When walking around campus you may stumble upon B13. Upon entering you’re met with posters of past students plastered all over the walls. Each covers different concepts present in psychology, like cognitive dissonance. Among the posters, you may also find some articles covering the extensive history of Eagle Rock tennis. If you see any of these signs, you’re in Mr. Jacobson’s room.
Eric Jacobson has been working at Eagle Rock High School for over 25 years. He’s taught almost every grade from kindergarten to twelfth. Today, he teaches AP psychology and Intro to Psych 2 and is the coach for Eagle Rock’s tennis team. However, he wasn’t always a psych teacher.
He originally started off at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he originally majored in psychology. Despite his major, he was originally planning to be an English teacher, which he heavily disliked since there was too much homework. He then became a counselor for 9 years, until he finally got an opportunity to teach Intro to Psych. He’s continued to teach AP Psych and Psychology 2 ever since.
His favorite lesson to teach in AP psych is cognitive dissonance. The term refers to the conflict that one may have between two conflicting values. For example, a doctor may smoke but he tells others to refrain. He likes the complexity of the lesson and how it’s applicable to almost everyone’s life.
Jacobson grew up in Eagle Rock. Despite moving around, he has always loved Eagle Rock: “It was wonderful, I love this school. That’s why I came back.” He loves Eagle Rock High School’s great teachers and amazing school spirit. He loves the sense of connectivity and diversity of the student population. “It didn’t matter if my friends were all of different races and genders. We’re just friends.”
For the people at Eagle Rock High School, Jacobson has one piece of advice: make choices. If you want to make the most out of your time here, decide for yourself what the best course of action is. You can’t be in 100 clubs while being in all AP or DP. Jacobson says it best, “Make choices, some tough choices. Sometimes you gotta say no to yourself…”
And of course, the most important question of the day: in terms of what animal best represents psychology, Jacobson says an owl. In his own words, “They’re very wise, and that’s what psychology is all about, being wise.”
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