Statement for Joshua Viau

I teach my high school psychology courses in order to give as many students as possible something that I, myself, never had: a representative taste of the subject early on in their academic careers that they can look back on when deciding what course of study to pursue in college and beyond. If my own high school had offered on-level or AP psychology, I might well have discovered that I was passionate about psychology much earlier. Instead, I honed my skills in creative writing, literary analysis, and journalism as an undergraduate at FSU, and then bounced around at UF as a journalism master’s student for another year before a job teaching French to undergraduates there led me to reevaluate my career path. I became fascinated by the types of mistakes my students were making as they expressed themselves in a second language, and so I pivoted—first to French linguistics at IU Bloomington and then, ultimately, to first language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science at Northwestern, where I earned my PhD. Though my subsequent experiences as a postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins University and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Delaware did not culminate in a tenure-track job at a research university, they shaped my teaching philosophy and prepared me well for a career in secondary education. Once I had picked up my first IB psychology course in 2018, I was truly hooked, and there was no looking back. I straddled the fence between English and psychology for a number of years, but now my projected course load for 2024–25 is 100% psychology (both AP and honors), and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m asked to reflect on how I will broaden the diversity of perspectives on the TOPSS committee. Honestly, I can’t know that with certainty because I have so little information on those with whom I would be serving. I’ve taught two different advanced psychology curricula in high school, one of which is in the midst of substantial changes starting this coming year in order to bring it into closer alignment with APA’s latest strategic plan and the work of APA’s Introductory Psychology Initiative. It was discussion of this plan during a recent AP summer institute on psychology for experienced educators that inspired me to apply for the member-at-large position in the first place. For now, I hope it will suffice to assure you that I’m committed to every bullet point in the TOPSS mission statement. We absolutely need to be doing everything we can to recruit and retain students from diverse backgrounds, and I will be happy to continue working toward that goal both in my classroom and in our larger professional community. We definitely need to promote the highest standards in the teaching of our subject. About that, I was thrilled a few months ago when two students asked me to sponsor a chapter of Psi Alpha, the honor society for high school psychology students, on our campus. We surely must support teachers of psychology however we can, whether that’s through professional development, lesson planning, networking, policy advocacy, or even help with certification issues. Concerning the latter, on a personal note, I struggled for years with the local school district to get my PhD recognized as “in field” for my subject area(s), and while I did eventually succeed, I would like to spare other educators from that sort of stress. I have a great deal more to say and to contribute, as I’m sure you all do as well. I’ll look forward to learning from and collaborating with you in the near future.