“People talk about different hats? I have different names,” says Powell Paguibitan. He’s Mr. P to his AP Psychology students, Coach P to the athletes on the Varsity Soccer, Tennis, and Swimming teams where he serves as Mental Skills Coach — and to some Charlotte Latin School students, he’s “the guy with the baby class,” because of the developmental psychology project where his students take care of a baby doll. On a Monday morning, it’s Mr. P who leads his class through a lively conversation about evolutionary psychology that ranges from rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot to facial hair to his own phobia of snakes, helping students make sense of the complicated machine that is the human brain.

Tell us about your work as Mental Skills Coach. What does that mean?

The idea is how do we put our athletes in their best state of mind so they can perform at their best? Some of that involves emotional self-regulation and self-awareness. We measured belongingness and community and found that there was a statistically significant change in where they were at the start of the season.

One exercise I did with the boys’ soccer team recently was having them holding out five-pound weights. They were in two groups; I told one group, “The only thing you’re allowed to think is ‘I’m capable of hard things and I’m strong and my teammates depend on me.’” The other group, they focused on body sensations. The group with the mantra held the weights significantly longer. Exercises like that bring it to life for kids: What goes on inside your head matters. I’m teaching actual mental skills that are backed up by science, so I always cite my sources. This isn’t Hogwarts.

It’s fascinating that your coaching work and your classroom work overlap like that.

My background is psychology through an academic lens — I was trained in cognitive behavioral therapy — so I want to make the class relevant, not just theoretical. I’m governed by the AP curriculum, but the big thing is how do we make this real, so you can actually help yourself or help other people? The beauty of psychology is that it’s not just electrons in a lab — you get to see how people operate in the world.

When you were in high school, was this what you wanted to do with your life?

No. If you had told me that I was going to be a teacher, I would have 100% laughed. I got an undergrad degree in psychology, but I wanted to live abroad. My father’s an immigrant, from the Philippines; he moved to the United States when he was ten years old. He learned a whole new language and a whole new culture, and I wanted to do that at least once in my life. I got a visa to Spain, and I got a teaching job there — and then I realized I was fascinated by this teaching thing.

When I went back to school, my goal was to merge education and psychology. Rather than trying to treat mental disorders, what happens if we teach kids necessary life skills early on? What happens if you learn to regulate your own emotional system when you’re 14? I struggled with depression when I was growing up: I was a really good soccer player, but that impacted how I played. I ended up going to therapy and getting the help I needed, but it always stuck with me that I wished I had learned the skills to help me navigate that.

What does it mean to be mentally healthy? People typically define it as the absence of illness: not having anxiety or depression or whatever it may be. But the idea behind mental wellness is “What are the skills we can teach? What are the competencies and knowledge that will help people overcome whatever they’re dealing with?”

How is wellness playing out at Latin?

Wellness is a big part of the new strategic plan at Latin. Maybe this needs to be explicit: wellness is not in opposition to traditional academics. We don’t want to take away from the high-performance academic school that we are, but when kids are better equipped to handle life, then they will be able to perform better in the classroom as well. The research is very clear that promoting wellness only enhances academics.

The last couple of years, I served on our wellness task force. We did a fair amount of interviews — with teachers, staff, parents, and students — and qualitative data analysis. We’re using that research to make a new advisory program, developing a curriculum that enhances students’ lives.

Other than awakening your interest in teaching, how did your time in Spain color your life?

I still call naps “siestas.” If I tell people I’m taking a nap, the American view is that I’m lazy. But when I say “siesta,” it sounds like I’m cultured.

What type of student wants to take a psychology course?

Psychology is an AP elective, so some students have never taken an AP before and are interested in the subject more than the AP credit, which I appreciate. I have some students who are doing what I call “me-search”: they’re interested in their own thought patterns. The best compliments I get from parents are when they say, “My kid took your class and now they analyze us at the dinner table.” I appreciate that students take what they’ve learned and make it real, and I hope parents feel honored that they’re close enough that their children feel comfortable sharing it.

What’s something you do for fun?

This summer, I started customizing my own shoes. I have a bunch of my own art in the house, but this gives me a chance to wear what I create. The shoes that I’m wearing right now, I bought  Nike shoes and then I painted various parts of them. I’ve painted on leather before, but this was my first time painting on knit and suede. And then I dyed the shoelaces purple to match. I always had tons of shoes growing up — my parents called me “Marcos” after Imelda Marcos, the infamous wife of the president of the Philippines who had something like 5,000 pairs. I never wear the same pair of shoes twice in a week: I have a color-coded spreadsheet that tells me the last time I wore them. Sometimes that helps me determine whether I need to get rid of them; I have a rule for myself that I’m not allowed to buy new shoes unless I get rid of a pair.

Tell us about the famous baby project.

The babies fit into developmental psychology. The idea is simple: a lot of what happens in early childhood affects us through the duration of our lives. Students can learn all this stuff in the textbook, but my goal is to make it real and relevant. They do the project with a partner; I tell them, “Like in real life, choose your partner carefully.” The babies have mechanical boxes in them and they have to be fed at various times and they have to have their diapers changed at various times, which students mimic with a set of keys.

I hope the students learn basic psychological principles and get a new perspective on what it’s like to be a parent, even for 24 hours. I had one student in my class who was a very stylish, well-dressed man. His hair was always perfect and he put his outfits together perfectly. He came in after one day with the baby and he was disheveled, wearing sweatpants, with a stain on his shirt. He handed me the baby and said, “Please, just take it.” I think he learned a lot about life in those 24 hours.