what they’re learning,” Hoza said.
Browne was brought into the process by Rion, and began tailoring it to fit his class as well. Browne explained why the trip occurred in March.
“We picked March since most of the material had been covered in the AP class so while they were at the museum, they recognized some of the displays because they already had the lessons,” Browne said.
There were minor complications with the trip, one of them being the amount of students that attended. Rion brainstormed an idea to combat this issue for next year’s group.
“Next year when we look into going again, we’ll have to look at probably splitting up their groups like doing one group at a specific time while the other one maybe does a campus tour and then flip flop it,” Rion said.
The faculty and students involved learned so much about the history of psychology and mental health. For this, they are determined to keep the trip going.
