There’s a new face of AP Psychology at Chamblee. Actually, there’s two new faces for the course: Jack Phelps, who is new to CHS, and Sally Stanhope.

“I’ve been a teacher for eighteen years and all of that was in Henry County at a school called Dutchtown High School. That’s near Stockbridge. It’s about forty miles south. I love the school and I still do, but the drive just wore me out,” said Phelps.

By relocating to Chamblee, Phelps is much closer to where he grew up and currently lives.

“I grew up in Roswell my whole life. I went to Georgia Southern, and then I got my masters at Georgia State,” said Phelps.

Phelps is looking forward to this coming year and explains how the students are the primary factor for his excitement.

“Y’all’s intelligence and your participation and learning from you guys [is what I’m most excited about]. Honestly I like to feed off the seniors and the psych students, ‘cause you guys are all pretty driven, hardworking, and interesting. You guys are more interesting to me than the content and the content is fun,” said Phelps.

As busy as Phelps is at Chamblee High School, he maintains that pace in his free time.

“I love the outdoors. I love to be outside. Mountains, forests, rivers. I have a farm down south of Macon and it’s a pine tree plantation, so it’s not like an animal farm. What we do is we harvest pine trees. I’m very involved with that,[along with] my dad,” said Phelps.

In addition to his time outdoors, Phelps has other interests that he is passionate about.

“I love music – that’s a passion. I love to play music, I love just learning about new music and artists and making music, too,” said Phelps. “I also love baseball and basketball. I love to coach it and […] train kids and my own kids as well. I don’t like to just sit around and do nothing.”

Phelps is excited to join the Chamblee family

“I’m just looking forward to being here and I hope that I can make a new home here, like I did at my first job.” said Phelps.

Ms. Sally Stanhope, a longtime member of the Chamblee family, is also taking on some AP Psychology classes this year

“This is my first year teaching psychology. When I taught at the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, I did teach [two] psychology-related courses. I taught a course called the Science of Happiness and it was kind of on positive psychology, which we’ll just touch upon in AP Psychology. And then I taught a course on the Psychology of Political Polarization. So I’ve had some experience, but those are very specialized topics. I’ve never taught the College Board curriculum,” said Stanhope.

Stanhope is beyond excited to teach AP Psychology this year and has a few units in particular that she looks forward to teaching.

“Abnormal psych I think is really exciting because I think abnormal psychology shows us a lot about our society and how we treat people suffering from […] abnormal mental states [it] shows a lot about where our society is. I’m looking forward to teaching about and debating some of the ways that we diagnose people and label people,” said Stanhope.

Abnormal psychology is not all that Stanhope is motivated to teach.

“I’m also excited about the motivation/emotion/personality unit [because] I like talking about theories of motivation. I think students have a lot of insight on that; we all have a lot of insight on motivation because we all have to develop ways to motivate ourselves, to do various things in our life,” said Stanhope.

Stanhope understands why psychology is worth teaching at the high school level, and at any level

“I feel like psychology can give us insight into […] our society, but can also give us insight into ourselves and maybe all the changes we need in society start with ourselves,” said Stanhope.