”Everybody get up! Don’t sit! Get up and march!” Those were Mr. Evarts' first words on the first day of AP Psychology. Before I even found my name on the seating chart, I recognized that I had a teacher just like Mr. Keating from Dead Poet’s Society. Within the first two minutes of class, he had us marching and told us to have fun. This reminded me of the scene in which Keating was trying to teach conformity. He had four boys marching and as they were marching, the class was clapping. Keating wanted his students to understand that they must do what they believe and not let others influence them into making decisions.

Like Keating, Mr. Evarts dislikes our…as he would say ”edumacation system.” Students are expected to spend 8 hours a day at school, then spend 7 hours on homework, then get 9.5 hours of sleep, how is it even possible? It has been discovered that 19 year olds have brains of 30 year olds due to sleep deprivation. The amount of plaque found in the brain of a teen is equal to the amount of plaque found in the brain of someone twice his/her age. Keating contributed a solution to this issue by having his students learn creatively. He had his students read poetry out loud, take outdoor field trips and seize the day. Similarly, Mr. Evarts relates psychology concepts with stories of his past, comes up with amusing pneumonic devices to remember things, and tells us not to stress ourselves out too much. Both teachers are competent of the importance of education, but they want to accommodate the busy lives of teenagers.

Evarts and Keating teach the necessary information in teenage appealing ways. For instance, the part in the movie in which Keating had his students rip out the entire introduction of their poetry books demonstrates how the students need to know poetry, but the way it was written in the book was absurd. Students cannot learn poetry through math. Likewise, Evarts knew we wouldn’t be able to remember all of the important people in each school of psychology by reading the book, so he created phrases and sounds to help us recognize them. Whenever Mr. Evarts stomps his foot, we immediately know he’s talking about Wilhelm Wundt. Wilhelm Wundt, the founding figure of modern psychology, the man who put his food in the ground and initiated it all. The creative style in which Evarts taught that concept is how I still remember it. I’m glad to have had have a teacher like Keating.